Democrats are preparing to take aim at voting reforms under consideration in a number of states beyond Georgia, where state Republicans passed a slate of changes last month that sparked intense opposition on the Left.
The Peach State battle could end up serving as the opening salvo in a nationwide battle over election laws, however. Liberals have staunchly resisted attempts in several states to roll back voting provisions that were put in place to accommodate public health concerns in 2020 amid the pandemic.
In Georgia, for example, Democrats balked at a provision of the law that scaled back the number of ballot drop boxes from the 2020 level — even though the state used drop boxes for the first time last year on an emergency basis.
HOW GEORGIA’S NEW VOTING LAW COMPARES TO OTHER STATES
Lawmakers in Texas, Michigan, Arizona, Kansas, and several other states have proposed changes to their election laws that could invite legal challenges from left-leaning groups that have already sued in states where bills have advanced.
In Iowa, for example, a left-leaning group called the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa filed a lawsuit last month challenging reforms that shortened the state’s early voting period from 29 days to 20 and ended voting on Election Day one hour earlier. The group claimed the law would “impose undue and unjustified burdens on a wide range of lawful voters,” according to court documents.
Iowa Republicans who supported the reforms argued they simply imposed a unified standard for early and Election Day voting times across the state. In addition to the shorter windows for in-person voting, the law also required absentee ballots to arrive by the end of Election Day in order to be counted — touching what has become a third rail for voting rights advocates seeking to stop similar reforms from moving forward in other places.
In Texas, Democrats have called on corporations such as AT&T and Southwest Airlines to speak out against proposed changes to mail-in voting, and left-leaning groups such as MOVE Texas have labeled the changes as voter suppression.
The reforms would make few changes to voters’ ability to cast their ballots by mail, however, and would instead bar election officials or political parties from sending absentee ballot applications to voters who did not specifically request them.
Republican lawmakers in Michigan have proposed similar measures cracking down on unsolicited absentee ballot applications, as well as limits on when voters can deposit their ballots in drop boxes and a voter ID provision for mail-in voting that is similar to the one Georgia enacted. Michigan voters would need to verify their identities when voting absentee by attaching a copy of their IDs to their ballots.
Dozens of CEOs in the state signed a letter this week opposing the changes. Michigan’s Democratic governor is likely to veto reforms that don’t have bipartisan support, however.
Arizona, meanwhile, has sought a number of reforms that state Democrats have characterized as racist, including one aimed at keeping the state’s “permanent early voting list” updated.
The proposal, which Democratic groups could target, would require the state to send a notice to any voter who hasn’t requested an absentee ballot in the past two election cycles. If the person doesn’t respond, they would be removed from the list.
In Kansas, state Democrats have fought against a proposal that would impose rules against so-called “ballot harvesting” or the ability of third parties to collect completed ballots from voters and drop them off in batches.
And Democrats have a seasoned legal hand at the ready to fight state-level reforms they don’t like.
Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic lawyer, has called proposed reforms in these states and several others “voter suppression laws” and has backed legal challenges to them — including the one in Iowa.
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Elias worked with the Democratic National Committee during the 2020 election cycle and was involved in dozens of cases that sought to loosen voting rules across the country to accommodate public health concerns due to the pandemic.
He also represented an unsuccessful effort to overturn the election results in a close congressional race in Iowa, where Democrat Rita Hart lost to Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks by an extremely thin margin. And despite serving as the most prominent legal representative of a party that attacked former President Donald Trump for his unfounded claims about faulty voting machines and voter fraud, Elias argued in a court filing earlier this year that voting machine irregularities hurt a Democratic incumbent, Rep. Anthony Brindisi, in his quest to hold on to his New York seat.
