Today, Explained - It’s getting harder to vote in America

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

Texas isn’t the only state advancing legislation that would disenfranchise voters in Democratic strongholds. Vox’s Ian Millhiser explains why some voter suppression efforts are worse than others. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit connectsontario.ca. It's Today Explained. I'm Halima Shah, sitting in for Sean Ramos-Furham. And I'm here to tell you that America has a voting problem. The Brennan Center, which is a voting rights group up in New York, tracks all of the voter suppression bills that are being introduced in state legislatures. And there are hundreds of them. Ian Millhiser is a senior correspondent for Vox. As a journalist, I find it a little frustrating because it's hard to know which ones are likely to move forward and which ones are likely to go nowhere. But what we have seen is this pattern of comprehensive voter suppression bill.

And for the moment, the Republican Party seems really committed to passing these bills in as many states as they can. One of the most recent voting bills is coming up in Texas. They've got a bill going that is really a humdinger. The bill is one of the most restrictive in the country. It bans drive-through and 24-hour voting, makes it illegal for counties to send unsolicited absentee ballots, adds new ID requirements for those ballots, and limits polling

hours, even during early voting. It combines a lot of the ideas that you've been seeing from other states. It includes things like voter purges that are potentially very scary, just kicking people off the voter registration rolls. And how much support does the Texas bill have? Tremendous support within the Texas GOP. And the GOP controls both houses of the legislature and the governor. You know, the governor has said this is a very high priority.

Unless Democrats can pull another rabbit out of their hat, I think that this bill is likely to become law at some time fairly soon. And given that Texas has a Republican governor, a Republican-led legislature, and this is a Republican bill, why hasn't this passed yet? So this story is kind of funny. There's three rules in the Texas legislature that you have to keep in mind. The first is that the most recent legislative session ended at midnight on Sunday.

On the stroke of 12, the spell will be broken and everything will be as it was before. So there was the Cinderella problem where Republicans, any bill that they wanted to pass, had to pass by midnight or it was at least temporarily dead. Oh, my goodness. What's the matter? It's midnight. Yes, so it is. Goodbye. The second rule is that it takes a two thirds supermajority. There has to be a two, two thirds of the House members have to be present on the floor for the House to conduct

business in the state of Texas. I can't understand why. It's always fit perfectly before. I don't think you're half trying. And then the third rule is that if members are not present, then you can actually send the police to go arrest the people who aren't present and physically drag them back to the House chamber. That's right.

You are the only ladies of the household, I hope, I presume. There's no one else, Your Grace. Quite so. Good day. Good day. Your grace. Your grace. Please wait. May I try it on? What is this a thing in other states or is this just a Texas thing? This is actually really common, like the same. There's the same rule in Congress. So this is a thing. You know, it's how you prevent the tactic that the Democrats used in Texas, which was about an hour and a half before midnight. One of the Democratic leaders sent a text message to all of the House Democrats. It said, leave the chamber discreetly. Do not go to the gallery. Leave the building. The idea was that, you know, one by one, like you just saw these lawmakers, you know, woman would pick up her purse and just quietly walk out the back of the door.

There'd be another guy. He'd slowly gather his papers together. And when it looked like no one was going, he'd walk out the door. And slowly, one by one, the Democrats emptied out of the House chamber until there weren't two thirds present. Mr. Guerin makes a point of order that a quorum is not present based on the tally sheet furnished by the voting clerk. A quorum is apparently not present. The point of order is well taken and sustained. And they they actually wound up gathering at a nearby church. But because no one, you know, the police, the Republicans didn't know where they went, it wasn't possible to arrest them and drag them back to the chamber before midnight.

They were prepared to cut us off and try to silence us. We were not going to let them do that. And that's why Democrats used the last tool available to us. We denied them the quorum that they need to pass this bill. And we killed that bill. And so that was how they managed to stop the passage of this bill by denying a quorum until the legislative session ended. Wow. So before Democrats discreetly left and went nearby to a church and were basically like in hiding so they wouldn't get arrested and be brought back to the chambers.

