After court rulings in December struck down several states’ electoral maps, from Michigan to New York, what districts will millions of people even vote in later this year? How prepared will local election offices be after suffering harassment for years? Will the Voting Rights Act (VRA) still stand as a tool for civil rights litigation in the wake of an ominous ruling that came in late 2023? Who will even be running elections in North Carolina and Wisconsin, two swing states that are experiencing an intense power struggle?

Our team at Bolts has identified a dozen key questions that will shape voting rights and democracy this year. This is born less of a desire to be comprehensive than to offer a preliminary roadmap for our own coverage.

That’s because, while some questions that matter to 2024 will come down to federal decisions—likely starting with decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court on Donald Trump’s prosecutions and presence on the ballot, and on the VRA’s fate—a lot will hinge on the policies and politics of state and local governments: your county clerk in charge of organizing Election Day, your county board that decides where to put ballot drop boxes, your lawmakers tweaking the rules of ballot initiatives, your secretary of state wielding the power to certify results. (Be sure to explore our state-by-state resources on who runs our elections and who counts our elections.) 

These are the officials we will be tracking throughout the year to help us clarify the local landscape of voting rights and access to democracy during a critical election year. 

1. How will federal courts affect voting rights and the 2024 election?

A maelstrom of major legal cases on voting rights and the 2024 election are currently working their way through the legal system, and many are heading straight toward the nation’s highest court.

The stakes are clear in: The U.S. Supreme Court

SCOTUS is set to hear several cases that will affect one presidential candidate: Donald Trump. The first is whether Trump will be allowed to appear on the ballot in several states. Colorado’s state supreme court disqualified him from the primary ballot in late December, ruling he was ineligible due to the Fourteenth Amendment because he engaged in an insurrection on January 6. (Maine’s secretary of state came to a similar conclusion one week later.) Trump has appealed the Colorado decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, though the justices have not yet announced whether and when they will hear the cases; their ruling is likely to also shape how other states do, amid the former president’s protests that his removal would unduly disenfranchise millions. The Supreme Court could also decide at least five other cases that touch Trump, including the shape of his Atlanta trial on charges that he tried to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia.

Also keep an eye on: SCOTUS may decide any major litigation that emerges in the aftermath of the November elections. But it’s also set to consider plenty of non-Trump voting rights cases this year, including several that may further gut the VRA. One devastating blow for the landmark civil rights law may come from a case out of Arkansas, where a federal appeals court ruled that private groups and individuals cannot bring VRA challenges. If the Supreme Court upholds this ruling, legal experts say it would make the law largely unenforceable. As the VRA continues to be weakened, some states have adopted state-level voting rights acts to reinforce its principles; debate may resume in Michigan and New Jersey this year over such legislation.

Federal appeals courts have also recently rejected other VRA claims, including in a case in which civil rights groups in Georgia challenged the state’s election system for its public utility commission as racially discriminatory. If the high court upholds the ruling, it would have major implications for the statewide elected utility commission in neighboring Alabama as well.

2. How will state election maps change by November?

Nearly four years after the decennial census that kicks off redistricting, election maps across the country remain in flux, and major legal and political battles are set to unfold this year. At stake is not just who will have power in each state, but also whether people get to vote under fair maps.

The stakes are clear in: Wisconsin

Wisconsin Republicans enjoy large legislative majorities that are effectively election-proof thanks to their gerrymandered maps, but 2023 began to unravel their hold on power. Liberals flipped the state’s supreme court in April after a heated campaign during which Janet Protasiewicz, the winning candidate, called the legislative maps “rigged.” And in late December, the court issued a 4-3 ruling, with liberals in the majority, striking down the legislative maps.

But there’s still a long way to go before voters can get fairer maps in November. The court set up a process to draw new remedial maps, but left the door open for lawmakers to try first. The state’s GOP speaker has largely backed off his earlier threats to impeach Protasiewicz but still has not ruled it out. And Democratic groups must decide whether they’ll also sue over the congressional map and whether to do so in state court.

Also keep an eye on: A federal judge ordered Louisiana to draw a new congressional map by late January to stop diluting the power of Black voters, but lawmakers may stall. Michigan needs to redraw its legislative maps after another federal ruling found that 13 districts violated the Voting Rights Act. New York is also in the midst of a fresh round of congressional redistricting after Democrats won a court battle in December, though it remains to be seen whether the process ends up producing minor tweaks or an aggressive Democratic gerrymander. And from Texas to Florida, there’s still active litigation in many states alleging that maps are unlawful. 

3. How well will local election officials and offices be prepared to handle the election?

The country’s elections workforce has been decimated in the past few years, amid a deluge of threats and harassment stemming from coordinated efforts by some Republicans to attack and undermine local and state administrators, as well as funding challenges. The capacity of these local offices will now be seriously tested in 2024. 

The stakes are clear in: Nevada

Nevada has suffered acutely since 2020 from election-worker brain-drain. Not a week into 2024, these woes have already deepened: Jamie Rodriguez, the elections chief in Washoe County (Reno), the second most populous county in the state, announced her resignation on Tuesday. Rodriguez’s predecessor, Deanna Spikula, herself stepped down in 2022 after some residents smeared her as a “traitor” and threatened her office. In an interview with Bolts last year, Cisco Aguilar, Nevada’s Democratic secretary of state, warned of where he sees this all heading: “If we don’t take care of the human component,” he said, “these elections are going to be nowhere near where we want them to be or expect them to be, and that’s only going to deteriorate the credibility of elections overall.”

Also keep an eye on: Election officials have similarly resigned en masse in recent years in many states, from Colorado to Pennsylvania, leading many to worry about the amount of experience lost. And while election workers are crucial, so is election infrastructure. Aging voting equipment presents a projected multi-billion-dollar problem. Look to Louisiana, for example, to see why this is worth worrying about: That state’s voting machines are nearly 20 years old. They break down often and, when they do, elections administrators struggle to obtain the parts to fix them. One local elections chief told Bolts her office is “barely hanging on”— a statement many of her counterparts around the country have echoed.

4. Who will actually run the 2024 elections?

It’s tough enough for election offices to prepare for the 2024 cycle amid all the personal overhaul they’ve experienced since 2024. But in some of the nation’s most important battleground states, election rules and administrators are in limbo going into this critical year. 

The stakes are clear in: Wisconsin

Wisconsin Election Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe became a target for right-wing conspiracists in the wake of the 2020 election, and GOP lawmakers resolved to oust her last year. After a complicated set of maneuvers, Senate Republicans voted to remove her from the position in September, but a judge later ruled that vote had no legal effect for now. Wolfe has not stepped down from her position even though her term has technically expired. This political and legal imbroglio has created huge uncertainty over who will actually administer Wisconsin’s elections this year. Adding to the limbo: Wisconsinites in April will elect some of the local officials who will then run the state’s August and November elections. 

Also keep an eye on: North Carolina Republicans were primed to oust the director of the state’s State Elections Board, Karen Brinson Bell, thanks to a new law they passed last year. The law changed the structure of the board so that it no longer has a Democratic majority, instead creating an even split between parties, and it entrusted the GOP legislature with resolving ties; this would likely set up Republicans to oust Bell and usher in new leadership. But a state court in late November blocked the law in a preliminary ruling, a legal dispute set to resolve this year. 

5. What happens if any election officials try to stall or halt certification?

After losing the 2020 presidential race, Donald Trump asked state and local officials to stall or stop the election’s certification, hoping to overturn state results and convince his congressional allies to accept his slates of fake electors. If Trump loses the presidential race again this fall and repeats that strategy, would he find allies who are willing to disrupt the process and have the authority to stop it? Be sure to bookmark our nationwide resource on who counts elections since answering this difficult question requires a keen understanding of the mechanisms of power in every state, which Bolts will track throughout 2024. 

The stakes are clear in: Michigan

The recent revelation by the Detroit News that Trump personally pressured members of the Wayne County (Detroit) Board of Canvassers in 2020 was no surprise given what was already known of his actions that year. But it was a reminder of the critical role these local bodies play in Michigan: Boards of canvassers are divided equally between parties, which leaves Democrats particularly vulnerable to shenanigans in a populous stronghold like Wayne. 

Since 2020, the Michigan GOP has replaced their local election officials with people who have defended subverting elections. Republicans on the statewide board of canvassers have also shown they’re willing to go along with such maneuvers. Still, Michigan has new legal standards clarifying that canvassers lack the discretion to reject valid results; in 2022, Democrats defended their majority on the state supreme court, the body that would be called on to enforce such standards.

Also keep an eye on: Election deniers lost most of their bids to take power in swing states in 2022, but there are plenty of other spots to watch. Officials with a history of delaying election certification won reelection last year in Pennsylvania, though Democrats solidified their hold on the state’s supreme court. Trump allies will run local election offices in swing states such as Arizona and Georgia, heightening the potential for havoc. And a fake Trump elector from 2020 has a seat on the Wisconsin Election Commission, the body that runs elections in a key battleground state.

