New Election Laws to Influence November Voting

Election Day is less than six months away, and voters have a familiar choice of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Unless it’s The Godfather Part II, sequels rarely live up to the hype. Although it may look like a 2020 repeat, the stars are competing in a different game and under different rules. This series, Judgment Day: Why 2024 rematch won’t be any old sequel, investigates the key differences from 2020. Part Five will examine the changes states have made to their election laws since 2020.

Republicans and Democrats are both seeking to mold state election laws in their favor ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

States throughout the nation have seen drastic changes to their voting rules since the 2020 election, when temporary changes to election laws were passed in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The November contest is the first since President Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump by narrow margins in multiple swing states that Trump had won during the 2016 election.

His 2020 loss prompted the Trump campaign and Republicans to file more than 60 lawsuits challenging election results in states such as Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia, falsely claiming that the election was “rigged” and “stolen.”

Trump and his allies’ lawsuits were mostly thrown out by state courts. One effort in Pennsylvania resulted in a judge giving the former president a small win, ordering a small number of mail-in ballots that did not have a proof of ID and were cured during an extended deadline not to be counted.

Despite Trump’s losses in the courtroom, some states, such as New Hampshire, have allowed their temporary pandemic measures to expire or have rolled back rules that expanded voter access in the time since. In several battleground states, voters will have to show photo ID proof for the first time.

Under Trump’s direction, the RNC has made election integrity a chief focus again. Over the 2023-2024 cycle, the RNC has engaged in 84 election integrity lawsuits in 25 states, as well as previously announcing a goal of 100,000 poll watchers across the nation.

Other states, however, have doubled down on their expanded election rules and mail-in voting, with Democrats arguing that growing access protects voters’ rights.

“We won’t let Republicans get away with these baseless attacks on our democracy, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that every eligible voter can make their voice heard,” the Democratic National Committee’s rapid response director, Alex Floyd, said.

As Democrats and Republicans battle against each other legally, they have mixed results to show for it. In North Carolina, state Republicans pushed through legislation that ended a COVID-19-era rule that allowed election officials to count absentee ballots if they are received up to three days after an election as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

PART ONE: ‘NO ROOM FOR ERROR’ ELECTORAL MAP HAMPERS BIDEN’S REMATCH WITH TRUMP

PART TWO: BIDEN ONCE BACKED PROTESTS ON WAY TO 2020 WIN. NOW, HE’S THEIR TARGET

PART THREE: DEMOCRATS BANK ON ABORTION TO CARRY BIDEN AS GOP ADJUSTS STRATEGY

PART FOUR: BIDEN TRIES TO LEVERAGE HIS INCUMBENCY AGAINST A FORMER PRESIDENT

But Democrats notched a win of their own in January when a judge sided with the DNC and the North Carolina Democratic Party to block one provision of the GOP-backed legislation regarding same-day registration ballots.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, Republicans scored a victory when the state Supreme Court ruled that ballot drop boxes were unconstitutional, barring them from use in elections. That same ruling is currently under review, however, leaving the issue in the air for voters just five months to Election Day.

Changes and ongoing litigation in key battleground states could have an outsize impact on the election as millions of voters navigate new laws that were not in place just four years ago.

States with expanded voting laws

Of the battleground states, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania have made more efforts to expand voting access since 2020.

Michigan

Michigan, which was one of the most heavily scrutinized states after the 2020 election, expanded its voting laws in 2022.

Voters in the state passed a measure known as Proposition 2 to allow for a nine-day early voting period, expanded the use of drop boxes, allowed voters to place themselves on a permanent list to receive absentee ballots every election, and expanded accepted forms of ID.

The state previously did not allow for early voting, and the passage of the constitutional amendment was a huge win for Democrats in the state. Republicans have attempted to roll back the amendment as well as one that was approved in 2018.

Eleven Republicans filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and Elections Director Jonathan Brater in 2023, arguing that voter-approved amendments to regulate federal elections are unconstitutional.

The lawsuit asked the court to void the amendments, however, the lawsuit was thrown out by a federal district judge in April. Republicans have since filed an appeal to have the case reheard, and it is ongoing.

Nevada

After the pandemic, Nevada made universal access to mail-in voting permanent, meaning every voter automatically receives a ballot in the mail. The state also moved to ease voting restrictions on Indigenous communities and incarcerated voters.

