States won by Dems in November pass laws to ease voting
ATLANTA — New York voters for years have experienced some of the longest wait times in the nation on Election Day. Attempts to fix the problem routinely became casualties of the divided politics of the Legislature.
That dynamic changed last November, when Democrats won majorities in both legislative chambers, and it didn’t take them long to act.
Just weeks into this year’s legislative session, they passed a bill to allow early voting, and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo promptly signed it.
“Early voting is going to make a significant difference for countless numbers of New Yorkers by making polling places so much more accessible and allow voters to determine when it is most convenient for them,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York.
New York is among a small number of states where Democrats made big gains in last year’s election and have used that power to pass laws to make it easier to register and to vote. They have introduced early voting, all-mail voting or automatic registration.
A few Republican-led states — some of which saw high turnout for Democratic candidates — are going in the opposite direction, advancing bills to tighten voter registration and early voting.
“Some of this seems like a fairly direct response to things that happened in the midterms,” said Max Feldman, who tracks voting laws at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law.
In New Mexico, Democrats not only expanded their majority in the state House but also claimed the governor’s mansion after eight years of GOP control. By March, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had signed a law to allow people to register and vote on the same day beginning in 2021.
Hawaii lawmakers approved legislation replacing the in-person voting system with one made up entirely of mailed ballots. If the measure is signed into law, the state will join Colorado, Oregon and Washington with mail-only voting. Delaware approved in-person early voting beginning in 2022.
While bills increasing voter access this year far outnumbered those seeking to impose restrictions, many of the expansion bills were put forward by Democratic lawmakers in states led by Republicans and are unlikely pass.
While some voting reforms have drawn bipartisan support, Republicans generally have opposed same-day registration, mail-only voting and other changes, saying they increase the potential for fraud.
In Connecticut, Republicans recently thwarted a push by Democrats to add in-person early voting. Democrats have a legislative majority there, but a constitutional amendment is required to make the change, and they fell short of the votes necessary to put the issue on the ballot.
GOP lawmakers in some states also have targeted groups that register voters. They say such groups can create a burden for local election officials if they turn in large numbers of forms that are incomplete or contain false information.
In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed a law that allows for fines against groups turning in 100 or more incomplete registration forms in a year.
“This bill was presented because of actual circumstances that were meant to confuse the integrity, or to create a lack of integrity, in the voting process,” Lee said.
In Texas, lawmakers considered a bill that would make it a felony rather than a misdemeanor to knowingly put false information on a voter registration form. It would also increase scrutiny of those who provide transportation for voters headed to the polls. The legislation passed in the Senate but stalled in the House.