In August of 2016, more than 563,000 Illinois voters signed a petition for a ballot initiative that many hoped would end partisan gerrymandering in the Land of Lincoln. The Illinois State Supreme Court quickly dashed those hopes when it struck down the ballot initiative as unconstitutional. The ruling affirms the Illinois constitution’s, exceptionally limited scope of potential ballot initiatives. This ruling has implications far beyond gerrymandering: this decision limits the potential for future ballot initiatives in Illinois, and thus the resolution of many of the state’s thorniest issues..
Georgia’s Voter Registration Surge: The Investigations and Lawsuits Behind the Numbers
By: Amber Stapleton
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, with Georgia expected to be a key political battleground, the state has seen a record number of citizens registered to vote. In the last 11 months alone, more that 352,000 Georgia citizens have been registered to vote and the influx has boosted the state’s voter rolls to the record high of nearly 7.4 million. According to one Atlanta Journal-Constitution article which cited the publications own analysis of registered voters from November 6, 2018 to August 12, 2019, “[a]bout 47% of the new voters who identified their race are minorities and 45% are age 30 or younger.”
Election Woes in Alabama
By: Christopher Shepard
The Alabama Democratic Party has featured much dissension in the past year. Results of an election in August 2018 (in which Nancy Worley and Randy Kelley retained their seats as chair and vice chair, respectively) were challenged for failure of the party to comply with orders from the Democratic National Committee. Eventual bylaws were passed and rejected by the DNC. As a result, the DNC took credentials from Worley and Kelley and began withholding payments to the Alabama Democratic Party, marking the first time the DNC has withheld payments from a state party.
Darkness Falls Over New Jersey Dark-Money Bill
By: Beth Pindilli
In June of this year, Governor Murphy of New Jersey signed Senate Bill 150 into law, which requires dark-money groups to report who is bankrolling them. Governor Murphy was hesitant to sign this bill but did so after threats for the legislature to override his conditional veto. He asserted that he only agreed to pass this bill under the impression that the legislature would eliminate many of the problematic provisions.
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Open Season on Ballot Harvesting in Arizona? 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Considers a Reversal
By: Kristin Palmason
A controversial piece of election legislation (HB 2023) enacted in Arizona in 2016 made ballot collecting a class 6 felony. Ballot collection, known as “ballot harvesting” is the practice of collecting completed ballots from voters and hand delivering them to be counted. Proponents of the practice say it is a valuable service that benefits voters in need of assistance to ensure that their vote is counted, while critics decry the practice as ripe for fraud. This issue is particularly salient in Arizona, where approximately 80% of voters receive their ballot in the mail (which can then be returned via mail or delivered to the county by hand).