6. How easy will it be for voters to vote by mail?

If you want to vote by mail in this year’s elections, will you need to provide an excuse to get an absentee ballot? Will you have easy access to a drop box to drop off your ballot? What are the odds your mail ballot gets tossed on a technicality? That all depends on your state, the bills your lawmakers are crafting, and may even hinge on the decisions of your local government. 

The stakes are clear in: Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has one of the nation’s most decentralized systems when it comes to mail voting procedures. As Bolts reported this fall, county officials there have a startling amount of discretion on how to deal with deficient ballots, whether to install drop boxes, and even whether to have armed law enforcement guarding them. Democratic wins in November’s local elections are likely to preserve the status quo in the most populous counties. But democracy advocates are pushing for better procedures on how voters can fix mistakes, and more robust requirements for drop boxes; they’ll be waging this battle both statewide and county by county throughout 2024.

Also keep an eye on: Since the 2020 presidential race saw an explosion of mail voting during the pandemic, many states have revised their rules—some to make it harder, others to expand its availability. The 2024 cycle will be the biggest test yet for how these laws impact turnout. For instance, Democrats in Michigan this year passed new laws that make it easier to vote by mail and set new requirements for drop boxes. Inversely, Georgia Republicans’ restrictions on mail voting, adopted in 2021, just survived their latest court challenge in October. In Mississippi, a new state law that criminalizes helping people with absentee voting is currently blocked by a federal court ruling. Meanwhile in Wisconsin, Democrats are hoping that their new majority on the state supreme court enables voters to use ballot drop boxes, a practice the state disallowed in 2022.

7. Will more states ease voter registration?

By requiring citizens to register to vote, states have erected a barrier between voters and the act of voting. But some have pushed boundaries in recent years, finding ways of shifting the burden of registration onto the state or eliminating unnecessary deadlines or paperwork, with some proposals questioning whether we need registration at all. This will be another critical year to watch how states ease or curtail access to this fundamental right.

The stakes are clear in: New Jersey

Almost half of states allow voters to register on the day of an election—a major convenience for any of the countless people in those states who may otherwise have missed a deadline. Liberal as it is, New Jersey is not among the states with this option, mainly because of opposition from its Democratic state Senate president. The state is weighing the policy afresh this year.

Also keep an eye on: Oregon and Colorado have been badgering the Biden administration for years to allow states to automatically register people to vote when they sign-up for Medicaid; if the feds acted on this,  hundreds of thousands of people would be registered to vote. Other states are considering new laws that would set up or expand automatic voter registration, including applying it to new state agencies, including Ohio, where organizers are pushing for a November initiative; and California, where proposed legislation would likely end up with more people on voter rolls; as well as Maryland and New Jersey, where progressives hope to copy Michigan’s recent first-in-the-nation move to automatically register people to vote as they exit prison.

8. How will states keep changing felony disenfranchisement laws? 

Each state sets its own laws governing whether—and to what extent—people with previous felony convictions lose voting rights, and the national landscape on this front is ever-changing; 2023 alone saw landmark voting rights restoration in New Mexico and Minnesota, plus dramatic rollbacks in Virginia and Tennessee. The United States has long stood out among democracies worldwide for how aggressively it denies voting rights to people with criminal records, and that won’t change in 2024: an estimated 4 million citizens will be blocked from the ballot, but upcoming legal cases and political decisions could affect that number.

The stakes are clear in: Mississippi

A panel of judges on the federal Fifth Circuit appeals court issued a shock decision last summer that struck down Mississippi’s extraordinarily harsh disenfranchisement rules, which strip hundreds of thousands of people of their voting rights for life. (An estimated 11 percent of the state’s adult population can’t vote, currently a national record.) But when the state appealed that panel ruling, the full Fifth Circuit agreed to reconsider it, voiding the prior decision and setting up a major legal showdown this year. If plaintiffs win again, it would bring about one of the most significant expansions of the franchise in a given state in recent history. But don’t bank on that, as voting rights advocates have been bracing for defeat.

The stakes are also clear in: Virginia

Virginia Democrats have been sharply critical of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s 2023 decision to reverse his predecessors’ policy of automatically restoring people’s voting rights. Having just seized control of the legislature, they say they’ll now look to bypass Youngkin by referring to voters a constitutional amendment to remove rights restoration power from the governor’s office. That process would take multiple years to reach the ballot, though.

Also keep an eye on: Progressives in California, Massachusetts, and Oregon hope to go further and altogether eliminate felony disenfranchisement this session, enabling anyone to vote from prison. (This is already law in Maine, Vermont, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.). Inversely, Tennessee stepped up restrictions on rights restoration in 2023, and now requires people to pay new application fees; 2024 will be the new system’s first major test.

9. Will sheriffs, prosecutors and other law enforcement officials step up policing and intimidation around elections?  

Trump’s lies about the 2020 election inspired right-wing officials across the country to launch special law enforcement units to root out and punish election crimes. They also fueled crackdowns in states where GOP officials had spread the myth of widespread voter fraud long before Trump, leading to a raft of laws creating new election-related crimes or increasing existing penalties around voting. Some GOP law enforcement officials have partnered with far-right election denier groups that are ramping up their own efforts to police voting ahead of Trump’s attempt at re-election. 

The stakes are clear in: Texas

Bolts reported last year that the elected sheriff and DA in Texas’ Tarrant County, home to Fort Worth, were launching a new law enforcement task force to investigate and prosecute voter fraud. Phil Sorrells, the DA, ran with Trump’s endorsement in 2022 and won on promises to ratchet up policing of elections. The sheriff, Bill Waybourn, has become a right-wing celebrity for his fealty to Trump while also facing mounting criticism at home for a spike in deaths and other scandals at the county jail he oversees. 

Political pressure over baseless claims of fraud have already disrupted the running of elections in Fort Worth; Tarrant County’s widely respected elections chief stepped down last year after months of harassment from election deniers, which included racist attacks about his heritage. And election deniers have claimed without evidence that Waybourn’s close reelection win in 2020 suggests there was fraud. (Waybourn is up for reelection again this year.) That all sets the stage for even more allegations and investigations in a county with a long history of harsh and questionable prosecutions for voter fraud during a critical election year.

Also keep an eye on:  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2022 established the country’s first statewide agency dedicated solely to investigating election crimes, which quickly resulted in a series of arrests of people with prior felony convictions accused of voting illegally—many of whom have said the government had told them they could vote and whose prosecutions have since fizzled. Bolts has also reported how sheriffs in the swing states of Arizona and Wisconsin have bolstered election conspiracies and partnered with leading purveyors of election conspiracies to increase policing of elections. 

10. Where, and how, will the assault on direct democracy continue?

Many Republican-run states have curtailed the ballot initiative process in recent years, looking to limit citizens’ ability to put new issues on the ballot. After the GOP failed to derail an abortion rights initiative in Ohio in August, Bolts hosted a roundtable with democracy organizers who all said they expected the assault on direct democracy to continue unabated in 2024, fueled by conservative efforts to protect abortion bans and fight off redistricting reforms.

The stakes are clear in: Missouri

Reproductive rights advocates have turned to the only tool at their disposal in red states: directly asking voters to protect abortion rights. In Missouri, organizers have already had to fight off their attorney general’s effort to sabotage such a measure. In 2024, they’ll also have to contend with GOP proposals to change the rules and make it harder for voters to approve initiatives. One bill, filed by a GOP lawmaker for the 2024 session, would create a new requirement for initiatives to receive a majority in half of the state’s congressional districts in order to pass. Because the state’s map is gerrymandered to favor Republicans, this would force a progressive ballot initiative to carry at least one district that’s far more conservative than the state at large—a tall order for the abortion rights measure to meet. 

Also keep an eye on: Republicans are eying changes to state law in other states like Oklahoma to block abortion rights measures. In Arkansas, where the GOP passed a law last year that made it much more difficult to get a measure on the ballot, the coming year will test what space the law has left for organizing efforts. And democracy advocates in Idaho and Ohio expect Republicans to look for new maneuvers to restrict the initiative process.

11. What will happen to DAs and judges targeted for removal in southern states? 

Conservative officials in southern states have in recent years created, expanded, or ratcheted up the use of state powers to oust local DAs who make policies they disagree with—such as declining certain low-level charges or ruling out abortion prosecution. They have also targeted high-court judges over their decisions and statements.

States to watch: Georgia and Texas 

Republican anger toward local prosecutors reached a fever pitch in Georgia last year with Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ decision to investigate and ultimately prosecute Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. As Bolts reported, Georgia Republicans established a new board with authority to oust DAs over their charging decisions, though the law has so far been tied up in court. Similarly, after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision triggered a near total criminal abortion ban in Texas, GOP lawmakers there pushed through legislation expanding powers to oust local DAs who said they would refuse to prosecute abortion and other cases, a law that may be turned against some local officials this year. 

Also keep an eye on: Florida, where the governor has broad power to remove and replace local elected officials, DeSantis has ousted two local prosecutors over the past two years, and voters will get to weigh in on who should occupy those offices for the first time since. Residents of St. Louis will also vote for the first time since the removal of their elected prosecutor by the Republicans in the Missouri state government. And Tennessee Republicans have stepped up efforts to sideline Memphis’ new Democratic DA. There are similar efforts to target judges, like the only Black woman justice on North Carolina’s supreme court, for removal. 

