Early voting begins Oct. 11
You can start voting now in person at your county Board of Election or request an absentee ballot to vote by mail. Instructions on how to request and submit an absentee ballot, deadlines, and ID requirements are available on the Secretary of State’s voter information website.
Can we get fair districts? Struggles continue across the US in advance of 2024 election
On Oct. 5, a federal court approved a new congressional map for Alabama that creates a second district in which Black voters have a realistic chance of electing a candidate of their choice. This invalidates the map Alabama’s Legislature adopted in July.
The Legislature’s July map defied the US Supreme Court’s June ruling, which rejected the map used in the 2022 Congressional elections as a racial gerrymander in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The decision was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and supported by Justice Brett Kavenaugh, as well as the three liberal justices. Alabama officials have admitted that their July re-draw failed to create a second Black opportunity district. In late September the US Supreme Court rejected Alabama’s emergency request and upheld the lower court’s ruling rejecting the July map.
The three-judge federal panel which issued the new Alabama Congressional map in October includes two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump. In their order, they wrote that they were “not aware of any other case in which a state legislature – faced with a federal court order declaring that its electoral plan unlawfully dilutes minority votes and requiring a plan that provides an additional opportunity district – responded with a plan that the state concedes does not provide that district.”The Alabama case was closely watched as a precedent for Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana, where challenges to Congressional maps are now underway in state and federal courts.
Battle over elections escalates in Wisconsin
In Wisconsin, Republican legislators are considering impeaching Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz, an opponent of partisan gerrymandering who was elected to a 10-year term by a large majority this spring. If she is impeached by the Wisconsin House – which only requires a majority vote – and if the Senate takes no action, she would be suspended from her duties and leave the court deadlocked with three liberal and three conservative justices.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders in the legislature are calling for the ouster of Meagan Wolfe, administrator of Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Elections Commission on the basis of claims that she was part of a plot to rig the 2020 election, whose results were validated by recounts, audits, multiple lawsuits, and a review by a conservative law firm. These struggles introduce chaos in advance of the 2024 election in this battleground state.
Constitutionality of Ohio’s state district map challenged again
Advocates have filed another challenge to Ohio’s latest state district maps, which were revised and adopted unanimously by the Redistricting Commission late at night at the end of September, and which are expected to provide an almost 70% Republican majority in the Ohio Senate and 61.6% Republican majority in the Ohio House. The petitioners see these maps as defying all of the Ohio Supreme Court’s previous rulings based on the specific proportionality standard in our constitution, which prohibits maps from being “primarily drawn to favor or disfavor a political party” and sets the benchmark of the proportion of voters choosing each party in statewide elections over the decade preceding redistricting. 54% of voters chose Republican candidates over that period.
Although the Court’s majority is likely to find the new maps acceptable following the retirement of former Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor (who is now campaigning for an amendment to create an independent redistricting commission), the petitioners challenged the justices to enforce the Ohio constitution: “Dramatically reversing course now would reward the commission’s intransigence, undermine the court’s authority by suggesting that a party that defies that authority long enough can secure its own favored outcomes and confirm Ohioans’ cynicism,” the court filing stated.
Will Ohio voters get to vote on proposal to reform redistricting?
Ohio Attorney General David Yost has approved petition language for the proposed constitutional amendment to create an independent Redistricting Commission, but proponents cannot begin collecting signatures to put it on the ballot until the Ohio Ballot Board, chaired by Secretary of State Frank LaRose, rules whether the proposal meets the state’s single subject rule. If the Ballot Board rules the proposal includes more than one subject, that will mean proponents have to collect over 400,000 signatures to qualify each separate issue for the ballot. The Ballot Board decision is due this week.
LaRose is a Republican candidate for US Senate and championed the proposed constitutional amendment – resoundingly rejected by voters in August – that would have made it far more difficult for Ohio voters to qualify and pass a constitutional amendment.
“The [redistricting amendment] would replace Ohio’s seven-member, bipartisan redistricting commission with a 15-member commission whose members are equally split among Democrats, Republicans and independent voters. It would also prevent any recent politician, lobbyist or major political donor from serving on the commission,” writes Sarah Szilagy of WCMH Columbus.
What voice will you have in primaries?
Companion bills to require voters to select a party at least 30 days before voting in a primary have had their first hearings in the Ohio House and Senate. Proponents argue these would prevent voters of one party from raiding the other’s primaries to influence what candidates get to run in the general election. But opponents warn this bill would disenfranchise independents and moderates in gerrymandered system of “safe” districts where the ideological base of a party chooses the candidates who prevail in the general election.
“There are dozens of elections in which the person who won in the primary, from among state representatives and state senators, didn’t have an opponent in the general election,” says Nazek Hapasha of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “So, it’s all the more important that people are able to participate in the primary no matter what political party they are. Our elections are not privately funded by the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. These are these are statewide publicly funded elections in which anybody should be able to participate. Unaffiliated voters should be able to say: I’m not one or the other, but I still have a stake in this election and I want to vote.”
Advocacy briefings are compiled by Ariel Miller, a longtime community advocate and member of Ascension & Holy Trinity, Wyoming. Connect with her at arielmillerwriter@gmail.com
