In November 2020, young voters exercised their electoral power by turning out in record numbers to help Democrats win the White House and other key races. In 2021, however, an onslaught of voter suppression measures being enacted in statehouses could have an outsized impact on those young people, according to voting rights advocates.
“We’ve seen some pretty concerted efforts to push back against that new engagement from young voters,” says attorney Sean Morales-Doyle, acting director for Voting Rights and Elections at the Brennan Center for Justice.
The Brennan Center has reported that so far this year at least 18 states have enacted 30 laws to make it harder to vote, and more than 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in state legislatures.
Advocates say the increasingly burdensome requirements pose challenges for young people who are newer to electoral participation. Some of them, including college students, may not live in the place where they are registered to vote, making them especially vulnerable to new rules around residence requirements, forms of ID, mail […]
Voter “turn out” (in person) is a good thing. Door to door Harvesting of unverified mail in ballots is a bad thing. Absentee ballots by request are fine. Mass mailing to everyone and anyone is NOT! So is accepting and “counting” votes received after a well established “cut off” time. Also bad is partisan sequestered “counting” without observation by representatives of both major parties. Also bad is partisan suppression of verification and audits of close races.
Hi Tom, I agree with some of your comments. One ai don’t agree with is your “counting” comment. In many states, mine included—by law—the counting of mail-in ballots may not begin until the polls close on Election Day. For example, I mailed my absentee ballot on October 10th, but it would not have been counted until sometime after 7 PM on Election Day itself. This is the law for my state and for many states. As for mailing out absentee ballots, that is the law for some states: everyone in those states votes absentee. It’s worked for them in years past; that’s their law.
Interesting, Stephan! I didn’t know that Texas accepts a gun owner’s card but does not accept a student ID for voting. Pathetic!