Keep an eye on these fights over who can vote and how in key states

By CNN Newsource

Published August 27, 2024 4:48 PM

Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

(CNN) — If 2024 is anything like 2020 or 2016, the presidential election will be decided by relatively small margins in a handful of states.

That means some local battles scattered across the country could have national importance.

Here’s a round-up of some recent CNN reports, something we’ll do again as we get closer to Election Day.

In Georgia, Democrats are suing to stop new election certification rules

This is an ongoing story that has seen normally run-of-the mill meetings of the Georgia State Election Board turn into packed affairs featuring supporters of former President Donald Trump dressed in their MAGA attire.

The state election board recently passed two rules that, according to CNN’s report by Fredreka Schouten and Tierney Sneed, allow election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying election results and permit members of county election boards to investigate ballot counts.

The Democratic National Committee, the Georgia Democratic Party and Democratic members of several county election boards, backed by the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, have argued in court that the rules could lead to post-election “chaos” if local officials refuse to certify elections. The Democrats want the state court to clarify that local officials can’t delay certification of election results without a court order.

In Arizona, proof of citizenship is currently required to register to vote

The US Supreme Court gave Arizona Republicans a partial win last week when it allowed part of a new voter ID law to stand, at least for now. People who newly register to vote in Arizona using a state form will now have to prove their citizenship, but people who are already registered will not have to prove citizenship to vote in the coming presidential election.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, joined with the three liberals on the court in saying they would have blocked all of the new proof-of-citizenship requirements from taking effect.

CNN’s John Fritze writes that the decision is scrambling the so-called Purcell principle, the 2006 precedent that “warns federal courts to avoid making last minute changes to the status quo of voting rules before an election.” Read more from Fritze.

In North Carolina, there are new rules for voting by mail

County election boards in the Tar Heel state begin sending out the first absentee ballots of the 2024 general election on September 6.

CNN’s Dianne Gallagher, who is among the reporters tracking voting access, told me there are some changes in place that could surprise people who voted by mail in 2020. Now in North Carolina, people voting by mail will have to include a photocopy of a photo ID and fill out their ballot in the presence of either two witnesses or a notary public.

Voting laws routinely change, and that’s been the case across the country since 2020, when many rules were temporarily changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. In many states controlled by Democrats, including the key states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, access to mail-in ballots has been expanded. In other states, many of them controlled by Republicans, absentee voting has been made more difficult. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University publishes periodic reports on these changes.

Schouten wrote back in May that new laws will make it more difficult to vote in more than half of states this year.

In Texas, there is outcry over home searches tied to a voter fraud probe

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton conducted raids on homes in three Texas counties last week as part of an “election integrity” probe dating back to 2022.

This week, the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, filed a complaint with the Department of Justice over the raids, which its leaders said constitute “a direct attempt to suppress the Latino vote through intimidation and harassment, in violation of the Voting Rights Act and other federal civil rights law.” The advocacy group says the homes were of Democratic activists and leaders.

There’s a coordinated effort by activists to purge or ‘clean’ voter rolls

The CNN Investigates team reported last month about a coordinated effort by the conservative nonprofit group True the Vote to enlist thousands of volunteers on an app to challenge the voter registration of more than half a million people nationwide.

From CNN’s report:

The True the Vote effort is not the only one. There is also a Georgia-focused effort to help activist citizens challenge the registrations of their neighbors. That effort, driven by artificial intelligence that gathers information on voters, is called EagleAI NETwork. It’s been the subject of concern for Brennan, among others.

There is a single case of alleged double voting

There was an interesting development last week out of Georgia when the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the prosecution of a single person for voting in both Arizona and Georgia in 2022.

Rather than evidence of widespread voter fraud, for which there is none, the case could end up being an example of an interstate database of voter registrations working.

Allegations – and even convictions – of double voting are rare but not unheard of.

The interstate database is known as ERIC, short for the Electronic Registration Information Center. It used to have cooperation from a majority of US states, which confidentially share voter information to avoid improperly removing people from voter rolls. But multiple Republican-led states have pulled out of the consortium.

Gallagher told me that Trump and others complained about ERIC. In addition to helping states identify when a voter might be registered in multiple places, it also requires outreach to voters encouraging them to register to vote – which some conservatives see as a partisan act.

A note from Mark Zuckerberg on election integrity

The foundation of ERIC was spearheaded by David Becker, then at the Pew Charitable Trusts. Since then, Becker founded the Center for Election Innovation and Research, which advertises itself as a nonpartisan group and focuses on protecting election workers from harassment, among other things.

Coincidentally, in a sign that election integrity is turning into a partisan term, CEIR was among the groups in 2020 that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave several hundred million dollars in an effort to promote “safe and reliable” voting during the pandemic.

“The idea here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a pandemic,” he said in a letter sent to House Republicans.

But he won’t be making any more such donations, Zuckerberg said. Even though he argued the donations were spread across the country and benefited neither party, he does not want to even appear to be helping one side more than another.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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