The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for April 11, 2024

Today’s Script

(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time. Today’s Links below the script)

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.

Disinformation spread about the 2020 election by candidates & partisan groups mobilized extremists to harass or threaten election officials. Many of those officials resigned.  But a large national study also found other reasons for large-scale turnover, and some hope for the 2024 election.

The Bipartisan Policy Center surveyed over 18,000 chief elections officers in all 50 states and confirmed that turnover reached a 20-year high in 2022 of 38.7%. While the survey acknowledges that threats and harassment are factors, it also found that older election officials are retiring, due to an increasing workload, underfunding, and an increasingly complex election system.  Turnover is not just limited to specific states, either, but both red and blue states, and large and small communities.

Despite the turnover nationally, the researchers found that most officials were being replaced with election workers with recent experience.  For 2024, 65% of local election officials will have run a Presidential election previously, down only slightly from 2020.  

It also found that turnover was highest for election officials in large jurisdictions, reaching 46% between 2018 and 2022.  Sixty-seven percent of those officials also reported being abused, harassed or threatened.  The good news is that researchers found most replacement chief election officers have multiple years of experience in running federal elections.

You can find the Bipartisan Policy Center study linked from our website, AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
Bipartisan Policy Center – Election Official Turnover Rates from 2000-2024
American Democracy Minute – Rules, and ‘Election Integrity’ Vigilantes Led to an Election Official Brain-Drain
Pew Research Center – Older people account for large shares of poll workers and voters in U.S. general elections
Brennan Center for Justice – Election Officials Under Attack
U.S. Election Assistance Commission – Be a Poll Worker!
Power the Polls – HELP STAFF YOUR LOCAL POLLING PLACE

Groups Taking Action:
Issue One, Election Official Legal Defense Network, Power the Polls, Center for American Progress

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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #ProtectElections #ProtectPollWorkers #BeaPollWorker

The post National Study of Elections Officials Confirms Turnover from Harassment, But Also Finds An Aging Workforce and Increasing Workloads are Factors appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for March 27, 2024

Today’s Script

(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time. Today’s Links below the script)

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.

Five states are considering legislation banning electronic ballot tabulators, driven by debunked conspiracy theories that the machines were used to rig the 2020 election.  Where hand counting has been implemented, it’s less accurate, takes longer, and costs more.

Bills in Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Arizona, and South Carolina all propose banning optical ballot tabulators, which would include machines by Dominion Voting Systems and other companies.  

Votebeat Texas reported on Republicans in one Texas county who DID count 8,000 GOP primary ballots by hand.  It took 24 hours, involved 200 workers, and resulted in multiple human errors.   The 2020 primary election in Gillespie County used electronic tabulators, required only 45 workers, and the process took only a few hours.

But voters in some areas are fed up.  Earlier this month, voters in 22 of 23 New Hampshire towns defeated a coordinated effort to ban tabulators at the local level. 

In conspiracy hotbed Shasta County, California, county supervisors doubled down in February, voting to hand count the 2024 Presidential election, despite a new state law restricting when hand counting can be used.   But the Shasta Scout reports that in the March 5th primary, one of those supervisors was ousted, and another is within a few votes of being recalled.  Ironically, a hand recount is likely.

We links to more on hand counting at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
Democracy Docket – New Report Sheds Light on Hand Counting Ballots Ahead of 2024
Democracy Docket – The Push for Hand Counting: A Step Back in Responsible Election Practices
Voting Rights Lab – States with pending legislation to ban ballot tabulators
Associated Press – Vote-counting machine foes hoped for a surge of success in New Hampshire. They got barely a ripple
Votebeat Texas – ‘Are you kidding me’: Gillespie County Republican hand count stretched into early morning hours
Votebeat Texas – ‘I can’t believe I did that’: Texas county’s GOP officials found multiple errors after hand count
Democracy Docket – Shasta County, California Wants to Hand Count Votes Again
Shasta County Board of Elections – RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING A LOCAL ORDINANCE MANDATING HAND COUNTED BALLOTS AT PRECINCTS USING PAPER POLLBOOKS
Shasta Scout – With 803 Votes Left to Count, Supervisor Kevin Crye Continues to Resist Recall Attempt

Groups Taking Action:
Brennan Center for Justice, Institute for Responsive Government

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Find all of our reports at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org

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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #HandCounting 

The post Five States Are Considering Conspiracy-Fueled Legislation Which Bans Ballot Tabulators.  But Fed-Up Voters are Pushing Back. appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for March 20, 2024

Today’s Script

(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time. Today’s Links below the script)

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.

A Washington State fight over Latino voting rights may still not be over, but March 15th, a federal judge approved new state house and senate maps for central Washington State.  The previous Washington State Redistricting Commission maps were thrown out as diluting Latino voting power.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik chose a map submitted by the plaintiffs which he said QUOTE  “… provides Latino voters with an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice to the state legislature.”    Remedial Map 3 stretches from the town of Pasco in Franklin County to the East Yakima area of Yakima County, which the judge noted would meet the requirements of the Voting Rights Act.

The opportunity district was also made an even-numbered district, which under Washington’s staggered election system means candidates there would face election during higher turnout Presidential election years. 

