Name: The States Where Efforts To Restrict Voting Are Escalating
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The States Where Efforts To Restrict Voting Are Escalating

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Even though the 2020 election is over, many Republicans are still or the cost former President Donald Trump the presidential election. Trump has managed to not only that the election was “stolen,” but now many state legislators are to restrict voting rights. Over the last few months, a bevy of bills have been introduced at the state level that — if passed —&nbsp;could make it harder for millions of Americans to cast their ballots.&nbsp;One of the biggest battlegrounds has been Georgia, where last Thursday a was . Among its : Absentee voters will now be required to prove their identity, people are prohibited from handing out food and water to voters waiting in line, and the state board of elections is empowered to remove local election officials. Legislators in and have also deemed “election integrity” a priority and introduced a raft of legislation to prohibit election administrators from proactively sending out vote-by-mail applications, tighten voter-ID requirements and more.&nbsp;But the push to restrict voting rights expands beyond just a few states. According to the , a voting rights advocacy group, 253 bills to restrict voting access had been introduced in 43 state legislatures as of Feb. 19. And according to our own tracking, at least 53 additional bills have been introduced since then. Of these 306 bills, 89 percent were sponsored entirely or primarily by Republicans, according to the bill-tracking service .Notably, the four states where the greatest number of voting-restriction bills have been filed — Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania — were some of the closest states in last year’s presidential election. They also all voted for President Biden — the first time and voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in over two decades — and have Republican-controlled legislatures, making them especially fertile ground for new voting restrictions.&nbsp;“The politicians introducing new voter restrictions are clearly folks who are looking at changing demographics and changing political winds, and trying to manipulate the rules of the game so that they have some job security,” said Myrna Pérez, the director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, who also warned that the restrictions would disproportionately disenfranchise communities of color. “Rather than competing for voters, they are trying to fence some voters out and make it harder for them to vote.”related:Why Georgia’s New Voting Law Is Such A Big DealAt this point, the most concerted effort appears to be centered on rolling back absentee voting, which and helped clinch Biden’s victory. To some extent, during the pandemic — and — it’s not surprising that Republicans are primarily targeting this type of voting. But as Pérez told us, “Absentee ballots have been largely uncontroversial when they were used by older, whiter, Republican-leaning Americans,” but “as soon as communities of color started [using them] … we’re starting to see restrictions.” And up until the 2020 election, there really hadn’t been .Nevertheless, a near-majority — 49 percent — of the voter restrictions that have been introduced included provisions to restrict absentee voting.&nbsp;The second-biggest category was bills that included some form of a voter ID law (23 percent of the bills tracked). Requiring people to show proof of identity before voting has , who claim it’s necessary to combat voter fraud (Democrats, on the other hand, argue it’s a way to prevent a from voting). So it makes sense that more voter ID laws have also been a big part of Republicans’ current push for voter restrictions, especially since part of the “Big Lie” is that (they didn’t).Forty-seven bills have also been introduced relating to voter registration, 38 that would purge people from the voter rolls and 24 dealing with in-person early voting.&nbsp;But there’s an important catch: Most of these bills are not going to pass. A full 89 out of the 306 (29 percent) were introduced in Democratic-controlled legislative chambers — making most of them dead on arrival. And although the sheer number of bills being introduced in Republican-controlled legislatures is notable, many of them will probably die too. The legislative process is full of arcane obstacles and pitfalls that can halt even popular bills, and several of the proposed bills were that many Republicans .related:The Strongest House Candidates In 2020 Were (Mostly) ModerateStill, what’s in the bills is more important than how many pass, and many of them would still have wide-ranging implications for future elections — even if only a handful of them become law. As of Friday, March 26, 53 of the 306 bills had passed at least one step of the legislative process and still had a chance of becoming law. In total, nine had passed committee, while 34 had passed one legislative chamber. Four had passed both legislative chambers and were awaiting the governor’s signature, and six had already been enacted. Those six are:But several more voter restrictions appear likely to become law in the coming weeks or months. Some of the most impactful ones include:The big question is whether these bills will do what Democrats worry — and some Republicans — they will do: Help the GOP win elections by suppressing voter turnout. But the answer is far from clear. Despite Republicans’ protestations, after has found that mail-in voting — so new laws restricting it might not either. Some of these new laws , either, because of court challenges.&nbsp;And Democrats, of course, have one big trump card they could play: The federal , better known as HR 1, which would require states to offer universal early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, same-day voter registration and automatic voter registration (and much more) in federal elections. Democrats may to scrounge up enough votes in the Senate to pass it, but it would override many of these new state-level restrictions.But even if HR 1 were to pass, it wouldn’t be the end of the fight over voting rights. As long as a belief in the “Big Lie” persists, Pérez said, Republicans will continue to use voter disenfranchisement as a tool to win elections. “I think it reflects a real fear over the browning of America, and folks trying to protect what they have and keep the power for themselves.”CORRECTION (March 30, 2021, 2:04 p.m.): This article previously mischaracterized two aspects of a West Virginia voting bill. The bill does not remove a Saturday in early voting, but does shorten the early voting period by one day. It also doesn’t fully purge voters who do not vote for two years, but instead changes these voters’ status to “inactive.”Alex Samuels is a politics reporter at FiveThirtyEight.Elena Mejía is a visual journalist at FiveThirtyEight.Nathaniel Rakich is a senior elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight.Filed underYou are now subscribed!Email AddressSign me up

Even though the 2020 election is over, many Republicans are still or the cost former President Donald Trump the presidential election. Trump has managed to not only that the election was “stolen,” but now many state legislators are to restrict voting rights. Over the last few months, a bevy of bills have been introduced at the state level that — if passed —&nbsp;could make it harder for millions of Americans to cast their ballots.&nbsp;One of the biggest battlegrounds has been Georgia, where last Thursday a was . Among its : Absentee voters will now be required to prove their identity,...

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Politics reporter @FiveThirtyEight. Formerly @TexasTribune. @UTAustin and @NatPress alum. Bostonian. Talk to me: alex.l.samuels@abc.com

The States Where Efforts To Restrict Voting Are Escalating

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