The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for Feb. 28, 2025

Today’s Script

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

If you’re headed to vote in New Hampshire’s traditional March town meetings and need to register, you’ll need proof of citizenship documents with you, or you won’t be able to vote.  Twenty other states have similar legislation pending.

New Hampshire’s HB 1569 eliminated sworn citizenship affidavits, subject to fines or imprisonment for lying),  as evidence citizenship.  It now accepts only a birth certificate, U.S. Passport or naturalization papers.  There is NO evidence of any widespread noncitizen voting in the state, and the law was immediately challenged in federal district court as unconstitutional and an unreasonable burden.  

President Donald Trump’s recent unfounded claims of widespread noncitizen voting generated a rush to tighten proof of citizenship legislation around the country.  Voting Rights Lab is tracking 35 proof of citizenship bills in 20 states, many based on model legislation pushed by former Trump election lawyer, Cleta Mitchell and her Only Citizens Vote Coalition.    

Just this month, proof of citizenship bills were advanced in Wyoming and Missouri.  Eighteen other states are considering bills adding proof of citizenship requirements, and the pending SAVE Act in Congress would require it for federal elections. 

 A 2024 study by the Brennan Center for Justice found 9% of Americans don’t have ready access to their citizenship documents.  We have links to the Voting Rights Lab tracker and more at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org   I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:

NPR – Concerns about noncitizen voting drive sweeping new restrictions in New Hampshire
New Hampshire Public Radio – NH Youth Movement sues to overturn new voter ID law

U.S. District Court for New Hampshire – Complaint in NH Youth Movement v. Scanlan
Voting Rights Lab – (requires free registration) Proof-of-Citizenship Legislation Tracking

Wyoming Legislature – SB 190 Documentary Citizenship Requirement
Missouri Legislature – SB 62 – Election law revision including documentary citizenship requirement
Democracy Docket – What’s Really Behind Republicans’ Push for Proof of Citizenship?
ALEC/Only Citizens Vote – Model Policy for Citizenship Requirement
U.S. Congress – 2025 SAVE Act

American Democracy Minute – The SAVE Act Could Disenfranchise Millions of Voters. It’s Been Fast Tracked in Congress.
Brennan Center for Justice – Millions of Americans Don’t Have Documents Proving Their Citizenship Readily Available

Groups Taking Action:

Declaration for American Democracy, Coalition for Open Democracy, League of Women Voters of New Hampshire, ACLU NH

Register or Check Your Voter Registration:

U.S. Election Assistance Commission – Register And Vote in Your State

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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #ProofofCitizenship #VoterSuppression #NHNews #WyomingNews #MissouriNews #SAVEAct

The post NH’s Voter Registration Proof-of-Citizenship Law Began January 1st; Similar Citizenship Bills are Pending in 20 Other States appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for Nov. 15, 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.

Cleta Mitchell, a 2020 Trump election lawyer who later pushed so-called ‘election integrity’ laws in states around the U.S., is calling for all U.S. Department of Justice voting rights and civil rights lawyers to be fired. 

Mitchell served in Trump’s team of lawyers trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.  Since then, her Election Integrity Network group helped state legislatures make it harder to vote by mail and to register and vote on election day.  She also called for states to leave the ERIC, the interstate Electronic Registration Information Center, because of a conspiracy theory that it was run by George Soros.  And most recently, she championed Trump’s debunked claims of widespread voting by undocumented immigrants.

November 13th, the same day Rep. Matt Gaetz was nominated for U.S. Attorney General by President-elect Trump, Mitchell wrote in a social media post, QUOTE, “Every lawyer in the Voting Section and likely in the Civil Rights Division needs to be terminated.   They are not supportive of Pres Trump or MAGA.  There has to be a reckoning.  These are leftwing activists who have come from and should return to their leftwing organizations. UNQUOTE

It’s unclear whether Mitchell’s influence is enough to dismantle the DOJ’s Voting Rights and Civil Rights units, but it’s indicative of the voting rights challenges ahead.

