#voters purged from the rolls

[republicansaretheproblem]

That’s a lot of voter suppression. Mostly poor, black, and urban, in Red States. We were warned for four years that Republicans were taking over election boards and installing Trump loyalists and election deniers.

[sniperct]

Basically republicans want to make it so your ID has to match your birth certificate which affects everyone from trans people to married women to immigrants.

Meanwhile, in GA, they're going to force all ballots to be hand counted, which could make it difficult to meet the deadline to certify the vote, and thus potentially allow them to give the state to Trump regardless of the outcome.

In many states, such as Ohio, Florida, Texas and North Carolina, they've been purging voters from the rolls by the millions.

If voting didn't matter, why are they trying so damn hard to stop us?

[thebibliosphere]

Hey, US citizens who are eligible to vote, today is National Voter Registration Day!

As someone unable to vote in the country I live in, I’d like to take a moment to encourage everyone who is eligible to vote to check their voter registration.

Deadlines are coming up fast in many states, and many states have been purging their voter rolls to try and suppress the vote. Don’t let them take it from you.

You can use this link below to check your voting status, and remind your friends/family/followers to do the same; it only takes a couple minutes.

And remember, if you’re vote didn't matter, the bastards wouldn’t be working so hard to take it from you.

[jeanjauthor]

200 Million People taking Baby Steps can cross the whole damn country, you know.

Do Your Part.

Take Those Steps!

Vote Blue for a better America

[drdemonprince]

It’s true that America has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the industrialized world, with only 62% of eligible adults turning up to the polls on a good year, and about 50% on a typical one. But if we really dive into the social science data, we can see that non-voters aren’t a bunch of nihilistic commie layabouts who’d prefer to die in a bridge collapse or of an untreated listeria infection than vote for someone who isn’t Vladimir Lenin. No, if we really study it carefully, we can see that the American electoral system has a series of unique features that easily account for why we find voting more cumbersome, confusing, and unrewarding than almost any other voters in the world.

Let’s take a look at the many reasons why Americans don’t vote:

1. We Have the Most Frequent Elections of Any Country

Most other democratic countries only hold major elections once every four or five years, with the occasional local election in between. This is in sharp contrast with the U.S., where we have some smattering of primaries, regional elections, state elections, ballot measures, midterm elections, and national elections basically every single year, often multiple times per year. We have elections more frequently than any other nation in the world — but just as swallowing mountains of vitamin C tablets doesn’t guarantee better health, voting more and harder hasn’t given us more democracy.

2. We Don’t Make Election Day a Holiday

The United States also does far less than most other democracies to facilitate its voters getting to the polls. In 22 countries, voting is legally mandated, and turnout is consequently very high; most countries instead make election day a national holiday, or hold elections on weekends. The United States, in contrast, typically holds elections on weekdays, during work hours, with minimal legal protections for employees whose only option to vote is on the clock.

3. We Make Registration as Hard as Possible

From Denmark, to Sweden, to Iceland, Belgium, and Iraq, all eligible voters in most democracies are automatically registered to vote upon reaching legal adulthood. Voting is typically regarded as a rite of passage one takes part in alongside their classmates and neighbors, made part of the natural flow of the country’s bureaucratic processes.

In the United States, in contrast, voter registration is a process that the individual must seek out — or more recently, be goaded into by their doctor. Here voting is not a communal event, it’s a personal choice, and failing to make the correct choice at the correct time can be penalized. In most other countries, there are no restrictions on when a voter can register, but in much of the United States, registering too early can mean you get stricken from the voter rolls by the time the election rolls around, and registering too late means you’re barred from voting at all.

4. We Make Voters Re-Register Far Too Often

In countries like Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, voter registration updates automatically when a person moves. In the United State, any time a person changes addresses they must go out of their way to register to vote all over again. This policy disadvantages poorer and younger voters, who move frequently because of job and schooling changes, or landlords who have decided to farm black mold colonies in their kitchens.

Even if a voter does not change their address, in the United States it’s quite common for their registrations to be removed anyway— due to name changes, marriages, data breaches, or simply because the voter rolls from the previous election year have been purged to “prevent fraud” (read: eliminate Black, brown, poor, and left-leaning members from the electorate).

5. We Limit Access to Polling Places & Mail-in Ballots

In many countries, voters can show up to any number of polling places on election day, and showing identification is not always necessary. Here in the United States, the ability to vote is typically restricted to a single polling place. Voter ID laws have been used since before the Jim Crow era to make political participation more difficult for Black, brown, and impoverished voters, as well as for those for whom English is not their first language. Early and absentee voting options are also pretty firmly restricted. About a quarter of democracies worldwide rely on mail-in ballots to make voting more accessible for everyone; here, a mail-in ballot must be requested in advance.

