Sounding the alarm
As the US goes to the polls, some experts are sounding the alarm about the significant hurdles to conducting safe and secure elections. In addition to rampant misinformation, voters may face threats to election sites, while new state voting laws could hinder their participation.
With the Presidential elections less than a week away, top national and local election experts at an Oct. 18 Ethnic Media Services briefing delved into the importance of secure and accessible voting. Panelists discussed voter registration, new state voting laws, and election security threats, as well as how to ensure that all eligible voters are registered, able to vote, and have accurate and thorough information to make their voices count.
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Why voting matters
Voting has an important role in empowering better representation, fulfilling a civic duty, and shaping the direction of the country, emphasized Celina Stewart, CEO, the League of Women Voters of the United States.
“It’s just a really powerful way to express our opinions about the world and who represents us in government.”
She explained that local elections have a significant impact on the daily lives of communities on issues like healthcare, jobs, and climate change. Referring to the two hurricanes that slammed Florida in October, she pointed out that when voters choose their leaders, “We’re really choosing the people who will make decisions in moments like that, and especially as things take shape in the direction of the country and our communities.”
Voting is a way to protect the future of the next generation added Stewart. “Voting has never just been about the individual in my family or in my community. It’s always voting on behalf of the folks in my family who are not enfranchised to vote for whatever reason that may be, but also just to ensure that my nieces and nephews, people coming after me, that I’m voting in ways that protect their futures as well.”
One way to ensure informed voting was to use resources like an innovative tool launched by the League of Women Voters to provide campaign finance information about the financial backers of federal candidates. Armed with non-partisan insights, voters “can see more transparency around where who’s funding certain candidates and the election,” said Stewart. Voters could vote with confidence knowing what’s on their ballot, the source or influence of campaign donors in shaping a candidate’s policies, how candidates are aligning around issues, and choose who best represents their interests. The League of Women Voters has also created voter guides and held forums where voters could ask questions directly of candidates. Stewart also gave a shout-out to the Democracy Truth Project created to combat misinformation and restore trust in the electoral process.
“Elections are our chance to stand up for what matters most (to) us.”
Threat of anti-immigrant sentiment
In Arizona, NHPI for Equity was investing in cross-racial collaboration to promote voter education and combat misinformation said May Tiwamangkala, Democracy Defender Director, Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander for Equity. They sent out mailers, used digital ads, as well as canvassed, knocked door-to-door, and held phone and text banking to increase civic engagement within Arizona’s AAPI communities. Her organization was battling two voter suppression laws that could disenfranchise voters – one requiring more proof of citizenship to register to vote, and the second giving county recorders the right to suspect voters of being non-citizens and purge voter rolls.
“In Arizona anti-immigrant narrative is running rampant, making it easier for lawmakers to pass laws that target immigrant communities,” she added. Arizona also has one of the least accessible rights restoration processes in the nation, “so some of these voters will be disenfranchised and lose their voting rights for the rest of their lives.”
Tiwamangkala urged communities to be courageous in overcoming voter apathy and the existing anti-immigrant narrative in her polarized border state.
Threat of political violence
“American political violence I believe that’s the greatest danger to our democracy,” said Robert A. Pape, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, who’s been studying political violence for over 30 years.
He warned of a historic rise in acts of political violence against ethnic groups, members of Congress, and election workers. The politically motivated shootings in El Paso (2019) and Buffalo (2022) said Pape, were manifestations of the far-right wing conspiracy theory called the great replacement, which motivated shooters trying to halt the replacement of white populations in the country by other ethnic groups. He also referred to assassination attempts made on Nancy Pelosi, Barrack Obama, and Donald Trump. A 20-year study that began in 2001 found that “prosecuted threats by the Department of Justice spiked up fivefold on an annual basis, starting with the first year of the Trump presidency, and has stayed high with every year since.”
We are in a “historically high period” of political violence warned Pape; experts have noted a significant degree of public support for political violence, prompting “volatile individuals who can be nudged and believe their acts will be popular,” with some even planning to live stream their attacks.
Respondents to a survey by the University of Chicago revealed significant support for political violence among Trump supporters if he lost the election; those who believed in the replacement theory were four times more likely to support force to restore Trump to the presidency.
While anticipating threats to election workers on election day, warned Pape, “It actually gets worse after that point,” due to counting and certification schedules at state levels, and in particular, at ballot tabulation centers. Violence could focus simply on ballot destruction “We could have very close elections in, say, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, where the destruction of even, say, three or 5% of those ballots would really throw this into chaos for real,” said Pape.
Threat of restrictive voting laws
Restrictive voting laws significantly negatively impact voters, said Andrew Garber, Counsel, Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. The Center tracks every voting-related bill in all 50 legislatures nationwide to understand how voting laws are changing. The Voting Laws Roundup examines how those changes impact individual voters and communities. In the last election cycle said Garber, at least 30 states passed 78 restrictive voting laws that make it harder to vote, the most common type of restriction targeting mail voting. “The ways these voting restrictions usually pile up, they create a vicious cycle that can prevent some people from voting.”
Restrictions tend to impact communities of color. In Georgia for instance, vote-by-mail rates among voters of color rose in the 2020 election noted Garber. When the Georgia legislature reconvened in January 2021, it prioritized the passage of a law that made it harder to vote, especially by mail. In prior generations, voter suppression was more overt said Garber, “but states today are a little bit craftier,” in preventing people from voting.
Voter suppression tactics can range from shortening the window to request a mail ballot, making it harder to get assistance voting a mail ballot, closing some early voting centers, and less staff at the polling stations so in-person voters on election day face longer lines. “That particularly falls on low-income voters,… voters with disabilities, older voters,” and people with family care responsibilities, or trouble accessing polling centers, added Garber.
He also warned of restrictions that made voter registration challenging. This was evidenced by state laws making it harder for organizations to help people register to vote, making get-out-the-vote drives more challenging, shortened deadlines, restrictions on the ability of election officials to implement helpful policies at a local level, basically tying the hands of your local election administrators, and attacks on in day polling places.
Ever since the Brennan Center began tracking restrictions, “2024 has the second most restrictive voting laws passed of any year going back over a decade,” added Garber.
On a more positive note, at least 41 states have passed 168 laws to make it easier to vote, providing information, for example, to update registrations, automatically register to vote, and vote by mail. Some states have focused on enabling certain communities in the voting process – recent laws in New Mexico and Nevada now ensure that Native American voters can access the ballot.
Garber urged people to make a plan to vote by checking their registration, identifying their options (in-person, early, or mail-in), and verifying their polling centers, deadlines, and transportation.
He praised election officials across the country who are doing great community service running the elections but warned that it has not stopped some leaders from spreading disinformation, making false claims about widespread fraud. The Brennan Center found a strong correlation between these legislators who in 2021 introduced restrictive voting bills he added.
“It’s important that we all as citizens have a clear understanding of how our elections work and what the truth is,” said Garber.