What exactly did they say their main objections to this bill were? So they raised several objections. So there's some provisions in the bill that just seem to serve no purpose at all, except for targeting Democratic voters. So one example is that black churches often have what are called souls to the polls drives where the parishioners show up, there'll be a church service, and then that same Sunday morning, immediately after the church service is over, they'll all go to the polls together and cast their ballot. And African Americans, of course, overwhelmingly

favor Democrats if you look at the polls. And so there is a provision in this bill which says that there could be no Sunday voting before 1 p.m. And, you know, there's just no reason for that provision unless your goal is to prevent the souls to the polls drives where specifically black churches are doing voter turnout drives on Sunday mornings. Obviously, Democrats are saying that this is an unconstitutional voter suppression effort. But aside from that kind of moral objection, what else do they stand to lose if this legislation goes through? I should get into some of the details of the bill because like it's worth knowing why Democrats care so much. You know, it's not just these things like, you know, this 1 p.m. souls to the polls provision that is symbolically

objectionable. But like it's unclear how much that particular provision would actually, you know, whether that would actually change the result of an election. But there's a lot of really virulent stuff in here. You know, there is a provision requiring counties to engage in voter purchase, kicking people off the registration rolls. If it turns out that more there are more people registered to vote in the county than there are eligible voters in the county. And that might sound nefarious, but but it isn't like people move, people die. And like generally when like you move from one state to another, you don't call up the registrar at your old home and be like, hey, by the way, you should take me off the voter rolls. You just move.

And so it's very common for there to be old names on a voting list that are just people who moved or died. And there just isn't any evidence that that leads to any kind of voter fraud. What there is evidence of is that Texas has a very bad record with voter purges. 2019, for example, a federal judge had to block an attempt to purge voters because it turns out that tens of thousands of naturalized citizens were falsely identified as non-citizens who had registered to vote. And so, you know, many people who were legally eligible to vote were going to be kicked off the voter registration rolls. And so, you know, you're

sort of dealing with a non-problem here. Like there just isn't an epidemic of people pretending to be someone else and then using that to cast an extra ballot. What there is a serious problem of specifically in Texas's recent history is voter purges that had false positives that identified people to be kicked off the rolls who shouldn't have been kicked off the rolls. It sounds like the Texas Democrats walk out, bought them some time, but this bill is not dead. How might it come up for a vote again? The governor can call a special session of the state legislature. And I don't know how many tools Democrats have at that point. I mean, there was actually an incident, I think, like 18 years ago when there was a redistricting bill that Democrats wanted to block in Texas.

The only way that we could protect our constituents and about a million point four minority voters that would have been disenfranchised with the maps was to leave the state. And so they actually fled the state, which is outside of the jurisdiction of the Texas police. Many people ask, why did you have to leave? Because we would have been under arrest. And I believe that standoff lasted for more than a month before Democrats finally, at least some of them came back and there was a quorum. So, I mean, potentially you could see some really aggressive tactics being used here. If Democrats are showing such staunch opposition, is there any chance that this bill, the draft of this bill, could change as sort of a compromise before the next round of voting? It's possible.

So there were two different versions of the bill. There was a House version and the Senate version. And the Senate version was worse. Among other things, it contained a provision that very tightly regulated where polling places could be located in predominantly Democratic cities. And so it was expected to lead to fewer polling places being opened in neighborhoods where there were a lot of non-white people in these cities. And, you know, it's not hard to guess why Republicans would want it to be harder for black and brown people to cast a ballot. And so that provision didn't make it into the bill that was supposed to get a vote on Sunday. And so, like, there has been a little give and take here. You know, there has been some evidence that, like, some really bad provisions can be watered down or stripped down. I think what the question is, is that Republicans, frankly, are pissed about what happened on

Sunday. And I mean, as someone who has spent, you know, the last I don't know how many years railing against the filibuster, like I understand the Republicans anger, like being able to block a bill by simply walking off the House floor is not a best practice. If you're trying to figure out how to set up a legislature. I think that it is possible that Republicans might try to retaliate against the Democrats by putting in some of the provisions that were taken out. Coming up, not all voter suppression efforts are created equal. Ian explains which ones are the most worrying.