State law requires one drop box in every county, allows anyone to return mail ballots — not just family members, as previous law allowed — and allows absentee ballots to be accepted if postmarked by Election Day.

But Nevada is facing opposition in how it conducts elections by the GOP.

The Trump campaign, RNC, and state GOP sued the Silver State earlier this month over its allowance of mail ballots four days after Election Day.

The defendants in the case are Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, Washoe County Clerk Jan Galassini, Washoe County Registrar Cari-Ann Burgess, Clark County Registrar Lorena Portillo, and Clark County Clerk Lynn Marie Goya.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania’s changes to how it conducts elections have resulted in both expanding and limiting access to voting.

A federal appeals court decision in Pennsylvania ruled the state can require those who vote by mail to handwrite a date on the mail ballot return envelope, as the law does not violate the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The results likely mean more mail ballots will be thrown out if it is not dated by hand.

Previously, mail ballots would be accepted if received up to three days after the election. Now the mail ballots must be received by Election Day.

However, the state also enacted automatic voter registration in September of last year.

“I both hope and expect it’ll lead to a higher turnout, which I think is what everyone should be in favor of,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) told the Washington Examiner. “I know some Republicans think that lower turnout benefits them but I think high turnout would be best for our state, especially in such a consequential year for Senate race and a presidential race.”

At least one Republican strategist pointed to data showing some GOP success among automatic voter registration.

“There were some in the GOP who thought that it would greatly advantage Democrats in terms of the new voters that have been registered,” Christopher Nicholas, a veteran Republican political consultant in Pennsylvania, said. “But the couple times I’ve seen the Department of State divulge the numbers from that project. Both times, it’s been, again, a slight edge to Republicans getting registered, so it’s … not really changed the balance of anything.”

Data published by Pennsylvania’s elections office showed Republicans have a slight advantage over Democrats in voter registration. Of the more than 80,000 new registrations, 27,770 were Republicans, 24,118 were Democrats, and 28,176 opted for other.

States that have restricted voting access

Some southern battleground states have moved to restrict voting access since the 2020 election.

Georgia

In Georgia, a state that Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020 to President Joe Biden, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) recently signed into law a bill that makes it easier for independent candidates to gain access to the state ballot and makes it easier to remove people from the voting rolls by challenging their eligibility.

Any political party that gains access to the presidential ballot in 20 states or territories is granted access to Georgia’s ballot, according to Senate Bill 189. In a state that Biden won by just over 12,000 votes in 2020, Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s third-party campaign could cost Biden if he were to gain access.

S.B. 189 also defines probable cause to remove a person from the voter rolls due to death, the person having voted or registered in another jurisdiction, a voter obtaining homestead exemption in a different county, or being registered at a nonresidential address.

The legislation allows voters to be removed from the rolls 45 days before the election, which detractors claim violates federal law that voters cannot be removed from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

Although this won’t impact the fall election, S.B. 189 includes a provision that starting July 1, 2026, bans the use of QR codes to count ballots.

This comes after a sweeping 2021 law that removes Georgia’s secretary of state as the chair of the state elections board, limits drop box placement in Georgia counties, and shortened the length of a runoff election from nine weeks to four weeks after the general election.

It also prohibits handing out food and drink to people standing in line to vote within 150 feet of a polling place and 25 feet from people standing in line to vote, though the latter provision was struck down by a judge last year.

The 2021 law was denounced by voting rights groups as a form of “voter suppression.” But Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was unfazed by these criticisms.

“Why would that lead to lower turnout? How does that stop anyone from voting?” Greene responded when the Washington Examiner asked if Georgia’s election laws would depress turnout. “Are they saying that people in Georgia are not capable of getting a state ID or a driver’s license? … I think that’s pretty insulting to the people of Georgia.”

North Carolina

Voters in North Carolina will be required to show ID to vote in person for the first time in a presidential election this November. People who vote by mail are also now required to include a copy of a photo ID in addition to a ballot with a signature from a notary or the signature of two witnesses.

The photo ID requirement stems from a previously blocked 2018 law.

Last year, state Republicans overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D-NC) vetoes to enact a law that weakened his ability to oversee elections and nixed a three-day grace period for mail ballots postmarked by Election Day.

