‌‌‌‌‌ ‘Ballot Trafficking,’ ‘Ballot Harvesting,’ And… The Truth

Hello readers!

Our first story this week serves as a PSA: Don’t get bamboozled by absurd, misleading terms like “ballot trafficking.” 

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Alright, let’s dig in.

Ballot ‘Trafficking’ Is Latest Right-Wing Legal Crusade

Lehigh County, PENNSYLVANIA District Attorney Jim Martin is on high alert: In 2021, his office found after a complaint from the local Republican Party, at least 288 people dropped off more than one ballot in one of the county’s drop boxes. Martin has now tasked detectives with observing each of the county’s drop boxes to spot, and potentially prosecute, anyone who drops off a second ballot in addition to their own. 
 

The only problem? That practice is completely legal. In Pennsylvania, as in many states, voters who are unable to drop off their own ballots, including those with physical disabilities, are entitled to designate someone to drop off their ballot for them. The ACLU and disability rights groups have urged Martin to change course, saying his detective assignments could intimidate perfectly legal voters, but Martin has persisted: “If someone says ‘This is for my disabled mother,’ we would investigate that claim,” he told the Morning Call.

The crackdown on voters helping each other turn in ballots — what was once considered a completely innocent practice — is just one facet of Republicans’ Trump-era battle to make voting more difficult.

As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump has noted, the practice, which once didn’t have a label at all, has been termed “ballot harvesting” and now “ballot trafficking” by right-wing politicians and operatives in an attempt to make it sound illegal and scary. The group True The Vote has distorted cell phone tracking data to assert, laughably, that basically anyone who walks by a drop box multiple times is in fact a ballot-trafficking criminal. Dinesh D’Souza has a new movie all about it literally called “2000 mules” — the “mules” in question are those who drop off ballots — that opened in hundreds of theaters last week. 
 

The goal, as always, is to intimidate people of good faith so that they don’t stand up to efforts to make voting harder. And it’s easy to see some evidence of this strategy working: Legislatures across the country have pursued bills that would tighten ballot collection rules. So, this is a PSA: Don’t get bamboozled by the latest right-wing lingo. 

One Trick Gerrymandering Republicans Don’t Want You To Know!

OHIO Republicans continue to defy the state Supreme Court and the will of voters, who overwhelmingly supported constitutional amendments against partisan gerrymandering.

On Friday, the deadline to submit a fifth proposed state legislative map to the state Supreme Court, the commission instead just resubmitted its third map, which the Supreme Court already found to be unconstitutional. The commission’s two Democrats called the move “a clear slap in the face to Ohio voters and the rule of law.” Republicans say they did that because they ran out of time, which is ridiculous considering the commission didn’t meet for 20 days after being ordered by the court to come up with a new map. The real reason for the stalling is that a Trump-appointed majority on a federal district court panel told Republicans they could use their unconstitutional map if they didn’t come up with a better option by May 28. In other words: A free pass to violate the state’s anti-gerrymandering law.

Compare this to NEW YORK, where a judge has named an independent expert to draw constitutional maps on the court’s behalf. Ohio’s state Supreme Court doesn’t believe it has this power — though some constitutional scholars argue it does — and that distinction makes all the difference.

Around The States

As expected, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower judge’s pause on several new voting restrictions in FLORIDA. A three-judge panel, made up entirely of Trump appointees, noted District Judge Mark Walker “never once mentioned the presumption” of good faith by Florida Republicans.
 

MISSOURI lawmakers appear poised to require photo IDs to vote and ban ballot drop boxes. 

MICHIGAN state police seized a voting machine as part of an ongoing probe into potential post-2020 security breaches. 
 

The COLORADO legislature is working on an election security bill requiring steps like certification courses for elections officials and video surveillance of voting machines.

The Latest In Election Sabotage

A key promoter of the infamously idiotic “Italygate” conspiracy theory has inspired KANSAS lawmakers to “audit” the 2020 election there. 
 

Maricopa County, ARIZONA’s board tee’d off on Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a U.S. Senate contender who’s tried to make political hay out of nothingburger claims about the county’s election administration. 
 

Tina Peters, the Maricopa County COLORADO clerk who’s the Republican frontrunner for the secretary of state nomination — and who’s facing a multi-count indictment for compromising the security of election data — has outraised her competitors, mostly thanks to out-of-state donations. 
 

Another Colorado clerk, Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder, finally turned over the copied hard drives of voting machines he made that prompted an investigation from the state. One copy is apparently still in the hands of an unidentified lawyer. 
 

PENNSYLVANIA state senator and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano abruptly ended an interview after being asked how he explains his contention that the 2020 election was stolen. 

Slate: The Novel Strategy Blue States Can Use to Solve Partisan Gerrymandering by 2024

WaPo: GOP donor described botched vote fraud probe in recording, prosecutors say
 

Philadelphia Inquirer: Dozens of mail ballots are going to a GOP ward leader’s South Philly P.O. box, raising ‘ballot harvesting’ concerns
 

ABC News: Colorado voting officials adopt safety measures as state becomes target for election conspiracists

*Paid for by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Wisdems.org. Not authorized by any candidate’s campaign or committee. Donations to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin are not tax deductible.

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