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Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Ian, we've been talking about how Republican-led legislatures across the country have been trying to pass voter suppression laws. But you say that not all of these laws are equal. Why?

I want to be precise here because I don't want to say like it's fine to just make it hard to vote for no good reason. Like that's that's a bad thing. Like we want it to be as easy as possible to vote. But a lot of voter suppression tactics can be overcome. And like if you look at the research, the research suggests that they typically are overcome through voter education, through strong campaigns. There's some studies that show that black voters in particular get very upset when they learn that laws are being passed to make it harder for them to vote and so are more likely to organize to overcome whatever tactics are being used and so you know for example if the state says that you can't vote

by mail well you can still vote in person and like there is some evidence that you know democrats can be effective in just making sure to educate voters like, OK, you're going to have to vote in person this time around because they've taken away your ability to vote by mail. And so those provisions are bad, but they are provisions that can be overcome. The second category is things like this voter purge provision potentially, where you don't even realize you've been deregistered until you show up and they tell you you're not allowed to vote. The most virulent provision in the Georgia law, which passed earlier this year, allows

state boards that are controlled by the Republican Party to take over local election boards in the state of Georgia. According to the law, the state elections board can suspend up to four local election board superintendents at a time. The law says the state would temporarily replace the local board with a single appointee to run county elections. And the reason why that matters is because those local election boards have the power to disqualify voters. They have the power to close precincts and they even have the power to refuse to certify an election.

And so you could potentially have a circumstance where you have a voter who follows all the rules. You have many voters who follow all the rules, who do everything right. They obey the law. And then after the fact, this local election board gets taken over by the state GOP and these voters are disqualified. And those are the provisions that I think are the most troubling. You know, the sorts of provisions where no matter what the voter does, no matter what voting rights activists do, no matter what the Democratic Party does, no matter what voting rights activists do, no matter what the Democratic Party does,

no matter what anyone does, there's potentially going to be people disenfranchised through no fault of their own. So some of these laws are basically turning state election boards into partisan groups. What are some of the other more virulent voter suppression efforts that we could see? Well, let me tell you what the most likely tactic and probably the most common tactic we're going to see to, you know, essentially rig elections, and that's gerrymander. So the census has not yet provided states with the data they need to conduct the latest round of redistricting. States are required to draw new legislative maps every 10 years. And this is the year when they

have to do it when they get the new census data. So they're probably going to get that data in September. And then we're going to see a whole new fight that is going to make these fights that we're already having in Georgia and Texas and places like that look tiny because every state is going to have to withdraw its maps. Blue states are more likely to have independent redistricting commissions or some sort of protection against partisan gerrymandering. Red states, I mean, some of them have them have protections against gerrymandering. Ohio, for example, has them, but many red states do not. And so in places like Texas and Georgia and elsewhere,

you're going to see very aggressive attempts to draw maps that will try to lock the Republican Party into power in the House of Representatives and lock the Republican Party into power in state legislatures. And these gerrymanders can be extraordinarily potent. In Wisconsin in 2018, Democratic candidates for the state assembly won, I believe it was 54 percent of the statewide popular vote. So the voters voted for a Democratic state assembly and by a fairly convincing margin. And yet Republicans won more than 60 of the 99 seats in the state assembly because the gerrymander was so potent. And so this is, I think, the biggest threat moving forward to democracy is that we're probably going to see some very aggressive gerrymanders drawn. You know, the computers and the computer science that was used to draw that Wisconsin gerrymander,

they've only grown more sophisticated in the last 10 years. And so the danger is that you could have, you know, house races, U.S. house races that are more or less predetermined by the maps, and you could have state legislatures that are effectively immune to democracy, where, you know, it is almost impossible to elect a legislature that is controlled by a party other than the one that drew the maps. And what's the national response to these voting laws that are showing up in Republican-led states? Well, I mean, the biggest national response is there's two big bills making their way through Congress.