We have more on Mitchell and her so-called ‘election integrity’ projects at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org. I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
Cleta Mitchell on X – “Every lawyer in the Voting Section and likely in the Civil Rights Division needs to be terminated.”

Mitchell’s Only Citizens Vote Coalition – No country can survive that allows guests and illegals
Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network – Election Integrity Network website
The New Republic – The Shadowy Right-Wing Group That’s Suppressing the 2024 Vote
The Guardian – She was a firebrand Democrat. Now, Cleta Mitchell is a rising star of Republican election denialism
The Hill – (2023) The 39 people the Georgia special grand jury recommended charges against
Free Speech for People – Letter to U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Regarding Cleta Mitchell

Register or Check Your Voter Registration:

U.S. Election Assistance Commission – Register And Vote in Your State

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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #USDOJ #CletaMitchell #BigLie

The post Trump ‘Election Integrity’ Lawyer Cleta Mitchell Calls for the Firing of All DOJ Voting & Civil Rights Lawyers appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for July 24, 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.

At the Republican National Convention, Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that Democrats tolerated illegal immigration so noncitizens would fraudulently vote. Such claims might rile up the GOP base, but they are patently false. 

The narrative of voting by undocumented noncitizen immigrants has been around for years, but pushed recently by former Trump election lawyer Cleta Mitchell, founder of the Election Integrity Network and the Only Citizens Vote Coalition.  Mitchell alleges that because states issue driver’s licenses to noncitizens, and IDs are required to vote, this translates to massive voter fraud.  

It’s not true.  Noncitizen voting for state & federal elections has been illegal since the early 1900s.  To register in almost all states, a birth certificate, naturalization certificate, or passport is required, and noncitizens registering are subject to fines, prison or deportation.  The Brennan Center for Justice recently wrote, “Would you risk everything — your freedom, your life in the United States, your ability to be near your family — just to cast a single ballot?” 

The Brennan Center’s 2016 research of 42 jurisdictions which processed 23.5 million votes found only 30 suspected cases.  And investigations typically find clerical mistakes responsible, not intentional fraud.  A study review by the conservative Cato Institute concluded, “. . . there is no good evidence that noncitizens voted illegally in large enough numbers to actually shift the outcome of elections.”  

We’ve linked the research at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
Brennan Center for Justice –  Myth of Noncitizen Voting
Democracy Docket –Debunking the Myths Surrounding Noncitizen Voting
Washington Post – (Possible paywall) The truth about noncitizen voting in federal elections
NPR – Conservatives are warning about noncitizens voting. It’s a myth with a long history
Only Citizens Vote Coalition – Cleta Mitchell’s allegations of noncitizen voting
Cato Institute – Noncitizens Don’t Illegally Vote in Detectable Numbers
Brennan Center for Justice – (2017) Noncitizen Voting: The Missing Millions

Groups Taking Action:
Common Cause, Anti-Defamation League, NAACP Legal Defense Fund

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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #NoncitizenVoting #ImmigrantVoting  #BigLie

The post Claims of Widespread Voting by Noncitizens Might Be Red Meat for the Base, But It’s Complete Nonsense. appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for July 2, 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.

The North Carolina Senate endorsed a ballot measure June 25th prohibiting noncitizens from voting – for which there is already existing law. And the Senate declined another measure repealing a racist Jim Crow-era literacy test to vote, still enshrined in the state’s constitution.

There is no evidence that more than a handful of noncitizens have voted in any federal or state elections nationally.  Yet noncitizen voting has been among the loudest accusations in this election cycle.  All 50 states already prohibit noncitizens from voting in state elections, and a 1996 federal law prohibits it in federal elections.  BallotPedia reports that 16 municipalities and the District of Columbia DO allow noncitizen voting in municipal elections only.  

North Carolina would become the fifth state this year to put a measure on the November 2024 ballot. Five other states recently passed similar measures, pushed by former Trump election lawyer Cleta Mitchell.   

The state senate also rejected a measure proposing repeal of a Jim Crow-era literacy test for voting, enshrined in the state constitution since 1899 even after the 1965 Voting Right Act banned such discrimination in voting. 

