“Citing public health concerns over millions of Californians showing up at voting locations this fall, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday ordered ballots to be mailed to the state’s 20.6 million voters for the November election while imposing strict new rules for anyone who participates in person,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Buck Pressured Official to Submit Incorrect Election Results
Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), the Colorado Republican Party Chair, “pressured a local party official to submit incorrect election results to set the primary ballot for a state Senate seat,” according to audio obtained by the Denver Post.
Buck is heard insisting that this is an “order of the central committee.”
The local official resisted committing a misdemeanor.
Lawsuit Seeks Easier Vote-by-Mail In North Carolina
“A group of voters backed by Democratic legal groups sued North Carolina on Monday seeking to loosen rules around absentee mail-in ballots amid predictions that the coronavirus pandemic will make voting by mail a widespread practice,” the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
“They want the state to provide prepaid postage on all absentee ballots, change a requirement for two witnesses to sign a ballot, extend the deadline for receipt of ballots until nine days after Election Day and give voters a chance to fix signature discrepancies before election officials reject those ballots.”
Big Majority Support Mail Voting
A new USA Today-Suffolk University poll found that 65% of Americans support mail-in voting as an alternative to in-person voting during a pandemic, while just 32% said they oppose it.
Texas Official Says Fear of Virus Is ‘Emotional Condition’
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) wrote that fear of contracting the coronavirus was an “emotional condition” and not a sufficient reason to request an absentee ballot.
Said Paxton: “A person ill with COVID-19 would certainly qualify as having a sickness. However, a reasonable fear of contracting the virus is a normal emotional reaction to the current pandemic and does not, by itself, amount to a ‘sickness,’ much less the type of sickness that qualifies a voter to receive a ballot by mail.”
Milwaukee Will Send Absentee Ballot Applications to Voters
The city government in Milwaukee passed a law to mail absentee ballot applications with prepaid return postage to roughly 300,000 registered voters.
Milwaukee is the largest Democratic stronghold in Wisconsin, a key battleground in the 2020 presidential election.
Official Threatens Expanded Use of Absentee Ballots
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said that election officials in Texas who offer mail ballots to people who normally wouldn’t qualify but are afraid of catching the coronavirus could be subjected to criminal punishment, the Dallas Morning News reports.
Lawmakers Vote by Mail to Roll Back Vote by Mail
“An emergency plan for Louisiana’s delayed spring elections was approved by the state Legislature after Republican lawmakers rolled back an expansion of mail-in ballots for people concerned about the coronavirus,” the Baton Rouge Advocate reports.
“Lawmakers voted by mail on the emergency plan.”
Proof of Citizenship for Voter Registration Found Unlawful
“A federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday that a Kansas law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is unconstitutional, upholding a judge’s injunction that had banned its use,” the New York Times reports.
“The law was championed by former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who led President Trump’s now-defunct voter fraud commission and was a leading source for Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally may have voted in the 2016 election.”
Rick Hasen: “Make no mistake–this is a huge victory… This is a huge win for voters, and it clears away a law that disenfranchised thousands but prevented no appreciable amount of voter fraud.”
Kansas Democrats Triple Turnout After Switch to Mail Vote
“Kansas Democrats have already more than tripled their turnout from the 2016 presidential caucus after switching to an all-mail May 2 party primary this year,” the Kansas City Star reports.
How the Pandemic Is Changing Ballot Access
Join now to continue reading.
Members get exclusive analysis, bonus features and no advertising. Learn more.
Democrats Increase Support for Mail Voting
A new AP-NORC poll finds Democrats are now much more likely than Republicans to support their state conducting elections exclusively by mail, 47% to 29%.
In 2018, about half as many Democrats were in favor, and there was little difference in the views of Democrats and Republicans on the question.
States Rush to Prepare for Huge Surge of Mail Voting
“A huge surge in voting by mail is coming whether states prepare for it or not — and without clear direction from the federal government, states are preparing to muscle through their own changes to get ready for the glut of mail ballots coming their way in November,” Politico reports.
Every Battleground Already Allows Vote by Mail
Amy Walter: “However, most voters in these states don’t use it (except for Colorado, which is a vote-by-mail state). Voters in Arizona are very comfortable with vote-by-mail, as 73% cast their ballots this way in 2016. But, in some of the biggest battlegrounds for 2020, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, less than 10% of voters returned their ballots by mail in 2016.”
“As we saw in the Wisconsin April election, voters can adapt and readjust quickly. But, it is still going to be a lift to convince voters — many of whom are already suspicious of things like machine voting — that sending their ballot in the mail will be safe and reliable. Only eight of these competitive states (Florida, Colorado, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia), require that the state ‘track when their ballot has been sent out by election officials and then when the election official receives the marked ballot back, and whether or not the ballot was counted.'”
Mail Voting Expected to Explode In Florida
“In Florida, a state where the steady rise of mail voting has dramatically transformed the campaign season over the last 20 years, the novel coronavirus could fast-forward the evolution of elections,” the Miami Herald reports.
“Elections offices in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties — home to more than a quarter of Florida’s 13.2 million voters — are preparing to send vote-by-mail registration forms to every voter in those counties amid worries that the virus will disrupt in-person voting this summer and fall.”
GOP Operative Indicted for Social Security Fraud
McCrae Dowless, the Republican operative at the center of the North Carolina election fraud scandal, has been indicted on federal charges for collecting disability while being paid for working on campaigns in 2018, WSOC reports.
Mail-In Voting Help Liberal Candidate In Wisconsin
“The liberal candidate in Wisconsin’s hard-fought State Supreme Court race this month prevailed in voting by mail by a significant margin, upending years of study showing little advantage to either party when a state transitions from in-person to mail voting,” the New York Times reports.
“The gap suggests that Democrats were more organized and proactive in their vote-by-mail efforts in an election conducted under extraordinary circumstances.”
Majority Supports Vote-by-Mail
A majority of voters — 58% — favor nationwide reform of election rules that would allow all eligible voters to cast their ballots by mail, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds.
And nearly 10% more say that, while the rules should not be permanently changed, all voters should be able to mail in their ballots this November because of concerns that the coronavirus may still be a major public health threat this fall.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- …
- 93
- Next Page »