Voter Protection and Election Integrity
What if Democrats Tried Real Outreach?: We focused on nonvoters and infrequent ones before the 2018 midterm elections and saw astonishing results, New York Times, January 9, 2020.
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History of the
Voting Rights Act Modern Attacks on Voting Rights Act Resource Page. The Voting Rights Act is at the heart of modern American democracy. However, the historic civil rights legislation has faced unprecedented attacks. The Brennan Center has worked to track these efforts to undercut voting rights and has engaged in litigation to protect every American's voting rights. The Brennan Center for Justice tracks legislation, assists in litigation, and creates original research to protect the Voting Rights Act. This site offers a compiled list of resources and history on the Voting Rights Act. Published: August 6, 2018
The Myth of Voter Fraud—and the Truth About What’s Threatening Our Elections: Congress needs to update the Voting Rights Act to prevent states from suppressing votes, The American Prospect, November 28, 2019.
Texas secretary of state apologized for inaccurate claim of 95,000 non- citizen voters that Trump tweeted as evidence of voter fraud, Business Insider, February 16, 2019, 3:09 PM.
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Current Challenges
to Voting Rights Trump Nominates New Federal Election Committee Commissioner. Hobbled elections regulator lacks quorum until new nominee is approved by Senate, Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2020. Without a quorum, the commission is unable to act on important issues related to the November election, such as campaign finance.
Texas Election Protection 2018: How Election Administration Issues Impacted Hundreds of Thousands of Voters, Texas Civil Rights Project, March 2019
Texas Voting Rights: Voting Rights Under Attack, Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Not a Typo: States made 2019 a Historic Year for Election Reform: Campaigns to democratize the ballot box saw significant victories, The American Prospect, January 14, 2020
Voting Outside the Polling Place: Absentee, All-Mail and other Voting at Home Options, National Conference of State Legislatures, June 22, 2020. This webpage offers a state-by-state comparison on a variety of election laws and policies, including vote by mail and absentee voting. Most states offer at least one method for any eligible voter to cast a ballot before Election Day. While some states provide early in-person voting, this webpage addresses absentee voting and all-mail voting. See also NCSL's webinar series on voting outside the polling place.
Voting Is Not Enough, Paste, October 15, 2018. "... it’s more likely that most Americans do want to vote, and one of the root causes of low turnout is this country’s framework of restrictive voting laws. The United States is unique in allowing state laws to largely govern voting in federal elections. Ever since key federal protections were dismantled by the Supreme Court in 2013 – including portions of the Voting Rights Act, which required some states and localities with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before changing voting procedures — state lawmakers have had more latitude than ever to enact laws affecting whether, how and when one can vote in a federal election."
“I Found Election Interference And No One Cared”: One US Veteran’s Fight To Protect His Compatriots Online, Buzzfeed, December 30, 2019
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Mechanisms
of Voter Suppression Voting Machine Security: Where We Stand a Few Months Before the New Hampshire Primary. The Brennan Center for Justice, August 13, 2019.
The Downstream Consequences of Long Waits: How Lines at the Precinct Depress Future Turnout, January 4, 2017. Statistical analysis demonstrates that for every additional hour a voter waits in line to vote, their probability of voting in the subsequent election drops by 1 percentage point. As a result, nearly 200,000 people did not vote in November 2014 because waiting in a long line in 2012 turned them off from the process.
Finding 30,000 disenfranchised voters in Houston, January Advisors, April 7, 2019. Texas, like 21 other states and Florida, suspends a convicted felon’s right to vote during incarceration, parole, and probation. Once they go “off paper,” their voting rights get restored automatically, although they still have to register to vote--and they may not be informed of this. If this issue becomes a pillar of criminal justice reform in the next presidential election, what would that mean for Houston? Over 30,000 people living in Harris County would gain the right to vote in the upcoming 2020 contest, and they tend to be clustered in certain minority, low income, areas. Harris County traditionally has close elections, and a few hundred votes could swing an election.
An Investigation Into Foreign Entities Who Are Targeting Servicemembers and Veterans Online, Vietnam Veterans of America, 2019. Vietnam Veterans of America’s (VVA) two-year investigation, beginning in August 2017, has documented persistent, pervasive, and coordinated online targeting of American servicemembers, veterans, and their families by foreign entities who seek to disrupt American democracy. American veterans and the social-media followers of several congressionally chartered veterans service organizations were specifically targeted by the Russian Internet Research Agency with at least 113 ads during and after the 2016 election. However, this represents but a tiny fraction of the Russian activity that targeted this community with divisive propaganda.
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