12. How will localities innovate to boost participation in democracy and local elections?  

Even as some places tried to make voting more difficult, 2023 also saw many states and cities experiment with new strategies to expand the franchise and encourage more participation in democracy. This year’s elections will see some of the first fruits of those efforts, as well as other places possibly following suit. 

The stakes are clear in: Municipalities experimenting with noncitizen voting

Boston’s city council in December passed an ordinance to allow noncitizens with legal status to vote in local elections, a landmark win for progressives who’ve championed this issue locally for years, as Bolts reported in 2022. But the Massachusetts legislature would need to authorize Boston’s reform, which may come to a head this year. Boston’s move comes as other cities have adopted noncitizen voting. Last year, Burlington became the latest Vermont locality to allow noncitizen voting in local elections, giving more members of the state’s growing immigrant communities a say in things like school boards and municipal budgets. Washington, D.C. passed a similar ordinance last year, though a lawsuit was filed last year challenging the measure, a battle likely to continue into this year.

Also keep an eye on: Other innovations to increase participation are set to take effect this year, and will face their first tests. Michigan allowed 16 and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote before their 18th birthday,  while New York passed a law requiring high schools to distribute registration and pre-registration forms to students. Colorado and Nevada recently expanded voting access on Tribal lands. New York also just moved some local elections to even years to boost turnout, a reform that may inspire proposals in other states on an issue that is gaining steam around the nation.

Correction: The article has been corrected to reflect where Trump appealed his disqualification from the Maine ballot.

The post Twelve Questions Shaping Democracy and Voting Rights in 2024 appeared first on Bolts.

Growing up in Vermont, my first encounter with direct democracy was the town meeting. Once a year in March, my parents and our neighbors gathered in the pews of our bucolic town hall to elect local officials and hammer out decisions about taxes, roads, budgets, and schools. The process was open to any resident of voting age who cared to attend—as long as they were a registered voter and U.S. citizen. Afterward, the whole town congregated downstairs for a potluck. 

Though they exist primarily in New England, town meetings are a familiar symbol of small-scale democratic experiment to many Americans. Norman Rockwell used his Vermont neighbors as subjects for his 1943 painting Freedom of Speech, which depicts a rough-hewn worker standing to speak his truth as genteel men in suits listen carefully—so instantly recognizable it has, in recent years, become a meme. This sort of robust floor discussion only happens in Vermont’s towns, but every municipality in the state has a Town Meeting Day to vote on local matters.

Lately, parts of Vermont have looked to expand the promise of a vibrant local democracy and invite noncitizens to participate as well. Three cities now allow all residents with legal status to vote in local elections, making decisions on Town Meeting Day about everything from the composition of their local school board to the structure of their municipal government. (Noncitizens remain barred from weighing in on statewide or national elections). In 2018, residents of Montpelier, the state capital, voted by a 2-1 margin to establish noncitizen voting. In 2020, Winooski, a small city outside of Burlington where many resettled refugees reside, followed suit, and by the same wide margin. After state lawmakers approved those local charter changes in 2021, Republican Governor Phil Scott vetoed both measures but the legislature quickly overrode his denials. 

Burlington, the state’s largest city, approved a similar charter amendment in early 2023—also by a 2-1 margin. Lawmakers again overrode Scott’s veto of the change, voting in June to approve extending the right to vote in local elections to 2,000 additional Burlington residents. 

These rapid reforms have made Vermont home to nearly a fifth of all U.S. municipalities to offer noncitizen voting. Several towns in Maryland allow noncitizen residents to participate in local elections, most notably Takoma Park since the early 1990s; more recently, Washington, D.C., Oakland, San Francisco, and New York City passed similar ordinances, though local judges overturned the latter two last year.

Proponents of noncitizen voting say all residents deserve a say in who runs the schools their children attend and how the city spends their money. “The types of decisions that you make at a municipal level—you are impacted by them the same way regardless of if you’re a citizen or if you’re not a citizen,” said Zoraya Hightower, a city councilor in Burlington who supports the practice, calling it a “no-brainer.” Meanwhile, the new laws have sparked backlash ranging from frustrated locals to a national conservative group that has sued to block noncitizen voting. 

“All resident voting,” as it is often called here in Vermont, has also provoked debates about what constitutes meaningful political representation and the role of voting in civic life. Vermont’s progressive reputation has historically been untested on issues like race and immigration: it is one of the whitest states in the country, second only to Maine. “There’s an imagination of Vermont as being a particular kind of white liberal oasis,” said Pablo Bose, director of the University of Vermont’s Global and Regional Studies Program, who works with refugee communities in Winooski and Burlington. “People talk a good game about class and race, but I don’t actually think that they confront how different it might be in a place like this if you have a different background.”

Over the last few decades, Vermont has become a new home for many immigrant communities: resettled refugees who hail from places like Bhutan, Somalia, and Democratic Republic of Congo, Mexican farmworkers who toil on Vermont’s historic dairy farms, and most recently, asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Ukraine. Like any community, their views on noncitizen voting are not uniform: some believe voting should be tied to citizenship, while others have chosen to build political power in other ways. 

Those new Vermonters who have embraced noncitizen voting see it as a crucial step towards full participation in civic life and a chance to weigh in on the practical matters facing their city. 

Jeetan Khadka, a former refugee from Bhutan who has championed noncitizen voting in Burlington’s local elections for nearly a decade, invoked the Burlington school district as an example: “There are hundreds of kids of non English-speaking parents—who is going to be their voice? Who’s going to represent them?” 

Khadka and his family arrived in Vermont from a Nepalese refugee camp 15 years ago this September, becoming members of a regrettably selective group; worldwide, less than 1 percent of refugees ever experience resettlement. Compared to other U.S. states, Vermont has accepted a high number of refugees relative to its tiny population: Between 1989 and 2019, the state took in around 8,000 refugees from across the globe, according to Seven Days, a Vermont publication. Most of them were resettled in Burlington and Winooski, two of the three cities that have enacted noncitizen voting. 

In high school, I volunteered at the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, a subset of the U.S. agency responsible for resettling refugees, helping with childcare for a Congolese family who had arrived in Vermont a year earlier. In some ways, they were lucky: as officially designated refugees, they had a clear pathway to citizenship, and the government helped get them set up with an apartment and temporary financial assistance. But a whole set of obstacles still lay ahead of them: learning English, finding jobs, adjusting to the bitter cold of Vermont winters, and, after years in a sprawling refugee camp in Mozambique, starting over in a place with few other people who so much as looked like them, let alone shared their culture. 

Students of color now represent the majority at the Winooski school district, thanks in large part to the city’s robust refugee population. The Burlington school district also boasts that its student body speaks dozens of different languages at home. But Khadka remembers being sequestered in an English language learning program with other refugee students when he arrived in Burlington in 2008. “You are literally depriving someone to have that cross cultural conversation,” he said. 

Frustration at how he and his refugee peers were isolated from the rest of the student body pushed him to get involved in civic life for the first time. “Seeing injustice happening or seeing unfair treatment or seeing or hearing things that doesn’t feel right to myself—I started speaking up,” he told me. 

After high school, Khadka stayed on for a year through Americorps, working on culturally responsive pedagogy for the school district’s preschool program. His second year at Americorps, he started working at the Community & Economic Development Office at city hall, right next to the mayor’s office. Today, Khadka works as a caseworker for the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, which serves refugee communities in the state regardless of national origin, and sits on the Vermont New American Advisory Council, which he helped found. 

Bose, the UVM professor, said it’s not uncommon for resettled refugees to become deeply involved in their communities. Over time, he told me, “we’ve seen increased participation on things like city boards…neighborhood planning assemblies, [and] in other kinds of ways around the neighborhoods—starting up new businesses, getting involved in local community organizations.” 

Khadka got involved in pushing for noncitizen voting in Burlington in 2014, after his application to serve on a city commission was rejected due to his immigration status. He calls participation in local elections “a stepping stone for something bigger” for noncitizen residents. Many refugees are eligible to gain U.S. citizenship after a yearslong waiting period, and Khadka said it’s important to start the process of political and civic engagement early. 

“You are encouraging people to be part of local, municipal government, encouraging them to go out and share your concern, raise your voice, vote for the candidate that supports your voice,” he told me. 

Burlington voters rejected noncitizen voting at their annual town meeting in 2015. Five years later, it came back before the city council, which chose to put the question to voters before reversing its decision and sending it back to a committee for further study. One of the people who voted against the measure both times was Ali Dieng, a independent city councilor and himself a former refugee from Mauritania. He did so because, as a freshly naturalized U.S. citizen, he felt that voting was a sort of prize that comes with full citizenship. At the time, he also said he feared that creating a registry of noncitizen residents would be unwise given ICE’s increased targeting of immigrant communities under the Trump administration.  

