Local election administrators have new guidance from Wisconsin's highest court on alternative early voting sites. A political expert says the timing is important for the battleground state ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a ruling this week that bans the use of "mobile voting sites." That outcome is seen as a victory for conservatives challenging such options, but separately, the court kept in place rules that allow clerks to choose other alternative sites for absentee voting.
University of Wisconsin political science professor Barry Burden said that means these officials will still have flexibility as they sort out logistics.
"They face a lot of difficulties trying to find sites that are available," he said. "They're often repurposing a church or a school or a community building."
With the Supreme Court pausing a lower court's ruling that heavily restricted these other sites, Burden said clerks won't have added confusion as they meet deadlines for this year's election. The case has to do with the interpretation of state law that prohibits alternative sites from being set up in areas that could give one political party an advantage over another.
Burden and other political observers still expect the Wisconsin Supreme Court to issue a ruling soon about the banning of ballot dropboxes.
"The Supreme Court has considered a new case that would allow them again," he said, "and there's a new liberal majority that seems more inclined to permit those again, as they were used in 2020."
After the 2020 election, Wisconsin was one of the states embroiled in the "fake elector" scheme tied to supporters of former President Donald Trump. Even though Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee in this year's race, Burden doesn't predict the same fallout. He noted there are new guardrails, including updates to the federal Electoral Count Act, but he acknowledged there still could be lawsuits and protests in Wisconsin.
Support for this reporting was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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On the heels of its primary election, North Dakota has received a "fair" grade in an annual report examining voting laws for each state.
The Movement Advancement Project's analysis gives North Dakota high marks for policies such as voting rights for formerly incarcerated individuals and having an adequate early voting period.
Not having paid time off for voting and not requiring a postelection audit are among factors weighing down the grade.
Brian Hinkle, senior voting policy researcher for the project, also noted North Dakota is part of the wave of conservative-led legislatures to ban private grants for election administration.
"While there are reasonable arguments that elections are a public function, and therefore should be funded by the government, the reality is that states and local election offices still have to rely on inconsistent and limited federal funding," Hinkle pointed out. "These funding gaps are likely to persist."
Hinkle echoed other experts who said misinformation about voter fraud has played a role in scaling back funding sources. He warned while local offices still carry out fair elections, aging voting equipment and other constraints take their toll, which creates ripple effects, such as longer wait times at polling sites and vulnerability in protecting against foreign interference.
Nationally, Hinkle noted the project's latest report showed since 2020, 18 states have taken steps to expand voting access, while nearly half of the states have enacted tighter restrictions.
"I think it's evident that the continued polarization of states and the divergence highlighted in this report has the potential to sow confusion among voters and lead to potential disenfranchisement," Hinkle emphasized. "Particularly for marginalized groups, who already face barriers to the ballot box."
The project cited a lack of voter protections for North Dakota's Native populations. The state's long-debated Voter ID law is often described as an obstacle for tribal areas during elections.
Meanwhile, with the 2024 presidential election coming up, Hinkle predicted state legislatures will be very active early next year in updating voting policies based on any fallout, as there was after the 2020 vote.
Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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After a recent flurry of claims that Democrats are allowing immigrants into the country illegally in order to register them to vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, good-governance groups are crying "disinformation."
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said these claims are not only untrue, but could plant potentially dangerous seeds of doubt among some voters about the legitimacy of November's election results.
"Non-citizens are already not legally allowed to vote in federal elections. This has been the case throughout American history and was codified into American law in 1996," he explained.
House Republicans have introduced new legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote after claims that a skyrocketing number of new voters are registering without a photo identification in key swing states. But election officials in states including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Texas have debunked those claims.
Becker said while each state manages its own elections locally, the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 already requires valid forms of identification before people can be registered to vote anywhere in the United States.
"Either a driver's license number or a Social Security number, which gets matched back to your voter record. So you don't get to be registered and cast a ballot unless you provided this ID," Becker said.
Becker added that data show non-citizen voting is virtually a nonexistent phenomenon, in part because people who risked life and limb to find a better life in America know they would be immediately deported if caught. Trying to vote illegally would put a giant target on their backs.
"To cast one ballot in an election in which 160 million ballots are going to be cast, it happens exceedingly rarely, largely because the states and federal government already have really good policies in place," he said.
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As the 2024 presidential elections approach, the nonpartisan Michigan League of Women Voters is intensifying its efforts to combat disinformation through its Democracy Truth Project.
The initiative aims to equip people with tools needed to evaluate media content. The League has teamed up with the Detroit Public Library to disseminate educational resources across various platforms, including social media.
Paula Bowman, co-president of the Michigan League of Women Voters, said the group wants people to look at certain pieces of media with a critical eye.
"And know that not everything they see in print is true and correct. They do have to understand what the source is, and maybe change the source for verification of that information," Bowman said.
Bowman said the rise of AI-generated content has significantly increased uncertainties in what we read or hear, and it's more crucial than ever for people to return to trusted sources.
Bowman credits the local Detroit League of Women Voters for its partnership with the Detroit Public Library. She said the library will give monthly broadcasts on various topics related to voting.
Jennifer Dye, managing Librarian with the Detroit Public Library, said its partnership with the League makes sense.
"We're both working to inform the community. We are trying to educate people to be good citizens, essentially," Dye said.
Bowman emphasized people don't have to live in the city of Detroit to have access to this information.
"Anybody can sign on to these videos. And all the older ones, the ones previously recorded, are on their website, so they can be accessed at any time," she continued.
Bowman added the League has also pulled together experts to educate the public about issues the League doesn't necessarily hold strong positions on, such as ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference.
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