In New Hampshire, where Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, faces a potentially challenging re-election bid, Republicans have proposed to scrap the ballot-scanning machines that the state has used for decades in favor of hand-counting. Critics argued that such a unit could intimidate voters and be prone to abuse by politicians.
The governor said last month that the prospective election law enforcement unit would “have the ability to investigate any crimes involving the election” and would include sworn law enforcement officers, investigators and a statewide prosecutor. Another calls for more routine maintenance of voter rolls, which voting rights advocates say would lead to more “purges” of eligible voters. One proposal would increase the penalty for the collection of more than two ballots by a third party from a misdemeanor to a third-degree felony. DeSantis, who had been facing pressure from conservatives to greenlight a review of the 2020 election results in the state, has urged state lawmakers to send new election measures to his desk. It remains unclear how new voting bills might affect turnout, and some election experts say that any measures designed to suppress voting carry the potential to backfire by energizing voters of the opposing party. Many of the other bills are similar to those passed this year, which aim to limit access to mail-in voting reduce the use of drop boxes enact harsher penalties for election officials who are found to have broken rules expand the authority of partisan poll watchers and shift oversight of elections from independent officials and commissions to state legislatures. lawmakers in at least five states have put forward legislation to review the 2020 election and institute new procedures for investigating the results of future elections. He said the group wanted lawmakers to “stop thinking of election-related policies as something that only comes up once in a blue moon,” adding that “it should instead be something that comes up in every legislative session - that you take what you just learned from the last election.” “This is going to be one of the big political issues for at least the next year,” said Jason Snead, the executive director of the Honest Elections Project, a conservative group that has helped craft voting legislation. Some measures, they argue, raise the prospect of elections being thrown into chaos or even overturned. They warn that other bills will increase the influence of politicians and other partisans in what had been relatively routine election administration. Abrams said in an interview, adding that the country needed a Senate willing to “protect our democracy regardless of the partisanship of those who would oppose it.”ĭemocrats and voting rights groups say some of the Republican measures will suppress voting, especially by people of color. “What we are facing now is a very real and acute case of democratic subversion,” Ms. Democratic leaders, especially Stacey Abrams, the newly announced candidate for governor of Georgia and a voting rights champion for her party, promise to put the issue front and center.īut the left remains short of options, leaving many candidates, voters and activists worried about the potential effects in 2022 and beyond, and increasingly frustrated with Democrats’ inability to pass federal voting protections in Washington. In over 20 states, more than 245 similar bills put forward this year could be carried into 2022, according to Voting Rights Lab, a group that works to expand access to the ballot.īoth parties are preparing to use the issue of voting to energize their bases. Trump’s defeat last year, includes both voting restrictions and measures that could sow public confusion or undermine confidence in fair elections, and will significantly raise the stakes of the 2022 midterms.Īfter passing 33 laws of voting limits in 19 states this year, Republicans in at least five states - Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma and New Hampshire - have filed bills before the next legislative sessions have even started that seek to restrict voting in some way, including by limiting mail voting. The Republican drive, motivated in part by a widespread denial of former President Donald J. puts forward proposals ranging from a requirement that ballots be hand-counted in New Hampshire to the creation of a law enforcement unit in Florida to investigate allegations of voting fraud. A new wave of Republican legislation to reshape the nation’s electoral system is coming in 2022, as the G.O.P.