Can new unnecessary voting hurdles be overcome?
Despite a new law making it more difficult to vote, Georgia had a record early turnout for its Tuesday primary.
In Texas, another state with tightened ballot rules, the March primary resulted in an extraordinary number of rejected mail-in ballots. That’s just what Democratic leaders said would happen as such laws were passed in states controlled by Republicans.
While more ballots were disqualified in the Texas Democratic primary, a large number of Republican primary ballots were disallowed as well.
As state primaries roll on and the election year heads toward November, it’s not clear what effect the more stringent voting laws are having on results. They do make it harder to cast ballots and easier for voters to make mistakes. But there are some signs that adjustments in get-out-the-vote operations and elections procedures may offset that.
It bears repeating that these laws were enacted in Republican-controlled states to address a problem that didn’t exist — widespread voting fraud.
The restrictions were triggered by the claim from former President Donald Trump and his supporters that fraud cost him the 2020 election. There have been multiple election audits, recounts, reviews and lawsuits, and none came close to substantiating his accusation.
It’s not just that evidence was lacking. The Associated Press conducted an investigation that disproved the accusation. Late last year, AP reported that it reviewed every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by Trump and found fewer than 475 potentially fraudulent votes, “a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election.”
One of the legacies of Trump’s claim, in addition to attempts to overturn President Joe Biden’s legitimate election, are new voting standards in numerous states. Republicans who passed them said the new rules will make it harder for fraud to take place, while Democrats contend the laws are aimed at suppressing their voters.
Republicans in Georgia pointed to the early turnout and insisted Democrats were crying wolf to scare and mobilize their base. Democrats said that it takes extra efforts to overcome the unnecessary hurdles.
The Washington Post noted that in Spalding County, Ga., election officials eliminated early voting on Sundays. That had been the day predominantly Black churches held getout-the-vote drives after religious services and Democrats blamed the change on the new state law, which allows but does not require voting on Sundays. Meanwhile, activists this year shifted the “Souls to Polls” effort to Saturdays, with apparent success.
That wasn’t the only example of voters from both parties being engaged.
“By the end of Friday, the final day of early in-person voting, nearly 800,000 Georgians had cast ballots — more than three times the number in 2018, and higher even than in 2020, a presidential election year,” according to the Post.
Like other states, Georgia’s law added identification requirements to cast ballots by mail and limited the use of drop boxes for
further,” Mougin said.
Scooter critics, including a grassroots group of residents called Safe Walkways, praised the city’s crackdown.
“We as a group are delighted,” said Jonathan Freeman, a leader of Safe Walkways. “It puts into place many of the things we’ve advocated for over years.”
Freeman, however, said some of the rules don’t go quite far enough. The new rules ban scooter usage between midnight and 2:30 a.m., but Freeman said a ban from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. would more effectively prevent drunken scooter usage.
Officials from scooter companies also praised the rules and vowed to prioritize self-enforcement.
“Spin believes accountability is key,” said Spin Marshall Anderson. “These provisions before you today will help restore the public’s trust that all operators will follow the rules.”
Robert Freeman of Lime said his company already made most of the changes the city is requiring when it resumed operating in San Diego last October. Scooter usage has sharply increased in recent months after a pandemic lull.
The new rules also extend city enforcement for the first time to electronic bikes, another new form of transportation that is quickly gaining popularity — especially in the city’s urban and beach neighborhoods.
The city’s most recent round of scooter permits will expire in July, allowing the city to move forward with only four operators starting this summer. The companies will be required to have a fleet including both scooters and e-bikes.
Current companies operating in San Diego are Bird, Lime, Link, Spin, Lyft, Wheels and VeoRide. City officials said they plan to announce which four companies will continue working with the city soon.
The city is shifting its operating model from permitbased to a request-for-proposals model, which allows the city to make more demands of operators. The model also shrinks the maximum number of scooters allowed in the city from 11,000 to 8,000.
The annual fee paid by each operator will increase from $5,141 to $20,000. Operators will pay 75 cents per day for each scooter — instead of an annual fee of $67.50 per scooter.
Companies would be more accountable for bad behavior by scooter riders and be required to give the city more data for compliance and enforcement efspokesman forts. Geofencing, a technology that physically prevents scooters from going into prohibited areas, will be key to limiting scooter mischief, city officials said.
The new rules reduce from three hours to one hour how quickly operators must respond to complaints about scooters submitted to the city’s Get it Done! tipster app. Scanning of driver’s licenses is required to prevent usage by underage riders, and each rider must read rules regarding usage, parking and geofencing.
Operators can no longer cluster more than four scooters together and scooters must be parked in citypainted corrals. But e-bikes and other dockless bikes can use public bike racks. Operators also can no longer increase the number of scooters for special events, such as Comic-Con.