Five Republican legislators elected under the former maps, find themselves in different districts, and are crying foul.  The Washington State Standard quotes the GOP’s Senate Minority Leader John Braun as saying, “This is an unjust outcome,” and he claims that the decision was about electing more Democrats.   An attorney for the Campaign Legal Center said, “This map gives the Yakima Valley Latino community at long last the opportunity to have a fair shot at electing the candidate of their choice.”

 Republicans have already appealed to the federal Ninth District Circuit Court.

We have links to more reporting on Washington’s new maps, the groups taking action, and a sign-up to receive free daily updates by email, at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
U.S. District Court, Western District of WA via Democracy Docket – Order in Palmer v. Hobbs
Washington State Standard – Federal judge sets new boundaries for Yakima Valley legislative district
Washington State Standard – Redistricting ruling stirs partisan uproar
Oregon Public Broadcasting/Northwest News Network – Judge approves Washington’s new legislative district maps after court battle over Latino voting rights

Groups Taking Action:
Campaign Legal Center, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), UCLA Voting Rights Project

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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #FairMaps #EndGerrymandering #LatinoVoters

The post Federal Court Releases Redistricting New WA Maps After Striking Down Districts Diluting Latino Voting Power appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for March 19, 2024

Today’s Script

(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time. Today’s Links below the script)

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.

Former New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner famously quipped, “You can’t hack a pencil.”  Perhaps, but that mindset has set the Granite State decades behind in its election technology.  Now, there’s another proposal for a state “election information portal,” to finally offer online voter registration.

Voting Right Lab reports that New Hampshire is one of only seven states which does not allow its citizens to register online.  HB 463 passed the NH House January 3rd in a close vote, 195-172, and will likely pass the Senate.   Funding for the portal, SB 453, passed the Senate last week in a voice vote, and will be heard shortly in the House Finance committee.

New Hampshire’s portal would be more of a secure transit system. Citizens could securely send identity, residency, citizenship documents to the Secretary of State’s office via the portal, and town and city election officials would download and review the registrations.   Existing voters would also be able to make registration changes or request an absentee ballot.   Such a system would allow the elderly, disabled, shift workers and others to register outside of town hall hours, often limited in New Hampshire’s rural communities.

Studies of states using online voter registration, or OVR, found it was secure, lowered costs, lightened the burden for election workers, increased voter satisfaction, and reduced barriers to voting.  

We have links to the bills and OVR data at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
New Hampshire Legislature –  HB463 Election Information Portal
New Hampshire Legislature – SB 453 Funding for Statewide Voter Registration System

Voting Rights Lab  –  Online Voter Registration Tracker
NAACP Legal Defense Fund – Online Voter Registration: Good For States, Good For Voters
MIT Election Data & Science Lab – Voter Registration

Groups Taking Action:

Open Democracy Action, New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, League of Women Voters NH

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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #VoterRegistration #VotingRights #NHPolitics

The post NH ‘Election Information Portal’ Funding Passes State Senate.  Will the Granite State Finally Enter the 21st Century? appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for March 18, 2024

Today’s Script

(Variations occur with audio due to editing for time. Today’s Links below the script)

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.

We reported extensively last year on the alleged tampering of electronic vote tabulators in Michigan following the 2020 election.  The first of three trials is imminent, but after failing to appear at multiple court hearings, one election-denier defendant faces even more charges.

Reuters reports that Stephanie Lambert Junttila was part of a team of lawyers connected to Sidney Powell, who led former President Trump’s court challenges of the 2020 Presidential election results.   She was allegedly in the room when Matthew DePerno, a candidate for Michigan attorney general, and Daire Rendon, a Michigan state representative, attempted to access the data in a Dominion Voting Systems electronic ballot tabulator in a suburban Detroit hotel room.  The three were charged with conspiracy and unlawful possession of a voting machine  last August.

Trials were originally scheduled for early March.   But according to the Michigan Advance,  Lambert Junttila, failed to appear for two pre-trial hearings, and an Oakland County judge issued an arrest warrant March 8th.   Reuters later reported that March 13th, while under indictment and subject to an arrest warrant, she was in a Washington, D.C. courtroom, representing former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne against Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 Billion dollar defamation lawsuit. Dominion sued Byrne for allegedly pushing the debunked theory that Dominion’s ballot tabulators had manipulated the election for Joe Biden. 

Lambert Junttila’s trial is scheduled to begin April 1st.    

We have more at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
Reuters – (2022) The Michigan lawyer pushing Trump’s voter-fraud fictions in U.S. courts
Michigan Advance – (2023) Republicans Matt DePerno and Daire Rendon charged in 2020 voting machine probe
Michigan Advance – Judge sets March trial date in Michigan voting machine tampering case
Michigan Advance – One voting machine tampering cases moves to trial, two others await consideration
Michigan Advance – Warrant for Lambert Junttila remains as she misses another hearing in tabulator tampering case
Reuters – Ex-Overstock CEO taps indicted pro-Trump lawyer as defense counsel in Dominion lawsuit

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Find all of our reports at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org

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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #ElectionDeniers #MichiganPolitics #TrumpCriminalTrials #VotingMachineTampering

The post ‘Election Integrity’ Gone Bad:  Updates on Michigan’s Electronic Ballot Tabulator Tampering Cases appeared first on American Democracy Minute.