In November, Democrats reclaimed some of the ground they lost eight years ago. And now the rules for casting a ballot are moving fast in the opposite direction.
The signal example is in New York, where Democrats this month enacted a series of measures expanding access to the ballot box, just two months after taking full control of both the state Assembly and Senate. But that state is far from the only one: Legislatures in New Jersey and Virginia are set to consider even more expansive packages. Delaware, New Hampshire, Minnesota and New Mexico are also set to take up voting rights measures.
All those proposals, in legislatures under Democratic control or on the cusp of it, have plausible prospects of becoming law. But Democrats are pushing legislation to expand access to the ballot even in some states like South Carolina and Texas where Republicans control makes approval unlikely.
And in the House of Representatives, they are pressing a sweeping overhaul of election and ethics laws — titled H.R. 1 to underscore its importance — that would, among many other things, end partisan gerrymanders, disclose anonymous donors to political causes and reinstate crucial parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court invalidated in 2013.
Republicans call the legislation an attack on states’ constitutional authority over elections and redistricting, and its campaign finance limits an assault on free speech. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, already has said the bill would be dead on arrival in the Senate should it clear the House, as appears all but guaranteed.
In an op-ed in The Washington Post last week, McConnell branded the legislation “the Democrat Politician Protection Act.” “From the First Amendment to your ballot box,” he wrote, “Democrats want to rewrite the rules to favor themselves and their friends.”
That does not faze Democrats, who are betting that Republicans are on the wrong side of an issue that has finally gained traction with the public. Even if they lose to Republicans in Congress, Democrats say, they will win with voters.
Should Republicans block the bill, “it becomes a marker by which we start measuring McConnell, the Senate and anybody else who stands in the way,” Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., the House bill’s principal sponsor, said in an interview. “I think it’ll be increasingly difficult for him to resist this as a narrative.”
Here are the different fronts that Democrats and even a few Republicans are pushing around the country.
Restoring Voting Rights to Ex-felons
Floridians voted overwhelmingly in November for a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights that had been permanently stripped from as many as 1.4 million citizens with felony convictions. Now similar amendments have been proposed in Iowa and Kentucky, two states with the most draconian of such bans. The Iowa measure was proposed this month by the state’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, to a Republican-dominated Legislature that seemed skeptical. The prospects in Kentucky’s Republican-controlled Legislature are also unclear.
Minnesota, Connecticut and New Jersey Democrats are backing legislation to restore voting rights to those on parole or probation, and a bill in Arizona’s Legislature would lift a lifetime ban on voting by people convicted of two or more felonies. In New Mexico, where Democrats won full control of government in November for the first time since 2010, a state legislative committee has approved a proposal that would restore voting rights to anyone with a felony conviction, including prisoners. To date, only Maine and Vermont allow imprisoned felons to vote. A similar measure was filed in the New Jersey Legislature last year.
Making It Easier to Cast a Ballot
As of November, 38 states allowed voters to cast ballots before Election Day, either by opening polling places early or by letting voters cast early absentee ballots for any reason. This month, New York became the 39th, and some form of early-voting legislation or constitutional amendment has been filed in all remaining states except Alabama and Rhode Island.
Thirty-six states request some form of identification at the polls; the strictest measures were largely enacted by Republican legislatures after 2008. In two of them, Virginia and Texas, Democrats have introduced bills to repeal ID requirements; only the Virginia legislation is considered to have a chance of passage. An Indiana bill would expand that state’s strict ID law to include student identification cards.
Improving Voter Registration
In 17 states and the District of Columbia, when a resident applies for a driver’s license, they are automatically registered to vote unless they ask to be excluded. Now at least 12 more states are taking up automatic-registration bills, many of which are likely to pass. Automatic registration is the rare voting rights innovation that frequently gets bipartisan support.
In addition, at least nine state legislatures have bills that would allow voters to register on the same day that they vote. Two more, Texas and Mississippi, have legislation that would permit online registration. New York Democrats have approved legislation allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister, an option that has been shown to increase participation in elections; lawmakers in four more states — Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — have filed preregistration bills.
Timothy Horrigan, a Durham representative in New Hampshire’s newly Democratic-controlled General Court, is sponsoring two bills to repeal recent Republican laws that made it more difficult for the area’s substantial college student population to register to vote.
Horrigan said he was trying to recruit Republican support for some form of his legislation so that parties would not feel compelled to change election laws every time control of the Legislature flips. But he pledged to stick to what he called his idealistic belief that politics was about winning supporters, not suppressing opponents.
“If they’re worried about younger voters,” he said, “the solution is to get more younger voters on their side.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.