During the state’s primary, some voters who forgot their photo ID were given a provisional ballot and told to come back with their ID. But that second trip to the polls will likely deter voters, one expert said.

“What we found was that it was clearly much harder for voters to come back and show their voter ID,” Ann Webb, policy director of Common Cause North Carolina, a nonpartisan voter education group, said. “And so that second step of having to come back and show your voter ID if you forgot it, or if you were not offered the exemption form at the polls, was something that definitely disenfranchised a number of voters.

“In a state like North Carolina, where elections can be very close even a few voters whose ballots are affected by trying to comply with voter ID could have an impact on the outcome of elections,” Webb added.

Democrats scored a victory in January this year when a district judge blocked a provision of the law that made it easier for same-day registration ballots to get tossed out. If there was an error in confirming the address of voters who used same-day registration, their ballot could be discarded without notifying the voter. But Judge Thomas Schroeder stopped that part of the law from being enacted unless it was revised.

Republicans later amended the law to verify the addresses of people who registered and voted on the same day to comply with Schroeder’s ruling. According to updated guidance, if a verification card is returned as undeliverable to a person’s address, the voter will be contacted by mail, email, and phone for an opportunity to submit identification or appeal the decision in person.

New Hampshire

After a lapse in pandemic-era expansions to mail voting and in-person early voting, most voters in New Hampshire will only be able to cast their ballots on Election Day. New Hampshire no longer allows no excuse voting, and requires voters to present an ID, or cast a provisional ballot that will only be counted if a copy of their ID is submitted within seven days due to a law passed in 2022.

If voters do not provide proof of ID within the allotted time, their votes will not be counted and they will be referred to the state attorney general’s office to be reviewed. The DNC challenged this law, suing officials in 2023 and asking the court to block the law.

However, the court partially granted the RNC’s motion to dismiss the case in January, only allowing the DNC’s due process claim to proceed to trial.

In 2020, requirements for absentee voting were relaxed, allowing voters to register and vote absentee due to the pandemic. However, in 2021, Democratic efforts to make the new rules permanent were rejected in New Hampshire’s Republican majority Senate.

Wisconsin

The ruling in the Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission case by the then-conservative majority court effectively barred the use of drop boxes since they were not approved by the state legislature.

Now, however, that ruling is under review by the Wisconsin Supreme Court once again — however, this time, the court has a Democratic majority after the party flipped the court during the 2022 midterm elections.

David Fox, a partner at Elias Law Group who argued that the Wisconsin decision should be overturned in front of the high court, told the Washington Examiner that the elimination of ballot boxes creates a higher risk that a ballot will be received too late to be counted.

“We saw that in 2022. Without drop boxes there were more ballots rejected because they were received too late than there were in 2020,” Fox said.

Arizona

In Arizona, voting changes have largely stayed the same since 2020, according to an October 2023 report from the Voting Rights Lab.

But in March, a federal judge upheld parts of an Arizona law that required proof of citizenship for voters. The law was passed in 2022 along with another election law that required regular checkups to purge ineligible voters.

Two months later, in May, the Republican National Committee asked each county in Arizona for information that they are regularly checking voter rolls for citizen verification checks.

“The ruling requires election officials to enforce a critical Arizona law and ensure that non-citizens are not allowed to remain on voter rolls,” Whatley, the RNC chairman, said in a statement at the time. “The RNC and AZGOP will do everything we can to safeguard the fundamental principle that American elections are decided by American citizens.”

The DNC and the Arizona Democratic Party also challenged a lawsuit from the RNC about the state’s “Elections Procedures Manual” filed against Arizona’s Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. The manual, which guides how the state conducts and certifies elections, is required to be updated by Fontes every two years.

However, in its lawsuit, the RNC alleged that Fontes did not allow enough time for public comment on the manual, claiming that Fontes only allowed 15 days of comment instead of the required 30. At the time, then-RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the manual was “designed to undermine election integrity in Arizona.”

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Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison and Arizona Democratic Party Chairwoman Yolanda Bejarano called the lawsuit a “blatant attempt to interfere with Arizona’s elections,” in a statement released in February.

Democrats ultimately won, with a Maricopa County judge dismissing the case on May 10.

Read More From Original Article Here: Judgment Day: New election laws set to shape how millions vote in November