early voting restrictions

By Sikander Zakriya

There is a battle raging in the Lone Star State. No, not the one with COVID-19 – although it was the virus that gave this conflict new life.

A fight over mail-in-voting emerged between the Republican state officials in Austin and the Democratic clerk’s office in Harris County over whether the county can mail all of its residents an application to receive mail-in-ballots. The secretary of state and the attorney general sought to restrain the Harris County clerk from sending all residents of the county an application for a mail-in-ballot because the Republicans claim it will lead to mass voter fraud.

Harris County already sent applications for mail-in-ballots to voters over the age of 65 because Texas law permits those voters to automatically qualify for mail-in-ballots. However, the state of Texas filed suit against Harris County seeking an injunction prohibiting the clerk’s office from sending out the mail-in-ballot applications to all voters because they allege the move would violate Sections 31.005 and 84.012 of the Texas Election Code.

By: Evan Fraughinger

It was late at night on November 4, 2008, and I was watching the election results from my house in Fort Wayne, Indiana. To everyone’s surprise, as Indiana’s results finalized, Barack Obama was declared the winner of the State. This was the first time that a Democratic presidential candidate won Indiana since Johnson’s victory in 1964 and only the second time since World War II. Voter turnout in Indiana’s two largest and most Democratic counties, Marion County and Lake County, largely explained President Obama’s narrow 28,000 vote victory in the traditionally red state. While many Hoosiers celebrated, according to new allegations in a lawsuit filed by Common Cause Indiana and the NAACP, several Republican officials and the Marion County Election Board began planning how to prevent another Democratic upset.
[Read more…] about The 2008 Election: How Indiana “Hoped to Change” Early Voting Patterns After Obama’s Victory