All of these structural barriers help explain why just over 50% of non-voters in the United States are people of color, and a majority of non-voters have been repeatedly found to be impoverished and otherwise marginalized. But these populations don’t only feel excluded from the political process on a practical level: they also report feeling completely unrepresented by the available political options.

6. We Have the Longest, Most Expensive Campaign Seasons

Americans have some of the longest campaign seasons in the world, with Presidential elections lasting about 565 days on average. For reference, the UK’s campaign season is 139 days, Mexico’s is 147, and Canada’s is just 50. We also do not have publicly funded campaigns: our politicians rely upon donors almost entirely.

Because our elections are so frequent and our campaigns are so long and expensive, many American elected officials are in a nearly constant state of fundraising and campaigning. When you take into account the time devoted to organizing rallies, meeting with donors, courting lobbyists, knocking on doors, recording advertisements, and traveling the campaign trail, most federally elected politicians spend more time trying to win their seat than actually doing their jobs.

Imagine how much work you’d get done if you had to interview for your job every day. And now imagine that the person actually paying your wage didn’t want you to do that job at all:

7. Our Elected Officials Do Very Little

Elected officials who spend the majority of their hours campaigning and courting donors don’t have much time to get work done. Nor do they have much incentive to — in practice, their role is to represent the large corporations, weapons manufacturers, Silicon Valley start-ups, and investors who pay their bills, and serve as a stopgap when the public’s demands run afoul of those groups’ interests.

Perhaps that is why, as campaign seasons have gotten longer and more expensive and income inequality has grown more stark, our elected officials have become lean-out quiet quitters of historic proportions. The 118th Congress has so far been the least productive session on record, with only 82 laws having been passed in last two years out of the over 11,000 brought to the floor.

The Biden Administration has moved at a similarly glacial pace; aside from leaping for the phone when Israel calls requesting checking account transfers every two or three weeks, the executive-in-chief has done little but fumble at student loan relief and abortion protections, and bandied about banning TikTok.

The average age of American elected officials has been on a steady rise for some time now, with the obvious senility of figures like Biden, Mitch McConnell, and the late Diane Feinstein serving as the most obvious markers of the government’s stagnancy. Carting around a confused, ailing elderly person’s body around the halls of power like a decommissioned animatronic requires a depth of indifference to human suffering that few of us outside Washington can fathom. But more than that, it reflects a desperation for both parties to cling to what sources of influence and wealth they have. These aged figures are/were reliable simps for Blackstone, General Dynamics, Disney, and AIPAC, and their loyalty is worth far more than their cognitive capacity, or legislative productivity. Their job, in a very real sense, is to not do their job, and a beating-heart cadaver can do that just fine.

You can read the rest of the list for free (or have it narrated to you on the Substack app) at drdevonprice.substack.com!

[shinelikethunder]

With less than a week to go, SCOTUS' partisan wing sends the message loud and clear that their attitude towards rubber-stamping outrageously illegal election-interference bullshit is "try and stop us, you jumped-up little shits."

However, in this particular case, you can still vote if Virginia has wrongfully purged you from the voter rolls. As of 2022, VA offers same-day registration and provisional ballots (where you follow up with documention after the fact), as long as you vote in the correct precinct.

Official Virginia page to look up the polling place for your address

Official Virginia same-day registration info

Official Virginia page to check your registration status

Ballotpedia state-by-state info on same-day registration

Ballotpedia state-by-state info on provisional ballots and what happens to ones cast in the wrong precinct

ACLU Know Your Rights voting fact sheet

Multilingual voter protection hotlines (English: 866-OUR-VOTE)

For anyone who became a citizen since their last DMV visit, or who suspects they made an error filing out their paperwork that would have booted them from voter lists, there are still ways to cast a ballot in next month’s elections. Registrars and election workers won’t turn eligible voters away from polls if they wish to utilize same-day registration or a provisional ballot, according to Henrico County Registrar Mark Coakley. [...] With a provisional ballot, voters will still need to follow up with their local registrar office to provide additional documents that can help verify their identity or other facts, like if they are residents of Virginia and the city or county they voted in, and whether they are U.S. citizens or have had their voting rights restored after a previous felony conviction. [...] Coakley said that when using a provisional ballot, voters are also given instructions to help with the follow-up procedures. “They’ll get a letter attached to their provisional ballot, giving them all the information of ‘This is the reason why (you may have this ballot)’ and ��Here’s the ways to get hold of us to present evidence if you choose to do so,’” he said. Chesterfield County Registrar Missy Vera stressed that same-day registration can happen at any early voting location as well as on Election Day, which is Nov. 5.

