The Start of an Elections Takeover In Atlanta?

?? Hello readers! 
Republicans in Georgia have taken the first steps toward potentially replacing the election administrator in the state’s biggest county, Fulton. As Democrats from that state and others call out for federal intervention, we’ve seen some signs of renewed life in the push for the The John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act.

Got a voting rights story you think our readers should hear? Respond to this email and tell us all about it. You can also call, text or Signal message me at 646-397-4678.
 

Alright, let’s dig in.

Georgia takeover: ‘The first time nationwide’ 

One of the less-noticed aspects of the sweeping voting law Georgia passed earlier this year was among the most worrying to voting rights advocates: the power that SB 202 gave the state legislature to get involved in elections. Now, the legislature has begun to act on those powers.

Republican lawmakers in the state have taken the first step toward replacing the elections administrator in Georgia’s most populous county.

As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported, two dozen state senators wrote to the State Election Board calling for a performance review for Fulton County’s elections director, Richard Barron. Several members of the state House of Representatives followed suit — although the House letter sought a review of the county election board. The matter will next go to the state board, which has the authority to install its own county elections superintendent for at least nine months, after a review.

• “We’re seeing the bill being used to potentially put control over elections into more partisan hands for the first time nationwide,” Jessica Marsden, counsel for Protect Democracy, told the Journal-Constitution.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) supports a review by the state board. He’s a member of that board, but the new law also took away his vote on the panel (and the legislature is considering further limiting his power). The other four members of the state board consist of three Republicans and one Democrat.

Yes, the federal government has sued the state of Georgia over its new package of voting restrictions — and the state has sought the suit’s dismissal — but the federal lawsuit didn’t address this portion of the law, focusing instead on the law’s changes to voting procedures such as voting by mail. 

Some new legislative action on voting rights

HOUSE DEMOCRATS are reportedly set to introduce a new version of The John Lewis Voting Rights Act this week, and, separately, a group of House Democrats has called on congressional leadership to hold a vote on a slimmed down version of the For The People Act, which would focus on “pre-empt[ing] harmful laws already passing in state houses across the country" and trim campaign finance provisions from the sweeping bill, according to a letter by the group obtained by NBC news. On Thursday, state lawmakers from Texas — who’ve fled the state to prevent a quorum on proposed voting restrictions there — testified before the House Oversight Committee on the need for new federal protections.

In the SENATE, Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told reporters that she and a group of her colleagues, including the pro-filibuster Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), were working on a new version of the For the People Act. The Senate’s Republicans blocked the measure the last time. The New York Times laid out the real stakes:

• “There is no indication that an accord among a small group of Democrats would draw any more Republican backing than previous proposals have. But activists and progressives want to see the revised measure come up for a vote before the Senate leaves Washington for its August recess, anticipating that it would fail and intensify pressure to dismantle the filibuster.”

The Washington Post reports that the negotiated Senate bill partially incorporated Manchin’s own framework for voting legislation.

• “Everybody’s working in good faith on this,” the West Virginia senator told the Post. “It’s everybody’s input, not just mine, but I think mine, maybe . . . got us all talking and rolling in the direction that we had to go back to basics,” he said.

Over at the Justice Department… the government has stood up an election threats task force, part of a list of post-2020 priorities that also included another action this week, published guidance on post-pandemic voting rights and politicized “audits” of last year’s results.

At the end of the day, though, the real action is (or ought to be) in Congress.

• “It’s great to see the Department of Justice taking the approach that they’re taking,” Sean Morales-Doyle, acting director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, told me. “But I think without action from Congress and the White House to change federal law and restore and strengthen it, the Department of Justice’s guidance is not going to be enough.”

From the White House: The President, vice president, speaker of the House and Senate majority leader met Friday, and they agreed “on the moral imperative of passing legislation to protect against voter suppression, electoral subversion, dark money, and partisan gerrymandering, and will continue working together toward that goal urgently.” 

Around The Country

MASSACHUSETTS has a new law extending the ability to vote by-mail.

In ALASKA, a state superior court judge has ruled that ranked-choice voting, as well as the state’s new top-four open-primary system, are legal.

OHIO Democrats are speaking out against a bill to eliminate early in-person voting the day before an election, among other proposed changes. “These attacks are part of a nationwide effort to push baseless conspiracy theories and the Big Lie and they threaten the very foundation of our democracy to protect a delusional man who refuses to accept the results of an election," Ohio’s House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes (D) told federal leaders last week.

Detroit, MICHIGAN city clerk Janice Winfrey testified before the Committee on House Administration on the threats she faced at the center of Republicans’ lies about voter fraud in 2020 after the last election.

In NEW YORK CITY, non-citizens, who make up a substantial portion of the city’s residents and taxpayers, may yet have a say in how their government is run. The bill in question would allow permanent residents or those with work authorizations to vote.

In WASHINGTON, D.C., the Heritage Foundation — a font of voting restriction proposals — held a half-day briefing last month for secretaries of state, covering “redistricting, election security, and current election-related litigation and legislation.” 

The Latest In Audit Mania

The state of WISCONSIN is getting yet another investigation of the 2020 election, this time from a state lawmaker whose visit to the Arizona audit was paid for by a One America News Network host’s fundraising group.

In ARIZONA, the state Senate has finally returned Maricopa County’s 2020 ballots after counting them several times. At this point, we’re awaiting the “audit’s” final report on 2020 — though what little we’ve heard doesn’t inspire confidence. And we might not be done yet, given the Senate’s outstanding subpoenas.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Arizona without some drama: Ken Bennett, the state senate’s liaison to the audit — which it contracted out to Cyber Ninjas and other inexperienced groups — said last week that he’d be stepping down from that role after being shut out of the audit’s ballot-counting site. In a radio interview, Bennett aired several disturbing details about error-prone procedures and a lack of transparency and independence in the audit. Then, Bennett reversed himself, saying he’d be staying on as liaison after all.

We also got some fundraising numbers from the Arizona auditors: 97 percent of their budget has come from Trump-supporting election fraud celebrities like Sidney Powell and Mike Flynn.

In PENNSYLVANIA, a Republican state senator has slammed his colleague Sen. Doug Mastriano’s (R) proposed audit of three counties’ 2020 results, noting that “In Arizona, an outside vendor with a preconceived position was asked to ‘audit’ the ballots and equipment. The only credible result has been an undermined public trust in democracy and a cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers who must now replace voting machines that were decertified because a third-party had tinkered with them.”

One of the counties targeted by the proposed audit, York, has seen a swell of suspicious door-knockers.

Finally, in MICHIGAN, we reported recently on one county sheriff dispatching a deputy and a private investigator to question clerks from tiny townships across the area, sniffing for hints of election fraud after hearing a hot tip based on My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell’s conspiracy theories.

I spoke to the sheriff in question, Dar Leaf, on the phone briefly. “This is not going to be a short investigation,” he said, granting later that “it might not go anywhere.” And why is he interviewing every clerk in the county, six and a half months after the election? What is he looking for?

Leaf replied that he had delegated the investigation to his deputy.

“I’m not running that investigation,” he said. “I’m letting the guy who got assigned to it right now.”

New York Times: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian: “There Is No Good Reason You Should Have to Be a Citizen to Vote”

Washington Post: Norman Lear: “As I begin my 100th year, I’m baffled that voting rights are still under attack”

The Nation: Elie Mystal: “The Democrats Are Bungling Voting Rights—but Not in the Way You Think”