Sec. 4.

Voter registration requires literacy test and payment of poll taxes. Every person presenting himself for registration shall be able to read and write any section of the Constitution in the English language; and, before he shall be entitled to vote, he shall have paid, on or before the first day of March of the year in which he proposes to vote, his poll tax, as prescribed by law, for the previous year. Poll taxes shall be a lien only on assessed property, and no process shall issue to enforce the collection of the same, except against assessed property.

Suffrage Amendment, 1899, Ratified in 1900

In a 109 – 0 vote, the state  House approved sending the ballot measure to voters to repeal it,  but WRAL reports the senate voted the measure down, with one senator suggesting that the bill was too last minute.  

Read the measures and local reporting linked from AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.  I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
North Carolina State Constitution – 1899 Suffrage Amendment

Democracy North Carolina – The literacy test was a tool originally used to prevent Black, Brown, and Indigenous North Carolinians from voting.
WRAL – NC constitutional amendments: Legislature approves citizen-only voting, rejects repeal of Jim Crow literacy test law
North Carolina Legislature – HB 1074 – Constitutional Amendment/Citizens-Only Voting
North Carolina Legislature – HB 44 – Constitutional Amendment/Repeal Literacy Test
The Guardian – Far-right US groups coalescing to stoke unfounded fears of non-citizens voting

BallotPedia – Laws permitting noncitizens to vote in the United States

Groups Taking Action:
Democracy North Carolina,  NAACP High Point Chapter

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#Democracy #DemocracyNews #NorthCarolina #NoncitizenVoting #LiteracyTest #VoterSuppression

The post North Carolina Senate Sends ‘Citizen-Voting-Only’ Ballot Measure to Voters, Fails Measure to Repeal Jim Crow-Era Literacy Test appeared first on American Democracy Minute.

American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for Aug. 23, 2023

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.

Nine conservative-leaning states have pulled out of ERIC, a cooperative of states which uses advanced computer matching to keep voter rolls clean.  Now, a group of GOP activists is launching its own system called EagleAI NETwork and pitching it to counties and states – and for use by activists in “challenging” voter eligibility.

NBC News and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, tipped off by video presentations to GOP activists obtained by watchdog Documented, reported that the rollout of the effort is being aided by former Trump election lawyer Cleta Mitchell.  NPR reported that Mitchell helped seed doubt and encouraged states to pull out of ERIC.  As we’ve reported, Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network and other conservative groups have lobbied state legislatures like North Carolina’s to aggressively pass laws allowing more poll observers, public access to voter information, and a loosening of rules allowing challenges to voter eligibility.   

The founders of the EagleAI NETwork, spelled EagleA-I, were recorded pitching the system to activists, specifically mentioning that the system would flag eligibility of voters at homeless shelters and nursing homes, according to NBC. 

One of EagleAI’s founders says the group is in talks with Georgia counties.  In a statement to NBC News, Georgia Election Director Blake Evans said, “Eagle AI data offers zero additional value to Georgia’s existing list maintenance procedures.”

We’ve linked our sources at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.   I’m Brian Beihl.

Today’s Links

Articles & Resources:
NBC News – Inside the right’s effort to build a voter fraud hunting tool
NPR – How the far right tore apart one of the best tools to fight voter fraud

New Brunswick News/Atlanta Journal Constitution – Georgia company EagleAI pursues multistate voter registration cancellations
Documented – Meet “Eagle AI,” the Cleta Mitchell-Backed MAGA Mass Voter Challenge Program
Campaign Legal Center – What Is ERIC, and Why Is It Critical for Our Democracy?

Groups Taking Action:

Issue One, Common Cause Georgia, Center for Election Innovation & Research, Protect Democracy

Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter and SHARE! 
Find all of our reports at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org
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#Democracy  #DemocracyNews #ProtectElections #FreedomtoVote

The post GOP Activists Are Pitching an Alternative to ERIC for Voter List Maintenance. But it Could Also Be Used for Voter Suppression. appeared first on American Democracy Minute.