[whenweallvote]

A lot has happened since we last celebrated National Voter Registration Day: 

🏠 People moved, changed their name, turned 18, or attained citizenship

🗳️ Individuals who were previously incarcerated may now be eligible to vote

❌ And it’s possible some of us may have been “purged” from the voting rolls

👉 So don’t wait — visit weall.vote/check to check your registration!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

The GOP-controlled North Carolina State Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked certification of liberal justice Allison Riggs' 2024 victory, allowing the Republican who lost the race to present his argument about why 60,000 ballots cast in the race should be thrown out. Riggs, an incumbent on the court, defeated Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin by 748 votes—a narrow victory that was affirmed by two recounts. But Griffin is refusing to concede and instead wants the court to throw out 60,000 ballots based on a ridiculous claim that those voters were illegally registered. Griffin claims those voters did not put their Social Security or driver's license numbers on their voter registration forms, rendering their votes invalid. State and national Republicans used that same argument to try and purge 225,000 voters from the rolls in North Carolina before ballots were cast in the 2024 election. But both the State Board of Elections and a federal judge ruled against the Republicans in that case. Now Griffin wants the court to retroactively disqualify voters—many of them Democratic—so that he can be declared the winner of a race he lost.

The Republican-majority North Carolina Supreme Court shamefully cosigns the GOP’s attempt to steal an election by refusing to certify Democratic Judge Allison Riggs’s victory over Republican Jefferson Griffin.

[tanadrin]

I feel like a conspiracy theorist, but I'm convinced the GOP cheated by disenfranchising enough voters to win. Not just in swing states. The margins in every state are weird. A few thousand votes here and there across every county. The huge number of split ticket votes. The sudden loss of 12 million democratic voters despite record early voting turnout and voter registration?

It doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense.

So many people who had confirmation of their ballot being received and accepted are now finding out that they were unregistered or there was a "problem" with it.

They were saying for months that they didn't need anyone's vote. The betting market manipulation. The billionaire backers. Elon Musk's grubby hands all over the election.

They did steal the election. And we'll probably never find out how.

in the broad sense, yes, american elections should be fairer, and the franchise should be more universal. in the narrow sense--this is cope. purges of voter rolls happen in public. there's litigation on them all the time. a purge of 12 million voters from voter roles would not have gone unnoticed. to account for all these factors you would need an improbably large conspiracy. (stealing elections in the united states would be hard. each state administers its own elections! you'd have to steal 50 elections. and once again, this would be a case of someone rigging the presidential election and forgetting to rig any of the downballot races, which would be stupid.) including a conspiracy to rig most polling, given the outcome was within the margin of error of most polling averages for this election.

i get why it's the preferable scenario--people aren't dumb! my opponents are just evil! there's some optimism in that--but "i personally do not understand how this outcome could have occurred" does not mean it was a conspiracy.

So many people who had confirmation of their ballot being received and accepted are now finding out that they were unregistered or there was a "problem" with it.

this is normal and you typically have several days after the election to amend your ballot if there was a problem with it. if you do, it still counts. fun word problem time: if ~150 million people vote in an election, and 0.001% post on twitter about how they needed to amend their ballot (especially in non-swing states), how many twitter posts in a row do you have to see to convince yourself there is a ~conspiracy~ afoot?

fun second word problem: out of seven swing states, how many were governed by the opposing party or someone who had publicly opposed donald trump's election subversion attempts in 2020?

fun third word problem: do you know how elections in your state work? do you know which state official is in charge of administering them, and their party affiliation? do you know what the margins of downballot races like house and senate in your state were this election, and their relative swing from 2020? in short, do you know in detail how elections in the US work and what "typical" voting patterns look like, or are you just going off of vibes from a vaguely paranoid local bubble in social media?

[voltaspistol]

So yeah, about Trump's "win"? It's starting to look like maaaaaaaybe that whole "voter suppression of persons of color" thing was the deciding factor, not Democrats who stayed home and didn't vote.

