Voting has begun in every state. News orgs should call out frivolous GOP lawsuits.
Voting has begun in every state, because overseas and military voters receive their ballots at least 45 days before the presidential election. The election is in 40 days.
Voters can be forgiven for not knowing this.
News organizations are still running headlines about this and that frivolous GOP lawsuit trying to change voting rules at the last minute. Their goal: generate chaos and uncertainty. News organizations comply.
The latest lawsuit challenges Mississippi law that allows mailed ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by election day (November 5th) and received within five days of election day. The three judges hearing the appeal: all appointed by Donald Trump.
Other efforts to block valid ballots focus on “meaningless and inconsequential paperwork errors” (Pennsylvania panel of state judges).
These changes come with a cost:
Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, cautioned that incremental tweaks to election law — especially last-minute changes made by the courts — not only confuse voters, but also put a strain on local election officials who must comply with changes to statute as they prepare for another highly scrutinized voting process.
Last week in Georgia, three Trump-aligned members of the state elections board ruled that counties must perform a hand count of ballots to ensure it matches the machine count (total ballots, not votes cast). Counties in Georgia range from a population from 1,610 to 1,084,512. The state attorney general noted that such changes, even if within legal authority of the board (which is not clear), are “disfavored when implemented close to an election.”
The time to challenge election laws is well before an election is underway.
What the GOP is doing is like telling a ref to change the rules for how to record a touchdown after the football game begins.
News organizations are also glossing over early problems with voting systems.
- Since 2004, Arizona voters have needed to show proof of citizenship to register to vote in state and local elections. The State Supreme Court ruled that about 100,000 voters will be able to vote their full ballots (not just federal elections) who got their driver’s license before Oct. 1, 1996.
- Florida voters whose ID card may contain a typo may not be able to vote because the “voter’s name must exactly match their driver’s license or social security card.”
- In Montana, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was not on the ballot for overseas and military voters when the system went live.
- In Wisconsin, two townships failed to provide accessible voting units for voters who need help with paper ballots.
- Elections officials 21 states received “threatening envelopes” last week: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Wyoming.
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