Republicans considering more than 100 bills to restrict voting rights

Happy Thursday,

After an election filled with misinformation and lies about fraud, Republicans have doubled down with a surge of bills to further restrict voting access in recent months, according to a new analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice.

There are currently 106 pending bills across 28 states that would restrict access to voting, according to the data. That’s a sharp increase from nearly a year ago, when there were 35 restrictive bills pending across 15 states.

Among the Brennan Center’s findings:

• More than a third of the bills would place new restrictions on voting by mail

• Pennsylvania has 14 pending proposals for new voter restrictions, the most in the country. It’s followed by New Hampshire (11), Missouri (9), and Mississippi, New Jersey, and Texas (8)

• There are seven bills across four states that would limit opportunities for election day registration

• There are also 406 bills that would expand voting access pending across 35 states, including in New York (56), Texas (53), New Jersey (37), Mississippi (39), and Missouri (21)

The restrictions come on the heels of an election in which there was record turnout and Democrat and Republican election officials alike said there was no evidence of widespread wrongdoing or fraud. There were recounts, audits, and lawsuits across many states to back up those assurances. Federal and state officials called the election “the most secure in American history”.

Myrna Pérez, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center, said the surge in anti-voting legislation was “countersensical” given that there were Republican and Democratic wins in key races across the country.

“The volume of anti-voter legislation is certainly revealing that a nerve was struck,” she told me. “There are certainly people who are sensitive to the idea of more progress...It ultimately comes down to an anxiety over the browning of America and people in power are afraid of losing their position.”

Attacking voting by mail

Many of the restrictions have to do with placing new barriers around voting by mail, a process that a record number of Americans used in 2020 (46% of Americans cast a mail-in ballot in 2020, compared to just 19% four years ago). In Arizona, a state that Joe Biden flipped, Republicans are weighing measures that would make it easier to remove voters from a permanent mail-in voting list and to require voters to get their ballots notarized. In Pennsylvania, there are proposals in the GOP-controlled legislature to get rid of no-excuse absentee voting and to make it easier to reject a ballot based on a signature mismatch - an unreliable way to confirm a voter’s identity.

And in Georgia, a state where Democrats won stunning upsets in the presidential race and two US senate runoffs, Republicans are exploring whether to eliminate no-excuse absentee voting and to require voters to submit a copy of their ID when they vote by mail. Again, this comes after an election in which there was record vote by mail turnout, and the state’s top election official, a Republican, loudly pushed back on accusations of fraud.

In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, could veto GOP-restrictions. But in Georgia and Arizona, Republicans control both the legislature and the governor’s mansion.

There are a host of other voting restrictions states are considering:

• Ten states are considering new voter ID requirements, including six states that do not currently require voters to present ID at the polls, according to the Brennan Center.

• Two states, Mississippi and New Hampshire, are considering placing new limits on the kinds of IDs that can be used.

Also worth watching…

Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow people convicted of a felony to vote while they are in prison, The Appeal reported. If adopted, Oregon would join Maine, Vermont as the only two states in the country that allow this, as well as the District of Columbia.