Election Day, November 8, 2022

If you haven’t already voted by mail, go to your local polling place. If you recieved a mail-in ballot but didn’t get around to sending it in yet, go to your state election board website to check the rules; see if you can mail it at a post office (to get today’s postmark) or put in a ballot dropbox near you. 22 states will accept mail-in ballots postmarked by today. Later, you’ll be able to track your mail-in or provisional ballot.

This is not a test. It counts. Vote.

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The suffrage movement didn’t protect all women’s right to vote

The 1920 legislation enfranchised all American women, but Black women still faced racial discrimination when registering to vote and going to the polls. It wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that this type of racial discrimination was prohibited by federal law. Historians Martha S. Jones and Daina Ramey Berry reflect on what the 19th Amendment means for Black American women. A Vox video.

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Will More Restrictive Voting Laws Benefit the GOP?

Republican-controlled state governments are passing more restrictive voting laws, trying to get an election edge for GOP candidates. Will their ploy work? Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight explores. Nice hat, Nate.

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Georgia’s New Jim Crow

Republican Governor Brian Kemp, elected in 2018 after suppressing Georgia’s Black vote, has signed a new voter suppression bill into law. Georgia’s S.B. 202 bans mobile voting, limits secure drop boxes, and prohibits volunteers from giving water to Georgia voters waiting in the long voting lines typical of the state’s black neighborhoods. It cuts the time window when voters can request a mail-in ballot by half, and absentee ballots will now be mailed out three weeks later than before. S.B. 202 also allows the State Board of Elections to overide county election boards and replace them with state-appointed administrators.

The NAACP and ACLU, understandably, have challenged the new law in court as a violation of the First, Second, and Fifteenth Amendments, and the Voting Rights Act. Who else is against the law? Georgia’s biggest employers, including Coca Cola, Home Depot, AFLAC, Delta Airlines and Tyler Perry Studios.

More:

“’Jim Crow In a Suit and Tie’: Georgia Passes Massive Voter Suppression Bill,” Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair

“72 Black executives call on corporate America to fight voting restrictions,” Shawna Chen, Axios

“Georgia-based companies face boycott calls over voting bill,” Chris Isidore, CNN Business

“MLBPA open to discussing moving 2021 MLB All-Star Game from Atlanta after new voting laws pass in the state,” R.J. Anderson, CBS Sports

“Black voter says a painting at Georgia governor’s voter bill signing shows the plantation where her family worked for generations,” Natasha Chen and Theresa Waldrop, CNN

Updates:

“MLB will move its All-Star Game out of Atlanta as backlash to Georgia voting law continues,” Chelsea Janes, Washington Post

“What Georgia’s Voting Law Really Does,” Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein, New York Times

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Reconstruction: The Vote

After the Civil War, Black men were given the right to vote, and more than 2,000 Black office holders were serving at every level of America’s political system. Briefly.

Narrated by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, from Black History in 2 Minutes (Or So).

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Election Day, Novermber 3, 2020

We hope you’ve already voted safely by mail. If you recieved a mail-in ballot but didn’t get around to sending it in, go to your state election board website, and find a ballot dropbox near you. No ballot? Mask up, observe social distancing, and go to your local polling place.

This is not a test. Vote.

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com.

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Voting by mail could save the US election

Sending voters to polling places during the coronavirus pandemic in November would endanger both the election and the electorate. Voters shouldn’t have to risk their lives to perform their civic duty. They don’t have to. Americans have long voted through the mail. It’s safe, simple, and secure.

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Wisconsin: Voter Suppression by Germ Warfare

Wisconsin’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order went into effect on March 25th, and the governor tried to delay in-person voting until June, but the state’s Republican-majority legislature, in a session attended by only 2 members, convened for 17 seconds to force voting in person on April 7th, pandemic be damned. The Republican-dominated State Supreme Court voted to overturn the governor’s delay order, and a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision backed that up.

Thus, on April 7th, the GOP compelled a death march of Wisconsin voters to polling places in the middle of the US coronavirus outbreak. Poll workers, largely elderly and at risk of COVID-19, stayed away, reducing the number of polling places and causing hours-long lines of masked voters in the few that were open. Many voters who requested absentee ballots did not receive them before election day.

Why this unseemly, unhealthy haste? It is a truth universally acknowledged that Republicans must be in want of low voter turnout to continue their gerrymandered stranglehold on the Nation’s body politic. If a pandemic can help them, they’re okay with that. Wisconsin votes will be tallied today, April 13th. Perhaps “I Voted” stickers will get civic-minded victims priority in the state’s ICUs.

Due to the pandemic, many states are transitioning to vote-by-mail systems. Republicans are against it, including President Trump, who recently voted by mail.

More:

“Wisconsin: the state where American democracy went to die,” Sam Levine, The Guardian

“The Wisconsin GOP Is Risking Voters’ Lives to Protect Its Minority Rule,” Eric Levitz, New York Magazine

“Wisconsin tracking potential spread of coronavirus from Tuesday’s election,” J. Edward Moreno, The Hill

“Wisconsin health officials step up efforts to track coronavirus exposure from primary election,” Quint Forgey, Politico

“Gerrymandering Meets the Coronavirus in Wisconsin,” Michael Li, Brennan Center

“How Wisconsin’s election disenfranchised voters,” Ella Nilsen and Li Zhou, Vox

Related:

“Trump says Republicans would ‘never’ be elected again if it was easier to vote,” Sam Levine, The Guardian

“Trump Wants 50 Wisconsins on Election Day,” Jamelle Bouie, New York Times

“Republicans Could Use the Coronavirus to Suppress Votes Across the Country. This Week We Got a Preview,” Carol Anderson, Time

Update:

“Thousands of Wisconsin ballots could be thrown out because they don’t have a postmark,” Ian Millhiser, Vox

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Voter Purge

Why American voter registrations are disappearing,  and how to avoid the purge. A Vox video by Ranjani Chakraborty and Mallory Brangan.

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Channel Hopping

“It seems our desire for instant gratification has conquered politics. Voters are channel-hopping, snacking on ideologies and political styles, moving on as soon as they’re bored. In that light, Donald Trump is a political genius: His slippery, shifting positions on just about everything command attention and perfectly reflect the restless mood of the times. People are eager for something—anything—different, and damn any concerns about consistency.”

— Jason Karaian, Quartz

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.