Center for Public Integrity: A headlong rush by states to attack voting access — or expand it

Iowa eliminated nine days of early voting. New Hampshire took away ballot drop boxes. And Georgia made providing water to voters waiting in line a crime.

In many states, nearly all controlled by Republicans, it will be more difficult to vote than it was two years ago. That’s especially true for lower-income Americans and people with disabilities, voting-access advocates warn. They stress that new restrictions target methods of voting used disproportionately by people of color.

In those states, voting has also been reshaped by rulings from conservative judges and newly drawn districts that favor Republican candidates.

A review of voting laws in the 50 states and Washington, D.C. by the Center for Public Integrity paints a stark picture of the state of voting in America — one in which states are taking two different paths. While several states passed bills that grabbed headlines and created barriers to the franchise, states controlled by Democrats made access to voting easier and more equitable. Some states with split-party control went one direction and some went the other. …

The attacks on access have targeted methods disproportionately used by people of color and younger, more Democratic-leaning voters. “These are direct attacks on voters that legislators think will vote for the other party,” said Sylvia Albert of Common Cause. “It is clearly an attack on Black and brown and low-income voters.” …

Absentee voting surged in the 2020 election, conducted in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. States scrambled to craft policies that allowed more voters to cast a ballot without visiting a polling place on Election Day. When the dust settled, 2020 proved to be the highest-turnout election in 120 years.

“Voters responded to expansions in access in 2020 by coming out in record numbers,” said Common Cause’s Albert.

Falsehoods about Trump’s loss, many of which focused on mail voting and election results in racially diverse urban areas, became motivating forces for Republican candidates and elected officials at all levels — from Congress to sheriff’s departments.

On Capitol Hill, federal voting rights legislation stalled. Senate Democrats couldn’t break a filibuster to act on what President Joe Biden has called “the single biggest issue.”

Lawmakers in states where Republicans control all branches of government have run into no such gridlock. They seized on Trump’s rhetoric about fraud to pass a flurry of election-related bills in 2021 and 2022 that make voting more difficult.

“These changes are saying back to voters, ‘Oops, we don’t actually want you to vote,’” Albert said.