But in 2022, when noncitizen voting again went before the Burlington council, Dieng chose to back it. In the time since his last vote, Montpelier and Winooski had both passed noncitizen voting, and Trump had left office. Dieng says he had also talked to more refugee constituents who told him they supported the measure. 

“I think there is nothing more beautiful than becoming an American citizen, it’s still a great thing,” he said. “But this is just for the municipality of the City of Burlington—and people who live here who are paying taxes, have their kids in the schools.” 

With Dieng’s support, the council set up a vote by Burlingtonians during the city’s Town Meeting Day in March 2023. Of the roughly 10,500 residents who voted on Question 4, 68 percent approved the measure and expanded the electorate for future Town Meeting Days. 

Noncitizen voting, especially at the local level, was common throughout the U.S. during the 19th century; it has existed at various points in around 40 states. The Vermont supreme court upheld the constitutionality of local noncitizen voting in 1863. But by the 1890s, xenophobia about the arrival of migrants from non-Western countries caused states to definitively start banning noncitizens from participating in elections.

The reintroduction of noncitizen voting in the modern era has proved predictably controversial, inflaming tensions around immigration and voting rights, both major Republican bugbears. Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), a national group founded by Karl Rove and led by, among others, former Trump attorney general William Barr, has sued to block noncitizen voting in Winooski. In January, the Vermont supreme court upheld Montpelier’s charter amendment and allowed noncitizen voting in another lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee and state GOP attempting to block it. 

Shades of the hyper-polarized national discourse around voting rights and immigration have appeared locally as well. Election workers say they have encountered people at the polls who express anger about voting alongside noncitizen residents in every election cycle since it’s been implemented. Winooski city clerk Jenny Willingham, who has overseen the implementation of noncitizen voting there since 2022, told me that a few voters each election have arrived at the polls incensed by the concept, telling her they believe only U.S. citizens should be able to vote. “The numbers weren’t a lot. It was just the intensity of their opposition to it,” she said. Willingham added, however, that the anger seemed stronger last year when noncitizen voting was brand new. 

Today, Winooski has 61 registered noncitizen voters, Willingham told me. Some of the town’s initial noncitizen voters have since become citizens or moved away. Turnout is still quite low compared to the overall number of noncitizen residents eligible to vote (Winooski has over 1,100 foreign-born residents, though a good number are either under 18 or already possess citizenship). In response, Willingham says that Winooski is working on improving outreach about noncitizen voting to residents who might be eligible, and considering offering ballots in even more languages. 

“I’m just trying to do more,” Willingham said. “Bring the polls to them, rather than having them come to the polls.” 

Nearly everyone I spoke to for this piece emphasized that establishing noncitizen voting isn’t necessarily a victory in and of itself. “I think it’s valuable symbolically,” Bose, the UVM professor, told me. “I think that it can signal to people, you know, ‘You are valued here.’” But he says awareness of the new laws around noncitizen voting are generally low, and suspects that Vermont’s immigrant and refugee populations would be more likely to care about voting if they had the sense that their participation could meaningfully affect election outcomes. Unlike in New York City—where a judge struck down noncitizen voting on the basis that extending the franchise to some 800,000 noncitizen residents with permanent status or work authorization would plausibly dilute citizens’ votes—there is relatively little chance that votes from noncitizen Vermonters could sway the results of elections. 

Moreover, much more outreach and education about the new laws will need to be done before there’s even a chance of refugee parents becoming a constituency to be reckoned with in a Winooski or Burlington school board election. One Afghan asylum seeker living in Winooski, who asked to withhold his name because his asylum case is pending and his family is still in Pakistan, told me that he had had no idea that legal residents were eligible to vote in local elections in the three cities, but said that he was excited to pass the information along to other Afghan families living in Winooski and Montpelier who have their green cards already. “It’s a great thing,” he said, adding that he looked forward to participating if he eventually secures a green card.

Khadka says “invisible walls” block some noncitizen residents from voting even when they’re eligible. People of his parents’ and grandparents’ generation can also be plagued by memories of the harsh consequences they faced for trying to participate in politics. “There is some trauma in that, that people who are deprived of that and were being tortured by like the political superpower of their country—they are scared, some people are scared to participate,” he said. “You know, ‘remember what happened 20 years ago, when you asked for your right—you got kicked out of the country.’” 

While Vermont has expanded the franchise to noncitizen residents, other immigrant communities are still left out of local elections that directly impact them. The state is also home to as many as 1,500 migrant farmworkers, mostly undocumented men from Mexico and Central America who still cannot vote in local elections. Noncitizen voting “won’t really change anything for our community,” said Marita Canedo, the program coordinator for the group Migrant Justice. 

In the absence of ballot access, farmworkers working with Migrant Justice have found other ways to build economic and political power. For more than a decade, they have built campaigns connecting their backbreaking labor to the historic Vermont dairy industry and secured huge material wins, such as the extension of drivers’ licenses to undocumented Vermonters, solid labor agreements with Ben & Jerry’s, and stronger firewalls between local police and immigration enforcement. 

Canedo said that for now, migrant farmworkers in the state seem far from having any hope of inclusion in the political process through voting or running candidates from their community. “Right now our community is looking to survive, day by day,” she said. “Every campaign that we had has been a small step into the freedom of people.” There is more work to be done, she said, “for people to really feel that, ‘okay, now I can think about bigger things. Now that I know I can be in a safe place and you know, how to organize my farm or in my workplace—what other bigger things we can dream.’” 

The post Refugee Organizing Helps Spur Noncitizen Voting in Vermont Cities appeared first on Bolts.

One reform, which drew the ire of congressional Republicans, will enable noncitizen residents to vote in local elections. The second largely flew under the radar of national politicians, and will overhaul the city’s approach to voter registration. 

Underlying the Automatic Voter Registration Expansion Amendment Act, that seemingly technical bill, is a challenge to a core aspect of U.S. elections. Why put a burden of registration on prospective voters when public authorities can determine who is eligible on their own? 

Going forward, D.C. will use the information it collects when residents interact with public agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles to create a running list of people who are “preapproved” to vote. For people on this list, there will be no need to register in advance of an election; all they will have to do is vote.

This new law would pair with a reform that the council has adopted but is not yet law, which would set up universal mail-in voting: That bill would apply to people on the “preapproved” list. As a result, D.C. would mail ballots to people it knows are eligible to vote—even if they have not registered. 

“Unlike other parts of the country where we’re seeing people try to restrict the ability of people to get to the polls and to vote, in D.C., we want everyone to be able to vote,” Councilmember Charles Allen told Bolts last year when he filed the bill. This act, he said, will “make sure we are really reaching every single person we possibly can to make sure they can participate and have their voice heard.”

The bill was approved unanimously by the D.C. council in December and signed by the mayor. It became law after the customary congressional review that all D.C. bills undergo expired this week. Republicans in Congress did not target this legislation, though they sought to block other recent city reforms, including a bill that enables noncitizens to vote in local elections. 

That noncitizen voting bill, known as the Local Residents Voting Rights Act, also became law this week. The U.S. House voted to block it in January in a resolution proposed by the GOP and supported by some Democrats, but the Senate did not follow up by the March 14 deadline that was set by the chamber’s parliamentarian. 

As a result, noncitizens who have been residents of D.C. for 30 days will be able to vote in local elections—including for mayor, city council, education board, and ballot initiatives. The law would not apply to federal elections.

“While we’re expanding voting rights here within our boundaries, Congress is attacking our autonomy altogether,” Brianne Nadeau, a D.C. councilmember who sponsored this bill, told Bolts this week. “It’s kind of a wild moment in history.” 

D.C. follows at least 15 other municipalities, including Maryland suburbs of D.C. such as Takoma Park, that already allow non-citizen voting. Most recently, voters in Oakland, California, approved a ballot measure in November to enable noncitizens to vote in school board races; in January, Vermont’s supreme court upheld several towns’ decision to enfranchise noncitizen residents. 

Similar proposals are on the table in other cities such as Boston. But the GOP is working in several states to preempt such local reforms.

A conservative group filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against D.C.’s new noncitizen voting law, claiming that it “dilutes the vote of every U.S. citizen voter in the District.” Nadeau says she also worries that Congress may still move to block the the funding needed to implement the measure; Congress has budgetary tools available to thwart D.C. measures beyond the congressional review period.

Proponents of the change say that restricting the franchise from noncitizens excludes a large swath of the population from decision-making. The Legal Aid Society of The District of Columbia testified before the council that more than 40,000 D.C. residents are not U.S. citizens, but many of them work, pay taxes in the District, or send children to public schools. They should have a say in their elected government, Nadeau said. 

“We have a special opportunity to show that getting involved locally can make a difference,” she said. By getting involved in municipal government, she added, “you can make change in a very short amount of time.”

The Automatic Voter Registration Expansion Amendment Act, D.C.’s other new law, only applies to U.S. citizens. It aims to draw into the process people who are already eligible to vote by building on D.C.’s prior reforms to voter registration.

The city already follows a model known as automatic voter registration, or AVR, along with more than 20 states. The idea is to use the fact that people from all walks of life are already interacting regularly with a DMV and other public agencies for reasons that have nothing to do with voting, like getting a driver’s license. While they’re there, the thinking goes, the government should take the opportunity to register them to vote. Studies have found that this approach boosts registration and turnout rates.

