I confess, I didn’t read most of this story about the various problems some people had in voting, and the various theories as to what was happening during voting, mostly because it contained way too many quotes from Jared Woodfill. I’m going to focus on one piece of this, and then jump to the question I posed in the title.
Still the only voter ID anyone should need
In Texas, which was recently ranked 50th in the nation by the Election Law Journal for ease of voting, the stories of disenfranchisement in this election are plentiful, because the hurdles state lawmakers have erected to registering and voting create many chances for the system to fail.
The state GOP leadership has steadfastly resisted modernizing voter registration, including blocking attempts at online registration. Voter ID laws, limits on qualifications for absentee ballots and rigidity in the mechanics of balloting all weed out untold numbers of voters along the way.
“These things will feed into the ability of someone to either participate easily and conveniently and effectively, or for someone to encounter barrier after barrier after barrier and at some point throw up their hands in disgust and quit trying,” said Tammy Patrick, senior adviser to the elections team at the Democracy Fund in Washington, D.C.
It certainly was difficult for East Texas resident Serena Ivie, who had to reeducate herself on the registration process after sitting out elections for 20 years.
Ivie wanted to vote for President Donald Trump because she worried about the direction of the country if he left office. She sent in her voter registration application in early September, she said.
She figured out too late that her registration was never activated, and she still has not gotten an explanation, she said.
Ivie, 49, is angry that the state hasn’t created easy, online registration since the last time she voted.
“I was disappointed that I’d let myself down, and I really felt that I screwed up,” Ivie said. “It’s a huge letdown, and I, in turn, feel like I am letting my country down.”
There really is no good reason why our voter registration process is so antiquated. There is a good reason why the law that controls how voter registration may be done has not been updated in forever, and that’s because the Republicans have opposed it, as we have covered here numerous times. Not all Republicans, to be sure – the bill cited in that post had numerous Republican co-sponsors, but never got a hearing in committee. The difference now is that Republicans have been actively registering voters these days, and as they discovered, it’s harder than it needs to be. There is also now a very limited form of online voter registration available, thanks to a federal lawsuit. These two factors may finally allow for our voter registration laws to be dragged into the 21st century. I wouldn’t bet on it until someone like Greg Abbott announces support for it, but the possibility exists.
Unfortunately, that’s probably about where the potential good news ends. There’s a zero percent chance that any expansion will be made to voting by mail – I’d be more worried about some bills that will attempt to make it harder, or perhaps to define “disability” in a way that would explicitly exclude pandemic-related risk factors. Along the same lines, I expect there to be bills that codify limiting ballot dropoff locations to one per county, and to limit if not outlaw drive-through voting that isn’t part of the already-allowed curbside voting for people with (perhaps more strictly defined) disabilities. Finally, as part of the larger conversation about the role and power of the Governor and the Legislature during a disaster, there may be legislation that codifies the Governor’s ability to do things like extend early voting hours as part of a disaster response. A bill like that doesn’t have to be bad, but it would be easier to make it bad than to make it good.
As far as I’m concerned, the best case scenario here is keeping trash like that from getting passed. Maybe the new Speaker will put his thumb on the scale in a good way, or maybe Republican legislators will have heard from enough voters that they liked the longer early voting period and/or drive-through voting to mess with it, or maybe they’ll just be too damn busy with all of the other business they’ll have to deal with to have time for this. I’m just saying be prepared for some nonsense here. It’s coming, and we need to be ready for it.
UPDATE: Bill pre-filing is now open, and there are numerous election-related bills already, including one that would “prohibit state officers and employees from distributing applications for early voting ballots”. I’m sure you can guess what motivated that. Remember that zillions of bills get filed but only a handful make it through, so don’t draw conclusions from any of this just yet.
All the voters cited in the Tribune article are the victims of incompetence on the part of their county or the USPS. The Tarrant County voter in particular got a triple dose of incompetence when presenting with a voter certificate with information not matching the online record. Her situation should have been moved up the chain and examined by staff in the EA office. To add insult to injury, the poll worker insinuated that there was only a small chance of her provisional being counted. This goes beyond poor training into malfeasance. The only way to free voters from registration errors is to make registration universal and automatic, with an opt-out for those so inclined. Online registration will not immunize voters from mistakes and incompetence. Furthermore, a state like Texas would imbed every restriction related to paper registration into its online process. I’ve checked the online registration portals of several red states and the first step is to enter your state ID. Anyone without it would be thwarted right there at the get go.
Let me modify my grandiose proclamation about automatic voter registration solving all registration issues. Any large-scale system has a zero percent chance of functioning perfectly. Solutions for voters with problems would obviously need to ne in place. Here is more on the subject: https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/automatic-voter-registration.aspx
@voter_worker: Completely agree! Stacey Abrams rightfully gets lots of credit for her work in Georgia, but one reason Georgia has changed so much is likely due to the fact that the state implemented AVR in 2016. Unfortunately, Republicans in other states likely know this, so it’s probably DOA in Texas.