Voting Rights Legislation

What Does Voter Suppression Look Like?

State voter suppression laws that restrict the availability of absentee/mail-in ballots, remove ballot drop boxes, limit early voting opportunities, create confusing voter ID requirements, purge registered voters from the rolls, and reduce polling places, are among the provisions that most harm the AAPI community’s ability to vote.

Many of these recent state laws have been directly aimed at the ways the AAPI community and others have overwhelmingly preferred to vote in recent elections. Examples include:

• Arizona has made purging voters off absentee ballot mailing lists easier, made it more difficult to get and submit mail-in ballots.
• Florida  has also made purging voters off absentee ballot mailing lists easier, restricting who can provide assistance in returning a ballot, making registering to vote more difficult, reducing the availability of mail-in ballot drop boxes and reducing early voting opportunities.
• Georgia is making the mail-in voting procedures more difficult including reducing the number of ballot drop boxes and making it illegal to provide refreshments to people stuck in long polling lines on election day.
• Texas in 2021 installed one of the nation’s most restrictive election laws. The law’s ID requirements have made the absentee ballot process complicated and arduous. In the first election under the new law, there were reports of thousands of ballots getting rejected. Other restrictive provisions in the Texas law include limits on who can assist a voter in returning a ballot, reducing access to polling places, limited early voting opportunities and making the voter registration process more difficult.

Positive Voter Access Policies

State voter suppression laws can be most effectively addressed through federal legislation. Notably, in January 2022, Congress was very close to passing the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, which is a combination of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. While unfortunately this bill was blocked, it would ultimately serve as the solution in addressing state voter suppression laws.  

The Freedom to Vote Act would standardize voting election laws across the country and would significantly expand voting access, including reversing the effects of dozens of new state-level voting restrictions passed this year. 

What the bill would require on voter access:

• Election Day as a federal holiday.
• Online, automatic, and same-day voter registration.
• A minimum of 15 days of early voting, including during at least two weekends.
• No-excuse mail voting with ample access to ballot drop boxes and online ballot tracking, in addition to streamlined election mail delivery by the US Postal Service.
• States would need to accept a wide range of forms of non-photographic identification in places where ID is required to vote. 
• Counting eligible votes on provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct.
• Restoring voting rights to formerly incarcerated people convicted of felonies.
• Imposes stricter regulations on voter list maintenance that make it harder for states to remove eligible voters from the rolls.
• More protections and resources to serve voters with disabilities and overseas/military voters. 
• Greater federal protections and oversight for voting in US territories.
• Improving voter registration resources and outreach, in addition to reauthorizing and strengthening the US Election Assistance Commission.
• The bill also includes the Right to Vote Act, which creates an affirmative right to vote in federal law.

On election administration and redistricting:

• Prohibits partisan gerrymandering by requiring states to use certain criteria when drawing new congressional districts.
• Requires states to use voter-verifiable paper ballots and conduct post-election audits.
• Gives cybersecurity grants to states and directs the EAC to strengthen cybersecurity standards for voting equipment.
• Prohibits local election officials from being fired or removed without cause.
• Makes interfering with voter registration a federal crime, and imposes stricter penalties against harassment, threats, and intimidation of election workers.
• Restates chain of custody requirements protecting the integrity of ballots and election materials, a provision meant to combat unofficial partisan “audits.”

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that have been struck down or weakened by the Supreme Court, and change the way federal courts handle election cases. The bill creates a new formula to restore the federal preclearance requirement mandating states with histories of discrimination to seek permission from the federal government before enacting new voting rules or redistricting plans. 

Other key provisions:

• Enshrines judicial precedent and legislative history to strengthen efforts to draw majority-minority districts under the parameters of the Voting Rights Act. 
• Takes aim at the federal courts by requiring judges to explain their reasoning in emergency rulings they take up on the so-called shadow docket, and tries to limit judges’ from relying solely on the proximity to the election in deciding emergency cases on election rules.
• The Senate version of the law also includes the Election Worker and Polling Place Protection Act, which provides greater federal protections for election workers against harassment and intimidation.
• The Senate version further tacks on the Native American Voting Rights Act, a bill that strengthens voting rights and voter protections for voters in Indian Country.