Some automatic registration programs, including the one D.C. currently uses, give residents the chance to opt out of registering while they’re still conducting the transaction with an agency. Many people take the chance to opt out up-front, often because they’re in a hurry and believe that declining will get them out the door faster, or because they may have questions about their eligibility. 

The new law switches D.C. into another model, known as “back-end.” Residents who are automatically registered are offered the chance to opt out later on: They will receive a mailer at home, and they can return it if they wish to opt out. If they do nothing at all, they will remain registered to vote. 

Colorado made this switch in 2019 and saw its registration rates soar as a result. Testifying last fall in support of D.C.’s change, Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold said that under the state’s prior “front-end” system, roughly 60 percent of eligible residents were opting out. After the switch, Colorado found that more than 99 percent remained registered after receiving the post-transaction mailer.

Allen, the sponsor of the D.C. law, told Bolts he drew inspiration from Colorado. 

But his proposal also goes beyond this “back-end” approach. It charts a new path that no longer treats registration as a step that residents must take before voting. 

Requiring voter registration, says Alex Keysarr, a Harvard historian who studies the development of voting laws in the U.S., “creates a barrier between the voter and the act of voting.” Historically, he told Bolts, this barrier has suppressed the electoral influence of poor people, immigrants, and people of color. 

Under the new law, the city will identify people who, based on information they’ve already provided the government, are eligible to vote. They will then receive a ballot in the mail. For those individuals, the only decision would be to vote, or not. 

Still, people added to the “preapproved” list in D.C. would be sent a mailer that gives them an opportunity to remove their name.

The new law also does not get rid of voter registration. The city would inform people that returning the mail-in ballot or heading to the polls would activate their registration. In effect, voting itself would be the act of registration.

But D.C.’s reform may still leave some residents behind since it hinges on them heading into specific public agencies. People who do not interact with the DMV or a Medicaid office would not be added to this “preapproved” list. 

“I would caution that there are still people who will not be offered registration opportunities, particularly people who do not interact regularly with government agencies like the driver’s license offices,” said Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida who studies turnout.

D.C. has for years offered same-day voter registration, so those people would have the opportunity to head to a polling location during the early voting period or on Election Day. They would not receive a mail-in ballot, though. 

McDonald does not expect the new law to make a major change to turnout in D.C. given the city’s unique circumstances. “The fact that the city is highly uncompetitive and the District has limited self-rule probably matter more,” he said.

D.C. is already facing new attacks on its self-rule. Last week, some House Republicans launched a new push to overturn a set of policing reforms, known as the city’s Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, adopted by the D.C. government to expand citizen oversight of police and limit police use of dangerous weapons against protesters, among other provisions. 

Nadeau said, “Recent congressional action makes it clear that any of the work we do in the District of Columbia is very precarious as long as we don’t have statehood.” 

The post Pair of Reforms to Expand the Electorate Become Law in D.C. appeared first on Bolts.

But voters by and large rejected election denier candidates while embracing measures that expanded access to the ballot in places like Michigan and Connecticut. Outside of elections, states and municipalities saw big policy shifts around democracy and voting procedures—some of it expanding voting access, like North Carolina restoring the voting rights to tens of thousands people on probation and parole, and a lot of it threatening to curtail and criminalize voting, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s new elections police force. 

In the coming year, expect these fundamental conflicts around democracy to remain at the forefront, so we here at Bolts have identified ten key questions that will shape these issues in 2023. They range from the continued threat of election denialism in state governments to the power of state supreme courts over the gerrymandering of congressional maps—and Bolts will be watching it all for you. 

1. How will the election deniers who won secretary of state act once in office?

Election deniers largely failed in their efforts to take over election administration offices during the midterms, with the exception of four candidates in deeply red states—Alabama, Indiana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. As they now prepare to enter office as the elections chief of their respective states, these incoming officials will have the clout to push for significant changes to election procedures.

The stakes are clear in: Alabama

Wes Allen, who won the secretary of state race in Alabama, already seems to be making good on his promise to remove the state from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a national organization that assists states in maintaining accurate voter rolls and has become a target of right-wing conspiracies. Shortly after he was elected, he released a statement saying that he informed the organization that he would end Alabama’s membership as soon as he is inaugurated in January. 

Member states—including Alabama—have relied on the ERIC program to detect voter fraud. Outgoing secretary of state John Merril defended the system, saying that the program helped Alabama detect 12 instances of voter fraud in 2020. Despite this, Allen has said that the state will be able to maintain its own voter rolls using drivers license records, death records, and change-of-address information from the US Postal Service. 

Also keep an eye on: In South Dakota, Monae Johnson has expressed her distrust of vote tabulation machines and has already said she would encourage county election officials to do a hand-count audit of election results. In Wyoming, Chuck Gray has maintained that he wants to ban ballot drop boxes. 

2. Where will conservatives ramp up policing of elections and expand criminal statutes around voting? 

Trump’s lies about fraud fueled a raft of GOP-crafted state laws creating new election-related crimes or increasing existing criminal penalties around voting. As Bolts has reported, those laws are part of a larger effort in red states to police elections and criminalize voting under the pretense of cracking down on fraud. That includes an entire new state agency designed to investigate elections in Florida. Heading into 2023, conservatives are already gearing up to set up new tripwires that could ensnare more people in the criminal legal system.

The stakes are clear in: Texas 

The last time the Texas legislature gaveled into session in January 2021, it was less than a week after a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that had been fanned by many top GOP officials in the state—including Attorney General Ken Paxton, who aided in the legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election and even rallied Trump supporters in Washington D.C. hours before they rioted on Jan. 6. Conservative leaders then used Big Lie rhetoric to make ‘election integrity’ a top priority, ultimately ushering in the passage of Senate Bill 1, a sweeping elections law that raised new threats of criminal penalties around assisting voters and election workers. 

Now Texas Republicans are once again pointing to the most recent elections to justify more policing of elections. GOP lawmakers say problems voters experienced at the polls around Houston on election day—polling places that opened late and shortages of ballot paper—inspired them to file a bill that would direct the secretary of state to appoint state police officers as “election marshals” to investigate voting. Republicans have also proposed legislation ahead of the session that would impose harsher penalties for election crimes and expand Paxton’s ability to initiate prosecutions for voter fraud. 

Also keep an eye on: The administration of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis this summer arrested people for allegedly voting when they were barred from doing so, despite evidence that state officials told them they were eligible. Judges have since tossed out some of those cases, but many remain to be adjudicated in 2023—and Florida’s new election police force has the authority to launch new prosecutions. Other cases involving people prosecuted for voting are ongoing elsewhere in the country, such as Crystal Mason‘s in Texas.

3. Will more states curtail felony disenfranchisement or enable voting from prison? 

In 2022, 4.6 million Americans were barred from voting due to a felony conviction—a number that’s high but also considerably down from just four years ago, before a wave of reforms ended or curtailed felony disenfranchisement in more than ten states. Will more states join the efforts to restore people’s voting rights in the coming year?

The stakes are clear in: Oregon

Since 2018, the states that have expanded the franchise have largely acted to restore the rights of citizens who are already out of prison. In states that had already done that, activists have focused on also enabling people to vote from prison, though so far those bills have mostly stalled. (After a milestone 2020 reform, D.C. joined Maine and Vermont as the only places that strip no one’s rights.) Such a push failed in Oregon earlier this year. But a new legislative effort on the issue is coming in 2023, a state advocate confirmed to Bolts. 

The stakes are also clear in: New Mexico 

New Mexico is a rare blue state that bars people on parole and probation from voting, and a bill to enfranchise anyone who is not incarcerated failed last year in chaotic circumstances and mutual recrimination among Democrats. Voting rights advocates told Bolts that they would try again; they have a short window in early 2023 given the state’s brief legislative session.

Also keep an eye on: Other states where bills to end or curtail felony disenfranchisement have been considered in recent years or may be introduced this year include Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Minnesota. Inversely, in Kentucky, the fate of an executive order announced by Democratic Governor Andy Beshear in 2019 that has restored the voting rights of most people who have completed their sentence may hinge on the results of the governor’s race in November.

4. Which states will further ease ballot access and voting procedures?

From automatic voter registration to universal vote-by-mail, specific policies meant to ease ballot access have snowballed in recent years, largely in Democratic-run states. In 2023, which states play catch-up and what new proposals emerge that push existing boundaries further?

The stakes are clear in: Connecticut

Connecticut is close to shaking off the distinction of being the bluest state in the nation with no in-person early voting. In November, residents approved a ballot measure that amends the state constitution to authorize in-person early voting, but the state legislature must adopt legislation to set up such a system before it can go into effect and change anything about how elections are actually run. In advance of the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers and advocates are now debating how long the early voting period should be, with disagreements already emerging between some officials and the state ACLU, which is pushing for a longer window.

The stakes are also clear in: Washington, D.C.