"Stay with me and I’ll give you the means, methods and, most important, the key calculations. But if you’re expecting a sexy story about Elon Musk messing with vote-counting software from outer space, sorry, you won’t get that here. As in Bush v. Gore in 2000 and in too many other miscarriages of Democracy, this election was determined by good old “vote suppression,” the polite term we use for shafting people of color out of their ballot. We used to call it Jim Crow. Here are key numbers: — 4,776,706 voters were wrongly purged from voter rolls according to US Elections Assistance Commission data. — By August of 2024, for the first time since 1946, self-proclaimed “vigilante” voter-fraud hunters challenged the rights of 317,886 voters. The NAACP of Georgia estimates that by Election Day, the challenges exceeded 200,000 in Georgia alone. — No fewer than 2,121,000 mail-in ballots were disqualified for minor clerical errors (e.g. postage due). — At least 585,000 ballots cast in-precinct were also disqualified. — 1,216,000 “provisional” ballots were rejected, not counted. — 3.24 million new registrations were rejected or not entered on the rolls in time to vote. If the purges, challenges and ballot rejections were random, it wouldn’t matter. It’s anything but random. For example, an audit by the State of Washington found that a Black voter was 400% more likely than a white voter to have their mail-in ballot rejected. Rejection of Black in-person votes, according to a US Civil Rights Commission study in Florida, ran 14.3% or one in seven ballots cast."

[1americanconservative]

@Bitcoin4Freedom

I can't stand Donald Trump. He is braggy, he insults people for no reason, and he is just a brutal personality. But my mind is made up. I'm voting for him and here's why: * He puts Americans and their well-being first. Kamala will not. * He will bring

@elonmusk

into his cabinet to be the efficiency czar and get rid of waste. This alone may be the best single reason to vote for him. * He will bring

@RobertKennedyJr

into his cabinet to Make American Healthy Again. He will finally get to the bottom of why our food companies are destroying the health of our children. * I'm sick of the way the media lies continuously about

@realDonaldTrump

, starting with the incessant racism claims. They are just nonsense. The latest thing I learned? He sent his plane to fly Nelson Mandela home after he was in jail with the U.S. wouldn't do it. Racist? No. * I'm sick of the U.S. being embroiled in foreign wars. Trump will keep us out of them again. He's just crazy enough that foreign nations will stand down. They have no fear of Kamala. They will fear him. * Trump sees this country as fundamentally good. Kamala sees it as inherently evil. * Trump will end the nonsense of the open border which makes our country less secure, less financially stable, and brings in millions of people illegally who compete for Americans' jobs. * This government has to print billions to care for the illegals. That makes all of our dollars less valuable and makes prices zoom upward. * He will stockpile Bitcoin. * He will keep men out of women's bathrooms and women's sports. * He is a heavyweight personality and negotiator. Kamala is a phony personality and a lightweight negotiator. * The people who want Kamala Harris to win are the most annoying people in the country. They have pushed for pronouns, masks, endless vaccines, cancel culture, riots, blatant racism towards whites, gender confusion, undermining the U.S. constitution. * He will upset the current political system. He was nearly the victim of assassination 3x. And he keeps going. He's not the best in interviews, but he at least puts himself out there. Over and over and over. Kamala hasn't done a single press conference. * Harris and the media trying to prop her up hid Biden's cognitive decline. They accuse

@realDonaldTrump

of being a threat to democracy. Yet she was installed as the nominee with no votes. She wants to pack the Supreme Court. She wants to eliminate the filibuster. She sued

@RobertKennedyJr

to keep him off the ballot. And the threat to democracy is Trump? Nonsense. * Those who support Harris look at Trump supports as vile, stupid, ignorant, and fascists. They disown family members or disinvite them from Thanksgiving dinner of they support Trump. This is disgraceful. * Every time she talks, I try to give her a chance. But she is the most phony and condescending politician I have ever seen. Ever. I can't do it. I won't do it. * She and those who support her are resistant to Voter ID and believe requiring an ID is racist. Her Department of Justice is suing the state of Virginia for trying to purge the voter rolls of illegals. Why would we not want 1 vote per 1 U.S. citizen? Is it more racist to believe people from the inner city are perfectly capable of securing a government issued ID? Or to believe they are incapable? That's it. I'm done. Thanks for hearing me out.

[mariacallous]

North Carolina removes 747,000 from voter rolls, citing ineligibility

North Carolina’s State Board of Elections has removed 747,000 people from its list of registered voters within the last 20 months, officials announced Thursday in a press release.

The State Board of Elections in the release said the majority of those stripped from the rolls were deemed ineligible to be registered because they had moved within the state and did not register their new address, or because they did not participate in the past two federal elections, prompting an inactive status.

