Americans are increasingly encountering barriers to exercising their most fundamental of democratic rights during this 2020 presidential election – the right to vote.
The Guardian's Sam Levine looks at how voter suppression has been unfolding across the US, four key tactics being used in attempts to block votes, and how president Donald Trump is trying delegitimize November's election
Donald Trump’s campaign failed to produce any evidence of vote-by-mail fraud in Pennsylvania after a federal judge ordered it do so, according to a 524-page court filing obtained by the Guardian.
Related: USPS chief Louis DeJoy says he won't restore mail-sorting machines ahead of election – live
Continue reading...Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor, made appearance before Congress amid scrutiny over agency’s management
America’s postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, conceded on Friday he had implemented recent changes that led to mail delays at the United States Postal Service (USPS) but said he would not reverse the decision to remove mail equipment ahead of the election.
DeJoy, a major Republican donor without prior USPS experience, made his first appearance before Congress amid widespread scrutiny over the mail delays and his management of the agency since taking over in June.
Continue reading...Since taking office in June, DeJoy has executed sweeping changes at the struggling USPS, leading to delays in mail delivery – and fears mail-in ballots won’t arrive on time
About a month ago, a United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier named Mark arrived at his post office in central Pennsylvania and got some shocking news from his station manager. Mark and his coworkers were told they would have to depart the office for deliveries a few hours earlier each day, even if that meant leaving behind much of the day’s mail.
In the weeks that followed, higher-ups at the station instructed carriers to abandon hundreds of pieces of mail in order to depart a mere 10 or 20 minutes earlier. As the days went on, the excess mail started to pile up, and now Mark estimates there are thousands of undelivered letters and packages sitting in his station.
Continue reading...House majority whip James Clyburn called on Sunday for both voting rights legislation and an infamous bridge in Alabama to be named after John Lewis.
Related: Trump equates support for Confederate flag with Black Lives Matter
Continue reading...Voters need to understand that Sanders’ delegate candidates aren’t running against Biden’s delegate candidates – they’re running against each other
Although Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, voting in the New York primary on Tuesday (or during early voting) is by no means futile for progressives who were largely supporting Bernie Sanders and policies such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
Related: 'Just ridiculous': what it’s like to wait five hours in line to vote in the US
Continue reading...President dismissed Democratic-led push for voter reforms amid coronavirus pandemic during Fox & Friends appearance
Donald Trump admitted on Monday that making it easier to vote in America would hurt the Republican party.
The president made the comments as he dismissed a Democratic-led push for reforms such as vote-by-mail, same-day registration and early voting as states seek to safely run elections amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Democrats had proposed the measures as part of the coronavirus stimulus. They ultimately were not included in the $2.2tn final package, which included only $400m to states to help them run elections.
Continue reading...New bureaucratic hurdle where voters must carry ID with a photo likely to affect minorities and students
Last month, Kentucky elected Democratic governor Andy Beshear in a closely watch election – a landmark blue win in a mostly conservative state. One of the core promises of his campaign was to restore voting rights to 140,000 people with felony convictions, which he fulfilled immediately after taking office.
Related: The biggest voting rights win in recent US history – and the Republicans trying to thwart it
Continue reading...The motivations behind today’s efforts to overturn elections and remove black elected officials are not very different than Reconstruction-era motivations
On 5 November, Hester Jackson-McCray, a black woman, narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Ashley Henley by 14 votes in a heated race for a seat in the Mississippi house of representatives.
Shortly after, Henley asked the Republican-dominated Mississippi house to overturn the election results, based on claims including that one precinct didn’t collect voter signatures (a technicality required to process ballots in the state) and that her campaign had found three uncounted paper ballots. Jackson-McCray, meanwhile, pointed out that the election had been run by the Republicans – Henley’s party – making it unlikely that she had manipulated the race in her favor. This turn of events was particularly surprising because the Republican party tends to cast doubts on the existence of voter suppression, the idea that political parties find ways to prevent Americans from voting, calling it a Democratic myth.
Continue reading...The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Can the Democrats’ new bill revive it in time?
On Friday the House of Representatives showed the country that it will not tolerate racial discrimination at the polls. It passed the Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill that would restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act to its full strength. Our country needs that reform and others to make the 2020 election free and fair for all.
Since its founding, America has moved slowly towards granting suffrage to more and more Americans, bringing more people into the electoral process. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been instrumental to that progress. But in 2013 the supreme court dramatically weakened that law.
Continue reading...None of the four top Democratic candidates poll consistently above 30% – ranked-choice voting, however, can determine who people actually support
Democrats in Iowa will caucus in early February, barely two months away, and finally cast the first votes of presidential nomination season.
There’s an elite tier of four candidates: former vice-president Joe Biden, South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. None of them, however, poll consistently above 30% in national surveys. Many Democrats see one or more of them as too old or too inexperienced; too far left or too moderate.
Continue reading...Given what’s at stake next year, the effort to prevent people voting will be fierce. We’ve been here before – and we can stop it
America hangs in the balance. The elections in November next year will determine whether the United States continues down the road of authoritarian dynastic rule or reclaims the work of expanding and improving our democracy. Those are the choices.
That expansion was born out of the civil war, which left 1.2 million dead or wounded, but resulted in the 15th amendment, which made clear that the right to vote could not be denied or hampered because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The subsequent struggles led to women’s right to vote, opening the franchise to those 18 and over, and the “single most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress,” the Voting Rights Act, which protected the franchise from states with a demonstrated history of racial and linguistic discrimination.
Continue reading...After losing the race for Georgia governor in 2018, Stacey Abrams will lead a nationwide voting rights campaign. Her goal is to export lessons she learned fighting voter suppression in Georgia, and to mobilize a base of progressives and marginalized communities to help Democrats win the White House in 2020
Continue reading...Hand-marked paper ballots are widely seen as most secure, but advocates say voting machines are best for disabled access
Russian attacks on American democracy in 2016, carried out over the internet, have triggered a national debate over the use of technology in the United States’ upcoming 2020 elections.
But some of the best ways to beef up the security of the voting process and fight off future cyber-attacks could have an unintended consequence: limiting access to the vote for people with disabilities.
Continue reading...