The city council of Washington, D.C., held a hearing in 2022 on a proposal that could, should it move forward next year, redefine common assumptions about the need for voter registration. The bill, as Bolts‘s Alex Burness reported in September, would mail ballots to people it knows are eligible, even if they are not registered. “Traditionally, registration has been used as a way to keep people from voting,” the bill’s chief sponsor told Bolts.

Also keep an eye on: Voting rights advocates in New York are pushing many reforms to ease registration and strengthen local administration. As Democrats take power in Michigan, they are eying possible legislation on election procedures and they will be in charge of implementing a voting rights package that Michiganders adopted in November. And Delaware lawmakers are back to square one after the state supreme court struck down their voting reforms this fall. 

5. Will more states pass voting laws restricting ballot access?

This year’s was Georgia’s first federal election since the passage of Senate Bill 202, a sweeping voting law passed by Republicans that introduced new restrictions to voting such as stricter ID requirements for absentee voting, restricting the availability of ballot drop boxes, and making it illegal to offer people standing in long voting lines food or water. The law, as Anoa Changa reported for Bolts, also created a critically short four-week runoff election period. But Georgia is not alone: SB 202 implemented a slew of measures that Republicans nationwide have used as a template for legislative changes, and more may come in 2023.

The stakes are clear in: Ohio

Republicans in the Ohio legislature pushed through a new bill this month tightening voter ID requirements for in-person voting, shortening the period for absentee voting, and limiting the number of ballot drop boxes per county to just one. The bill, which was originally intended to get rid of certain election days, was expanded to include these other provisions just before it was passed in both houses. The bill is now on Republican Governor Mike DeWine’s desk; Democrats have signaled they will bring a lawsuit next year if he signs it.

Also keep an eye on: Pennsylvania Republicans are eying stricter voter ID laws as a priority in the upcoming session. Since they lost control of the state House in November, they may be hard pressed to find the votes to succeed; but Republicans are looking to take advantage of multiple vacancies in the chamber to keep control until the spring, a chaotic situation that may give them a legislative window. In Texas, lawmakers have already pre-filled 66 bills having to do with election administration, some of which would shorten early voting and purge voter rolls. 

6. Will states change their rules around ballot initiatives? 

Facing popular referendums to enshrine abortion rights in state constitutions or expand healthcare access, Republicans in many red states have tried to change the goalposts to make ballot measures harder to pass, including this year in South Dakota and Arkansas. Expect more states to try to raise the threshold for passing voter-initiated reforms next year. 

The stakes are clear in: Ohio 

Republicans in the Ohio legislature have been rushing to change the rules for constitutional amendments since activists began discussing a potential ballot measure to solidify legal protections for abortion in light of the state’s criminal ban. While abortion activists used the ballot initiative process to protect abortion rights in neighboring Michigan, the vote didn’t clear 60 percent, the new threshold Ohio Republicans now want to set for such changes in the future. 

The stakes are also clear in: Missouri

In Missouri, GOP lawmakers have filed nearly a dozen bills to increase requirements for ballot initiatives in the state—from raising the signature requirements to get a proposal on the ballot to increasing the threshold for approval from a majority to 60 percent. Those proposed changes come on the heels of voters legalizing recreational marijuana via the ballot initiative process in November and discussions among abortion rights advocates about pursuing a ballot measure to challenge the state’s criminal abortion ban. 

7. How will the politics of state supreme courts affect mid-decade redistricting?

While redistricting typically takes place at the start of the decade, new majorities in state courts can shift the balance of power and trigger new rounds of map drawing.

The stakes are clear in: Wisconsin

Wisconsin is extremely gerrymandered, making it very unlikely that Democrats could win the legislature this decade under present maps. Could they get state courts to force fairer maps, as their peers in Pennsylvania did last decade? At the moment, conservatives enjoy a 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin supreme court, which ruled on those ideological lines last year to effectively preserve the skewed maps in effect during the 2010s. But a supreme court race looms in April that could transform state politics: Should a liberal candidate gain the seat, it would flip control of the court and likely change its outlook on the Republican gerrymanders.

Also keep an eye on: The GOP swept state supreme court races in North Carolina and Ohio in November, wins that are likely to deliver newly-robust conservative majorities and re-open the floodgates of gerrymandering in each state. For different reasons, both states are required to redraw congressional maps by the 2024 or 2026 cycles, and now the Republicans who control the redistricting process will get to do so under friendlier judges than over the past two years. 

8. Will Harper vs. Moore throw a wrench in redistricting and other democracy debates?

If you are reading this, odds are you’ve heard of the “independent state legislature” theory, a largely obscure legal doctrine just twelve months ago that is now on the brink of receiving the blessing of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ultraconservative majority. If not, Cristian Farias’s primer in Bolts has you covered: this is the “feverish idea is that state legislatures should have complete and unfettered control over how federal elections are run and regulated, shielded from the oversight of state courts,” Farias wrote in March. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court took a case, known as Moore v. Harper, that tests this doctrine, and heard it on Dec. 7.

The stakes are clear in: The U.S. Supreme Court

The Supreme Court could rule in the case anytime between January and June, falling anywhere between a repudiation of the theory to an embrace of its strongest form, which would unleash state legislatures to regulate federal elections as they please. During the Dec. 7 hearing, court watchers observed that some conservative justices did not seem to support the theory’s strongest iteration but may be willing to fashion a weaker version. 

Also keep an eye on: Depending on how the justices rule, the outcome could unleash GOP lawmakers to ramp up voter ID rules, restrict voting procedures, or draw new maps without worrying about intervention from their state courts in places like North Carolina or Ohio where state judges have been a thorn on their side has been an issue for them. The conservative justices could also make it tougher for a new majority on the Wisconsin supreme court, should liberals flip it in April (see above), to have any effect on the congressional map. But if the justices is affirm some version of the independent state legislature theory, the consequences could also be felt in blue states where judges have constrained Democratic legislatures: Just over the past year, for instance, New York’s highest court struck down Democrats’ gerrymander of the state in 2021, and Delaware’s highest court threw out new laws enabling same-day voter registration and no-excuse mail voting—all moves that may be called into question by Moore v. Harper.

9. Will other cities move on democracy vouchers?

In 2022, Oakland, California, followed in the footsteps of Seattle in offering residents a novel way to more actively participate in local elections. Voters in November approved a ballot measure for a Democracy Dollars program, giving every Oakland voter four $25 vouchers to donate to a candidate of their choice in future city and school board elections. 

As Spenser Mestel reported for Bolts in July, the idea behind the program is to engage more voters, encourage a more diverse set of candidates, make political giving more transparent, redistribute power to poorer and less white areas, and combat the power of special interests. 

The stakes are clear in: California municipalities

Advocates elsewhere in California are looking to Oakland as an example. Los Angeles and San Diego have each had their respective campaigns for democracy dollars in place for some time, and in a recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times, the editorial board offered up these vouchers as one of several tools that could be used to restore LA voters’ confidence in local government shaken by the racist comments made city council leaders on a leaked tape. 

Also keep an eye on: At a recent city council meeting in Evanston, Illinois, officials discussed democracy vouchers as one of two new proposals for using government dollars to fund campaigns. The discussion was tabled until February, when the proposals will go up for a committee vote. 

10. What is next for local initiatives to expand voter eligibility? 

Cities around the country are experimenting with ways to broaden their electorate. In recent years, some have passed reforms allowing non-citizen residents to vote in local elections, and others have tried extending the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds. Watch for more of those efforts next year as well as pushback from conservative groups. 

The stakes are clear in: Massachusetts 

Several Massachusetts cities have in recent years passed ordinances allowing both 16-and 17-year olds and noncitizens with legal status to vote in local elections. But to implement those reforms, the cities must get approval from the governor and the Democratic-run legislature, which have so far ignored their requests. As Bolts reported this year, proponents of expanding the franchise have hoped that a breakthrough in Boston would help push state leaders to finally act. Last month, Boston’s city council overwhelmingly passed an ordinance giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in municipal elections, and GBH News reports that council members who also support noncitizen voting are pressing for the city to take up that issue next.

The stakes are also clear in: California

Conservative activists in California have sued to block expanding the franchise in the state since San Francisco voters in 2016 approved letting noncitizen residents vote in local school board elections. This past summer a judge struck down the ordinance, ruling that it violated the state constitution. While the courts allowed noncitizens to vote in the November election as the city appealed, it could be the last time depending on how the legal challenge shakes out. Meanwhile, Oakland seems willing to join the fight, with voters overwhelmingly approving a resolution last month that also seeks to allow noncitizens to vote in school board elections. 

Also keep an eye on: Other legal fights over expanding the franchise include Washington DC’s attempt to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, which the DC council passed in October but Republicans in Congress have already vowed to block. New York City is also currently appealing a trial court ruling this summer that struck down the city’s attempt to authorize close to 900,000 noncitizen residents to vote in local elections. In Vermont, two cities implemented noncitizen voting in local elections, and where the incoming secretary of state says she supports expanding voting eligibility. 

The post Ten Questions that Will Shape Democracy and Voting Rights in 2023 appeared first on Bolts.