That upon adoption of this resolution, it shall be in order to consider in the House the bill H.R. 1 to expand Americans' access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics. The Supreme Court, and Roberts in his opinion, also said that voter discrimination still existed. It admitted that it still existed. And H.R. 4 is our effort to actually provide a modern day voter. You know, H.R. 1 and H.R. 4, the For the People Act and the and the John Lewis Act. And the first bill is kind of a comprehensive. Let's look at all the tactics that have been used to make it harder to vote and find ways to invalidate them. You know, there's a provision in there calling for independent redistricting commissions in all 50 states in order to tamp down on gerrymandering. It's a very potent bill. The other bill, the John Lewis Act, would reinstate what is called preclearance in many states, meaning that before they can make any changes to their voting laws, they'd have to get

approval from officials in Washington, D.C., who would look at the laws and make sure that they wouldn't discriminate on the basis of race. So these are potentially very potent bills. The problem is that, you know, that H.R. 1 has passed the House and it is, you know, blockaded in the Senate by a Republican filibuster. And at least two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, say that they won't do anything about the filibuster. Well, as folks in Arizona know, I've long been a supporter of the filibuster because. And until all the Democrats agree that they're not going to let Republicans have that veto power, you know, I don't see how these bills pass. Biden made his feelings about this pretty clear earlier this week in Tulsa. This sacred right is under assault with

incredible intensity like I've never seen, even though I got started as a public defender and a civil rights lawyer, with an intensity and aggressiveness we've not seen in a long, long time. It's simply un-American. How much power does he have here to influence voting rights? Biden has spoken against these laws. He has endorsed H.R.1 and H.R.4. He wants there to be a legislative solution. I think that Biden is in a tough spot because, you know, he could go out, he can give a big speech denouncing these things. And like, I don't think that Republican state lawmakers are going to be motivated to change their behavior because a Democratic president says that they're doing something bad. Like, that's just not how politics works. So ultimately, you know, if legislation can't pass, we're going to hit a point where I think the Department of Justice is going to matter a whole lot because, you know, the Supreme

Court has weakened the Voting Rights Act. It hasn't gotten rid of it entirely. You know, there are still existing voting rights laws on the books. And at least some provisions of the Georgia laws and this Texas bill and, you know, these other bills that are passing, I think, potentially run afoul of the Voting Rights Act or potentially run afoul of some other existing law. Or they run afoul of some other existing law or they run afoul of the Constitution. And so the Justice Department can play a significant role in bringing lawsuits and in sending monitors to states and in trying to, you know, tamp down on the effectiveness of these laws. But ultimately, Republican appointees control six of the nine seats on the Supreme Court. The court was already fairly hostile to things like the Voting Rights Act before Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed and created the current six to three conservative majority. And I think that if Congress isn't willing to act, the Biden administration has very limited options if it wants to protect the franchise. Ian, how permanent do you think these changes to voting rights will be?

I mean, that's a good question. And the answer is a lot of it will depend on what happens in the next few elections. Imagine voters in Georgia, voters in Texas, you know, voters throughout the country being so angered by this that they say, you know, we don't care how hard you try to make it. We're going to turn out. We're going to make sure that we have a Congress that will pass legislation to make sure this never happens again. years from now, instead of having 50 senators who are interested in passing voting rights laws, you could have 53 senators who are interested in passing voting rights laws and 51 of them who are interested in getting rid of the filibuster. And if that happens, you know, this could be a sad, unfortunate story that becomes a footnote in the history books because the voter suppression bills are swept away. That's not the only possible outcome. The other possible outcome is that these tactics could work and that we could find ourselves

in a situation where we no longer have meaningfully competitive elections, or at least we no longer have meaningly competitive elections for things like the U.S. Senate because Republicans already have such built-in advantages or the U.S. House because gerrymanders can be so potent. We are at a crossroads, I think, as a democracy. And there's one path that I think could lead to our democracy becoming much stronger and much more vigorous. And there's another path that leads us in a very different direction. And ultimately, the people who want to take that first path are going to have to show, many of them have to show some serious commitment to casting their ballots, you know, not just in 2022, but moving forward, because lawmakers are intentionally trying to make it harder to vote. Ian Millhiser is a senior correspondent at Vox.

You can read his work on voting laws over at Vox.com. I'm Halima Shah, sitting in for Sean Ramos-Furham. It's Today Explained. Thank you.