‌What’s in the Freedom To Vote Act?

?? Hello readers! 

As congressional Democrats introduce yet another iteration of their voting rights proposals without a clear path to Joe Biden’s desk, Donald Trump is busy endorsing candidates for elections offices across the country who supported his effort to overturn the last election. More on that below.

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Alright, let’s dig in.

What's In The Freedom To Vote Act?

There’s no indication, at least right now, that President Joe Biden will sign any sort of voting legislation into law during his presidency. That’s because we haven’t seen any progress on filibuster reform, nor, absent that reform, on convincing 10 Republicans that new voting rights legislation is worth their support.

With that said, Senate Democrats last week unveiled the Freedom To Vote Act, which was built around Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) framework from June. It includes new national standards that would allow every eligible American to vote early, by-mail and/or in a drop box. It would establish automatic (and online, and Election Day) voter registration nationwide and make Election Day a national holiday. It would ban partisan gerrymandering and introduce some transparency into “dark money” political influence groups. You can read the sponsors’ summary of the bill here.

It does not include “preclearance,” a.k.a. required federal approval for election administration changes in states with histories of discrimination. The Supreme Court gutted preclearance from the Voting Rights Act in 2013, but the measure is included in the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which passed the House but faces slim odds in the Senate.

Manchin said he was working hard to lobby Republicans to support the new bill because, “I think voting is basically the foundation of our whole democracy.” Okay then.

Around The States

Donald Trump has made endorsements in three secretary of state races: MICHIGAN, GEORGIA and now ARIZONA, where he announced his support for far-right Republican Mark Finchem -- a state lawmaker who’s pushed election lies and was steps from the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. Trump’s campaign paid Finchem $6,000 during their efforts to overturn the election, for “legal consulting.”

A NORTH CAROLINA court on Friday struck down state Republicans’ 2018 voter ID law, finding that it "was motivated at least in part by an unconstitutional intent to target African American voters." The case was decided in devastating fashion in 2018.

The KANSAS attorney general’s office will pay the state’s ACLU and other attorneys $1.9 million in fees and expenses from the fight over former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s law requiring proof of citizenship to vote.

Two courts in NEW YORK -- state and federal -- both ruled against Buffalo’s incumbent mayor, who lost the Democratic primary to Democratic Socialist India Walton and then sought to form and run for reelection under the “Buffalo Party'' despite missing the deadline by several months. Brown will now campaign as a write-in candidate instead.

As OHIO Republicans seek to limit drop boxes and early voting, at least one poll shows rural Ohio voters want the exact opposite.

COLORADO Secretary of State Jena Griswold says staff in her office have had to comb through “literally thousands of threats” since the 2020 election. She’s concerned about the lack of criminal prosecutions for those threatening her and others in her office.

Boston, MASSACHUSETTS voters saw a bit of a delay in the city’s mayoral primary race, reportedly due to last-minute votes delivered to drop boxes around the city. Gov. Charlie Baker, meanwhile, said Thursday that same-day voter registration is just too complex for election workers to handle.

A KANSAS judge declined to block a new law that civic groups say unnecessarily hinders their voter registration efforts.

FLORIDA Republicans assured the public that new voter restrictions were purely about election integrity, not partisan politics. But Politico has emails and text messages showing the state GOP’s top lawyer working on the law, and quoting state Sen. Joe Gruters, the chair of the Florida GOP, complaining that it would be “devastating” to abandon a proposal to toss existing mail-in ballot requests, given Democrats’ advantage in mail-in voting in 2020. (The proposal was eventually abandoned.)

Correction: This post previously identified the incorrect lawmaker as the source of a quote that it would be “devastating” politically for Florida Republicans to abandon a proposal to toss existing mail-in ballot requests as part of a set of new voter restrictions. The source of the quote was state Sen. Joe Gruters, not Rep. Blaise Ingoglia. TPM regrets the error.

The Latest In Audit Mania

PENNSYLVANIA Republicans’ probe of 2020 voting now has subpoenas out for the communications between state and local election officials, as well as the personal information of every voter in the state. The information will be turned over to a private firm to analyze, Republicans say -- though they haven’t named the firm nor specified the amount of money taxpayers will spend on the effort. If you’re wondering: Yes, identity thieves are licking their lips.

The former state supreme court justice leading an open-ended election investigation in WISCONSIN has sent records preservation requests to every count clerk in the state. But there’s an odd twist, as The Associated Press reports:

“Even though [Former Supreme Court Justice Michael] Gableman’s name was in the body of the email and on the attached letter, the email itself came from someone named ‘john delta’ at a gmail.com address. The pdf attachment lists ‘Andrew Kloster’ as the author. He is a former Trump administration official and an attorney who describes himself as an ‘ecumenical rightist’ on Twitter.”

Mesa County, COLORADO clerk Tina Peters came out of hiding Thursday to attend an event at a church in the county, where she plugged a legal defense fund, standwithtina.org, and said that Jena Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state, and others wanted her removed from office “just for doing my job.” (Actually, it’s because Peters is under investigation for a leak of sensitive election software.) Another lowlight: Mesa County GOP Chair Kevin McCarney spoke at the event and repeatedly referred to Griswold as "Jenna Jameson," who is … an adult film actress.

Separately, Peters wrote to county officials Friday to offer a report that she said documented “data destruction” evidenced in the two copies of the election software that leaked from her office. But, as the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel noted, “The report, however, doesn’t make it clear what those files were intended to do, and whether they were supposed to be replaced with new files as part of an upgrade of the computer software.”

Maricopa County, ARIZONA recorder Steven Richer wants to know how voter registration data -- which is publicly available but illegal to publish online -- wound up on the internet.

Separately, a conservative Arizona activist who’s been leading an effort to canvas 2020 voters in search of criminal behavior recently released a report on her work -- one that, surprise, alleged wrongdoing without any evidence. Meanwhile, records from the audit, even those in the possession of contractor Cyber Ninjas, are public records, the state’s supreme court said.

Finally: Senate President Karen Fann (R) says the Maricopa County “audit” report is just around the corner! For real this time!

AZ Republic: From rural Florida to Trump allies' inner circle: Who is the Cyber Ninja leading Arizona's audit?

TPM: A Pro-Impeachment Republican Calls Trump A ‘Cancer’ And Runs For The Hills.

 And: Gleeful Trump Cheers Pro-Impeachment GOPer’s Exit: ‘1 Down, 9 To Go!’

Inside Higher Ed: Texas Law Poses Threat to Student Voting

The Atlantic: A Hinge Point for Voting Rights