What you need to know about voting rights and democracy in America

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SPONSORED MESSAGE FROM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF WISCONSIN*

Franchise readers, Wisconsin is ground zero in the fight for voting rights: whether we beat back far-right attacks on the freedom to vote could determine the future of our democracy. Add your name to help us fight back.

Hello readers!

 

Across the country, true believers in Trump’s Big Lie about a stolen 2020 election are taking matters into their own hands, literally, by breaking into voting machines in search of grist for the conspiracy theory mill. 

 

Got a voting rights story you think our readers should hear? Respond to this email and tell me about it.

 

Alright, let’s dig in.

Compromised Voting Machines Litter Big Lie Crusade

We’ve been reporting for years, at this point, on a purposeful effort by Republican elites to lie to Americans about voter fraud and election integrity. But Reuters this week had a useful article to help understand one logical conclusion of this effort: election officials and regular folks are attempting to get their hands on election machines and copy the data – hoping to use it as conspiracy theory material.

 

The most well-known example of this is Mesa County, COLORADO Clerk Tina Peters, who now faces a multi-count grand jury indictment for breaching the county’s election security protocols, which ultimately culminated in Mike Lindell and QAnon conspiracy theorist Ron Watkins obtaining sensitive data from the county’s election systems. (Peters is also the Republican Party’s favorite to be Colorado’s next secretary of state.)

 

But there are many, many more examples. Read about Reuters’ work collecting them, and some stories they missed, here. 

Trump Bullying Extends Phony Wisconsin Investigation

The partisan investigation of WISCONSIN’s 2020 election results should have been done months ago, in October last year, according to the initial arrangement between former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and Robin Vos, the Republican state Assembly speaker.

 

But, over and over again, Vos has lengthened Gableman’s leash, even as Gableman has sought to jail Democratic officials, endorsed Republican candidates mid-investigation and published extremely flawed and outright false information about Wisconsin’s elections.

 

Now, after a menacing public statement from Trump and bullying from Gableman, Vos has agreed to extend the investigation yet again. 

Around The States

SPONSORED MESSAGE FROM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF WISCONSIN*

Franchise readers, Wisconsin is ground zero in the fight for voting rights: whether we beat back far-right attacks on the freedom to vote could determine the future of our democracy. Add your name to help us fight back.

NEW YORK’s highest court ruled that Democrat-drawn congressional and state Senate maps were unconstitutional, both because they violated the redistricting process approved by voters in a 2014 constitutional amendment, and, in the case of the congressional districts, because they were purposefully drawn to decrease competition. The maps would have resulted in three new Democratic-leaning congressional districts. 
 

Although MISSISSIPPI’s population is 40% Black, none of the three districts that elect the state’s nine Supreme Court justices have a majority of African American voters. A new federal lawsuit aims to change that. 
 

FLORIDA Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed his long-sought election police force into law last week, a mix of political theater and actual menace to voters who may fear being targeted by the goon squad. 
 

Some parts of the law are technically on hold for now, because a federal judge placed Florida under “preclearance” in a fiery, 300-page opinion last month striking down parts of DeSantis’ last voter restriction bill, SB 90. 
 

The Pinellas County, Florida commission voted to sue the state over one aspect of the new law, which seems to target them specifically, creating the legal requirement for several commissioners to run for reelection in the middle of their current terms. A term-limited Republican state legislator, it so happens, is running for one of the seats in question. 
 

An attorney for the Democratic National Committee wrote a memo outlining all of the ways ARIZONA’s new voter registration citizenship requirement is unconstitutional, signaling that the party plans to sue over the law, Politico reported.
 

OHIO Redistricting Commission members are refusing to meet until May 4, despite a state Supreme Court order that they come up with a constitutional, non-gerrymandered state legislative map by May 6. This seems to be part of the delay strategy we wrote about last month. Their apparent aim is to force a federal court’s hand to institute a gerrymandered map that was already rejected by the state Supreme Court. House Speaker Bob Cupp said meeting before the May 3 primaries for congressional elections would “confuse the electorate.” 

The Latest In Election Sabotage

GEORGIA’s state elections board has subpoenaed right-wing group True The Vote over a complaint that basically alleged illegal ballot harvesting — people turning in other people’s ballots who are not their family members or patients, which is illegal in Georgia — based on anonymized cell phone data. The state previously looked into the complaint and decided not to pursue it because True The Vote, true to form, provided no actual evidence of wrongdoing.
 

Also in Georgia: Gov. Brian Kemp (R) said he was disappointed in the 2020 election results, “and we did something about it with Senate Bill 202.”
 

Meet some key Big Lie candidates who could help steal the next election, if they win their respective races as state-level election officials. 
 

One GOP gubernatorial candidate in MINNESOTA implied he would jail the current secretary of state. 
 

The Big Lie can put Republican candidates in red states in an uncomfortable position: Lying about widespread voter fraud, while asserting that everything is peachy in their own neck of the woods. In IDAHO, several secretary of state candidates recited clearly prewritten talking points about the apparently stolen election — which we have to presume excludes the long list of Republican elected officials there. In OHIO, Secretary of State Frank LaRose accepted an endorsement from Donald Trump despite the fact that Ohio has voting policies that Trump has repeatedly said are responsible for widespread fraud.
 

ProPublica: Building The ‘Big Lie’: Inside The Creation Of Trump’s Stolen Election Myth
 

HRW, SPLC, and Partners Request Inter-American Commission Hearing on Barriers to the Right to Vote for Black, Native, and Latinx People in the United States
 

AP: Evidence mounts of GOP involvement in Trump election schemes

*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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