Her attitude stands in stark contrast with the debunked conspiracies spread by Donald Trump’s allies demonizing ballot drop boxes and mail voting as the source of widespread fraud. Those conspiracies will feature in the general election to be Vermont’s chief elections officer. The state may lean hard to the left in federal elections, but Republican nominee H. Brooke Paige has echoed the former president’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen; he is part of a large network of Republican election deniers running for secretary of state.

Bolts recently spoke with Copeland Hanzas about her concerns over  this rhetoric and about how she envisions the role of a secretary of state when it comes to championing ballot access.

Vermont is in the midst of major debates regarding how to strengthen democratic participation. Copeland Hanzas, who has served in the state House since 2004, helped shepherd the state’s new universal vote-by-mail system into law this year; she also supports towns in Vermont that want to expand their electorate by allowing noncitizen residents and 16- and 17-year olds to vote in local elections. (Two Vermont municipalities, including the capital city of Montpellier, just implemented noncitizen voting in local elections this year.) 

Bolts also talked to Copeland Hanzas about how she would expand voter registration, including for people who are in prison. Vermont is one of just three places in the United States, alongside Maine and Washington, D.C., where no incarcerated person loses the right to vote, though turnout rates from prison are low. “Why would they not be allowed to vote? They’re citizens of our country,” Copeland Hanzas told Bolts.

You are running against a Republican opponent who has amplified Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. What concerns do you have about an election denier in this office?

It is highly worrisome to hear people echoing false claims and misinformation about the safety and security of our elections. It is a fundamental threat to our democracy, in that the purpose of these claims is to discourage people from participating in elections. And I think that is very undemocratic.

We’ve seen rising threats and harassment of local election officials. Are you concerned about that taking place in Vermont?

It’s certainly a concern. I haven’t been briefed in any formal way about the extent to which there may be actual threats, but I do hear anecdotally, talking with local elections officials, that the tension and stress around elections has definitely increased because of this misinformation. 

In Vermont, that is a really serious allegation: What you’re essentially saying is that your neighbor, who is duly elected to be the local elections official, is somehow part of a broad scheme to defraud the electorate. It’s just offensive and preposterous, and it is disheartening for people who care so deeply about democracy and local government that they have made their career out of acting as a town clerk. 

Vermont Digger called the three-way Democratic primary in August a race between “a technocrat, an activist, and a lawmaker.” You, the lawmaker, won. How do you envision the role of secretary of state, and do you hope to approach it more with the mindset of a voting rights “activist” or an elections “technocrat”? 

The role of the office is to be the defender of democracy. When I look at defending democracy, I think Vermonters need education on how to navigate within the system: How do you in fact influence your elected officials? If we don’t help people learn how to operate within a democracy and have faith in their ability to influence their leaders, and in the ability of governments to uphold the safety and security of elections, then we’re not going to live in a democracy long. 

Civics is boring if all you’re learning about is, ‘Here are the three branches of government, here’s the federal system.’ But people do get interested when you talk about it from the standpoint of, ‘Here’s an issue that you are passionate about—maybe you feel like you’ve been wronged—and here’s how you can advocate for a change in the system to right that wrong.’ In Vermont, you have the ability to protest your local government, participate in town meetings and lower the budget; you can vote to raise the budget, you can vote to strike the line items that suggest we should spend a million dollars on a new fire engine. I’m not going to pretend that every Vermonter knows how to participate in town meetings; the reality is a very small percentage of Vermonters actually go to their town meetings. But it is an example of democracy and action that we can point to; and when people understand that that’s possible at the local level, then it’s easier to help people engage in the idea of advocating at the statewide level.

Vermont is among just a few places that allow people to vote from prison. Nobody in Vermont is stripped of the right to vote when convicted of a crime. What do you think of that approach?

I absolutely support it. The right to vote is fundamental to your rights of citizenship, and so Vermonters need to have that protected and respected. And so I certainly support folks who are incarcerated being able to participate in our democracy. Why would they not be allowed to vote? They’re citizens of our country. 

Turnout is reportedly low among incarcerated people. What if anything would you do to address that?

Absolutely. I would refer back to two of my campaign priorities and would look for ways to make them available to incarcerated individuals.The first priority is education and outreach on civics. We need to extend that outreach to incarcerated individuals as well, so that folks understand how to vote. And my second priority is that the secretary of state’s office needs to be creating and publishing a voter guide in advance of the general election: contact information for the candidates, their website—and we could add to that a 100-word statement. That information needs to be made available to Vermonters so they can find the candidate whose values match their own, and that absolutely needs to be extended to incarcerated individuals. If you’re in prison, and you are reliant on whatever media sources you have access to, it’s no wonder people don’t vote. The secretary of state’s office needs to take a more proactive approach in making that information available.

Vermont has adopted automatic voter registration, which is triggered when people interact with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). Would you support extending automatic voter registration to Vermont’s Department of Corrections as a way to increase participation among incarcerated people?

It’s certainly something that I would want to look into. We [lawmakers] directed the secretary of state’s office to collaborate with various state agencies outside of the Department of Motor Vehicles to explore the extent to which automatic voter registration might be simple and easy to extend to their systems. And I could see doing that with the Department of Corrections.

What other public agencies would you want to extend automatic voter registration to? There are various efforts to make the state’s Medicaid office a participating agency as well. 

We started that conversation several years ago with our Medicaid office. At the time, the Medicaid office asked us not to mandate that they go forward with it immediately; instead, they asked if they could work collaboratively with the secretary of state’s office and figure out the best way to implement that. I haven’t gotten an update. During the pandemic, there were so many challenges that we as lawmakers were having to unravel that extending AVR fell off of my radar. But it’s something that I will ask in the upcoming transition if I’m elected. I would like to know what are the barriers, and see if we can eliminate them and get this done for Vermonters. 

People who don’t ever intend to have a driver’s license should still be registered to vote so that they can be participating in democracy.

Two Vermont towns are set to allow noncitizen residents to vote in local elections this year. Why did you support these towns’ change when they came up in the legislature?

Yes, I absolutely supported that. I was chair of the Government Operations Committee when those charter changes from two municipalities came to our committee. I was surprised at first, but as we explored with constitutional scholars and historians, we realized that there is in fact precedent in Vermont history for noncitizen residents to be able to participate in an election, and that there is no prohibition against a community wanting to allow noncitizens to vote in their own municipal elections. We heard from these communities about why they thought it was important to be able to welcome people into the democratic franchise at the local level, sometimes as a transition or step to full citizenship, and other times as a recognition that somebody who is a resident is a longtime participant in the community.

There’s also the debate over the voting age, with one Vermont town trying this year to lower it to 16 in local elections. Do you support such efforts?

We considered that proposal from Brattleboro at the same time that we were considering the proposals on noncitizen voting. Brattleboro had an overwhelmingly supportive local vote to extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds, and we felt it was important to honor that wish. Unfortunately, the governor of Vermont, despite the House and Senate approval of the charter change, vetoed the bill, and we were unable to override the governor’s veto. 

I certainly would support other communities pursuing this. I think it’s up to the local community, whether they feel that works for them. I think the advantages lie in helping people understand democracy: What a great way to have relevant school lessons then when young people are going to actually be able to go out and vote.

Vermont recently adopted universal vote-by-mail, a move you supported, which means that anyone who is registered gets a ballot. The right has fought mail voting. Why do you support expanding it?  

That convenience factor for someone who is a single parent, or someone working two jobs, or someone who lives in one community but works in another. There are so many, many barriers to people being able to participate on Election Day. But the other thing is that, when you pick up a ballot on Election Day and you have three to five minutes with your ballot, it’s really hard to be able to figure out who you want to vote for. I think it really empowers people to be able to do a little bit more discerning of the candidates when they have the ability to do that at their kitchen table before the election.

The post Vermont Secretary of State Candidate Looks to Expand Ballot Access, but First She Faces an Election Denier appeared first on Bolts.

Chetan Tiwari, who has lived in Boston since 2015, says he would like the chance to weigh in on the local education policies affecting his family. He and his wife are from Canada, recently had their green cards approved, and have two daughters who are American citizens. “The level of education, the quality of education that my daughters are getting, is a conversation my wife and I have every single day,” he told Bolts. “Voting on those issues would make us very happy, it would be very important to us.”

This push gained new allies in November. Bostonians elected a new mayor, Michelle Wu, and new city councilors who said they support the effort. Now in power, they may pave the way for Boston to revisit the issue, and join a growing movement across Massachusetts. 

In recent years, the cities of Amherst, Brookline, Cambridge, Newton, Wayland, and Somerville, have all passed ordinances to enable noncitizens with legal status to vote in local elections, though their efforts have stalled due to this state’s peculiar rules. In Massachusetts, unlike in New York State, cities must file a home-rule petition and the state lawmakers and governor must approve it. The Democratic legislature has for now ignored these cities’ petitions. Proponents hope that a breakthrough in Boston can give them further momentum.

The state’s 2022 elections, in which voters will select their lawmakers and a new governor to replace the retiring Republican incumbent, could also clear their path further.

More than a dozen communities across the U.S. already allow immigrants with legal status to vote in local elections, including 11 municipalities in Maryland and two in Vermont. Chicago has given noncitizens the right to vote in local school council elections since 1989, and noncitizens in San Francisco have cast ballots for the local school board since a citywide referendum succeeded in 2016. (Undocumented residents were also included in San Francisco’s measure.)  New York City brought many more eyes to the issue last winter when it enabled residents to vote in all municipal elections such as for mayor and city council if they hold a green card, are authorized to work in the United States, or are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. San Jose’s city council also voted last month to study the issue.

This practice was once common in local, state and even federal elections. For the first 150 years of American history, white, male property owners—regardless of citizenship status—were allowed to vote in many states, though the tide began to turn following nativist backlash after the War of 1812. Arkansas was the final state to end noncitizen voting in 1926. Efforts to shut the door to local reforms have also grown in recent years; Alabama, Colorado, Florida, and North Dakota all passed ballot amendments to embed in their state constitutions that only U.S. citizens can vote in local elections. 

Boston’s city council also has dealt with the debate in the past before. In 2007, Felix Arroyo, the first Latino councilor ever elected in the city, proposed a measure to allow legal residents to vote in local elections but it failed. The issue faded after Arroyo lost his re-election bid. In 2018, then-City Council president Andrea Campbell organized a hearing to discuss the idea. 

Campbell’s proposal would have granted the right to vote in local elections to immigrants who hold green cards and work visas, and to DACA recipients. The Boston Globe estimated that the proposal would enfranchise 48,000 Bostonians, which is about 7 percent of the city’s overall population. 

Campbell said at the time that the reform  could be a way to empower local immigrant communities who felt threatened and marginalized by the Trump administration. The idea was backed by Ayanna Pressley, who was then a Boston councilor and has since joined the U.S. Congress. “Our immigrant communities contribute to our economies, they contribute to our tax base, contribute to the vibrancy of our communities,” Pressley said. “I believe they deserve a say in who represents them at the municipal level.”

But not all councilors were on board. Ed Flynn maintained then that voting “is a privilege reserved for U.S. citizens.” Michael Flaherty also opposed the idea, saying enfranchising noncitizens to vote in local elections runs “watering down” the benefits of citizenship, “by either allowing folks to come in the back door or cut the line or expedite the process.” 

Still, much has changed in the last four years and activists say the conditions are more favorable now. It’s also not unusual for this type of issue to take a few tries politically. In San Francisco, voters rejected noncitizen voting for local school board elections in 2004 and 2010, before ultimately approving it in 2016. 

Beginning in 2019, Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group, began asking local candidates in Boston if they would support noncitizen voting if it came up at the council. Ricardo Arroyo, Kendra Hicks, Ruthzee Louijeune, and Julia Mejia have all newly joined Boston’s city council since 2020 after telling Progressive Massachusetts that they support it. Wu said the same during last year’s mayoral race.

“I think you could get 10 out of 13 votes on the Council [today],” said Jonathan Cohn, political director for Progressive Massachusetts, who helped run those questionnaires. His experience resembles that of Beth Huang, executive director of the Massachusetts Voter Table, a voting rights group that has asked candidates around the state in 2021 for their views on noncitizen voting. “Eighty out of 126 candidates who responded to our questionnaire said they supported it,” she said. 

Boston is currently experimenting with other measures meant to bolster local democracy. In November, more than two-thirds of Boston voters approved a ballot question to overhaul the city’s budget process, which contained a provision to  establish a new participatory budgeting process for a portion of the budget. Wu, the new mayor, also supported participatory budgeting.

On the same day, nearly four out of five Boston voters also backed a nonbinding referendum to switch their appointed school committee to one elected by city residents, adding new pressure on the government to democratize local school decisions. This change would require a home-rule petition, though.

Carolyn Chou, executive director of the Boston-based Asian American Resource Workshop, says the successful local organizing for an elected school committee and participatory budgeting is creating new opportunities to promote noncitizen voting. “Immigrant organizing groups and SEIU32BJ have been focusing on this, and I’m hopeful that with this new city council we may be able to move it along,” she said.

Kathy Henriquez Perlera, a community organizer with Neighbors United for a Better East Boston, also told Bolts her grassroots group would absolutely support noncitizen voting. Members of her organization have recently been exploring the idea of getting the city to grant municipal IDs for all city residents, similar to a program that exists in New York City.

Some immigrants’ rights activists have major reservations, however. 

During the 2018 debate in the Boston city council, Veronica Serrato, then executive director of Project Citizenship, said her group had worked with two immigrants in Massachusetts who had mistakenly voted in an election, disqualifying them from future citizenship. Allowing immigrants to vote in some elections may lead to errors—for instance, if poll workers give them the wrong ballot and they vote in an election they were barred from voting in—with potentially major consequences.

Mitra Shavarini, the current executive director of Project Citizenship, told Bolts this remains a worry for her organization, though she said they would abstain from taking a stance this time if a new bill came up in Boston. “We also aim to safeguard green card holders against possible issues that may jeopardize their ability to naturalize,” she said. “We therefore believe that it’s far more important to remove obstacles that impede immigrants from naturalizing than to solely push for voting rights.” 

Huang pushes back against this worry, noting that she heard a similar concern when voting rights proponents in Massachusetts were pushing automatic voter registration (AVR). “That was not a good reason not to do AVR, and it’s also not a good reason to oppose noncitizen voting,” she said. “Of course we also need to have crystal clear expectations and communications.”

To address these risks, cities that have enabled non-citizen voting often set up separate processes, including alternative local registration forms and voter rolls that are specific to voters who should only have ballots for local elections. They may also offer to provide residents a letter to submit alongside a naturalization application, as Takoma Park does. Local governments have also partnered with immigrant advocacy groups, to distribute non-citizen voting information in multiple languages.   

Damali Vidot, a city councilor in Chelsea, has championed the issue  in both her own city and statewide. “I tried to introduce a conversation on this on the city council a few years ago and people voted down a discussion, but at the beginning of last year, with Trump finally out of office, I decided to try again,” she told Bolts. She reached out to city councilors in Cambridge, Somerville, Brighton, Lawrence, and Boston to talk about the idea, and connected with a local immigrant rights group in her city, La Colaborativa. “I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if we could get a consortium of resolutions or get different municipalities to pass it all at once?” she said.

Huang said noncitizen voting has not been a “front-burner priority” for local groups that are in coalition with the one she leads; groups are more focused right now on getting driver’s licenses for undocumented residents. But she says there is growing support for the idea in cities with high concentrations of immigrants and working-class people. “We’re talking about the post-industrial cities that have now been inhabited by a lot of refugees,” she said, naming Worcester, Springfield, Lowell, New Bedford and Chelsea as examples. 

Huang stresses that keeping noncitizens from voting significantly skews the electorate toward white residents, especially in cities where the population that is eligible to vote is majority white but not the overall population. “That was not quite clear to me until I looked at the data community by community,” she said, in reference to census estimates updated last year.

The city of Lynn, for instance, has an overall population of more than 90,000 residents that is barely a third white. But of the residents who are eligible to vote, the majority is white. Latinx residents make up more than 40 percent of the city’s population, but only about 25 percent of the electorate. 

This pattern is very prevalent in the dense stretch of municipalities between East Boston and the North Shore, Huang added. “I think that presents a really good case for why we absolutely need non-citizen voting,” she said.   

For proponents of expanding the franchise, the biggest barrier they cite is the state legislature. Its Democratic leaders have not brought the home-rule petitions of recent years to the floor. Advocates in the state have long complained that state lawmakers have shied away from strengthening immigrants’ rights. During the Trump years, advocacy organizations like Progressive Massachusetts kept pushing for the “Safe Communities Act,” which would have limited how local and state law enforcement could enforce imigration law, to no avail. Three of the chamber’s leaders, state Senate President Karen Spilka, House Majority Leader Claire Cronin or House Speaker Ronald Mariano, did not respond to a request for comment.

State lawmakers are all up for re-election in 2022, and so activists see new opportunities to apply pressure on them. Cohn, of Progressive Massachusetts, also noted that voting for immigrants with legal status was included in the state Democratic Party platform last year for the first time, thanks to the rising organizing around the issue.

But the upcoming governor’s race is what may give the issue the most impetus if an ally is elected and uses their pulpit to support the local ordinances. The wide-open race has drawn a crowded field, yet so far, few are willing to comment. Bolts did not hear back from Democratic candidates Danielle Allen, Orlando Silva, and Sonia Chang-Díaz. Maura Healey’s campaign declined to comment. 

Josh Caldwell, a socialist running for governor in the Democratic primary, told Bolts that he strongly supports enfranchising noncitizens. “The fact of the matter is, that not giving representation to those that participate in taxation seemed to be a core argument to a certain historical revolution,” he said. “Our systems have and will always find a group to otherize.”

Keeping up local pressure will be key, proponents say. Vidot, the Chelsea councilor, is confident the issue is moving forward. “Progressive politics basically means we’re ahead of ourselves,” she said. “It will happen and we just have to keep pushing.”

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