Other reasons for removal included death, felony convictions, out-of-state moves and personal requests for removal, the board said.

North Carolina is one of seven swing states likely to decide the presidential election between Vice President Harris and former President Trump. Only one Democrat this century, former President Obama in 2008, has won the state in a presidential contest, but Harris has been polling close to Trump.

The state is also home to a tough gubernatorial contest between Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein.

The purge comes just a few weeks after North Carolina Republicans filed a lawsuit that said the state had failed to act on complaints about ineligible people on voter rolls.

In the GOP lawsuit, a Wake County resident in North Carolina claimed that voter registration forms in that county did not included driver’s license and Social Security numbers. 

“By failing to collect certain statutorily required information prior to registering these applicants to vote, Defendants placed the integrity of the state’s elections into jeopardy,” the GOP lawsuit read.

Republicans also filed a lawsuit recently raising concerns after state approved digital IDs issued by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a valid form of voter ID. That claim was rejected by a local judge.

The state now has around 7.7 million registered voters. The Hill has reached out to the North Carolina State Board of Elections for comment.

[bunnies-and-sunshine]

Hop the vote!

Please go vote today if you haven't yet!  Also, before you head out, check your voter registration status (https://vote.gov/register) to see if you need to bring any special documentation with you for same day registration (https://ballotpedia.org/Same-day_voter_registration) should your name be purged from the voter rolls.  Also, it wouldn't hurt to bring some water and a snack with you for longer than expected wait times.

[embracetheshipping]

IMPORTANT VOTING INFORMATION

Now more than ever, it is important to make sure that you are registered to vote and that you fully understand all the requirements for in-person, mail-in, and absentee voting. Double check your registration OFTEN to make sure nothing has changed. Don't give Republicans ANY reason to disqualify your vote.

The video below explains some concerning trends happening in swing states. And while her point about the Montana and Oklahoma issues may not be as nefarious as projected (there are articles online saying the issue in Montana was a glitch and the Oklahoma purge has been ongoing by independent auditors), the other ones are more credible as deliberate attempts to suppress voters.

Regardless, it is in your best interest to make sure you are fully informed of what is going on regarding voter registration and laws in your state.

Transcript:

So Trump is now saying he doesn’t want a second debate with VP Harris. And you could say that’s because he got shellacked in the first one and doesn’t want to embarrass himself again, but I think something more nefarious is going on.

Trump is not campaigning in swing states. He’s not trying to sway new voters. And he keeps going around saying he doesn’t even “need votes”, that they “have all the votes they need”. In fact, he just did an interview with Fox News where he said he “wouldn’t run in 2028 if he loses”, but then he said, “Let’s just hope we’re successful in this one.” Not, “Let’s hope we win this one,” “Let’s hope we’re successful.”

People should think it’s weird that Republicans don’t seem to care about how bad their candidate is. That they don’t seem to care that Project 2025 came out, and we can all read for ourselves how awful their plans for America are. And it’s weird that so many swing states are suddenly changing their election laws and purging voters, or making it harder to vote, or count the votes just weeks before the election.

Look at what’s going on around the country. The Secretary of State of Montana just “accidentally” left Kamala Harris’s name off the absentee ballot. They sent the ballots out to absentee voters without VP Harris’s name on it.

The Texas Tribune just announced that Texas officials have absolutely scrubbed their voter rolls, and people should go out and check it they’re still eligible to vote.

Oklahoma purged 450,000 people from the voter registration list last week. That is one-fifth of their state’s voters who have to re-register seven weeks before the election.

Georgia’s GOP Board of Elections just passed a whole slew of new rules, including the biggest one being that they have to hand count every ballot. But they already have a rule that says they can’t start counting ballots until Election Day. So counting 5.5 million votes is going to require a lot of time and a lot of staff that many local jurisdictions in Georgia simply don’t have. So when the votes can’t be counted on time, that’s going to give space for the MAGA lawyers to come in and claim the election is defaulted or fraudulent , and kick the entire election back to the state House, or subsequently, the whole state misses the deadline to certify the Electoral College votes, and they either don’t send electors from Georgia at all, or they potentially pick their own alternative slate.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court just said that all mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania have to have the “correct handwritten date on the outside of the envelope, or the vote inside won’t count.” I mean, sure, check to see if your envelope is dated correctly, but why would the handwritten date on the outside of the envelope disqualify the vote inside? Doesn’t it have to be postmarked and / or received by an official agency before even being opened?

Republicans even tried to change the rules in Nebraska for how electoral counts would be awarded less than 50 days before the election.

You have to ask yourself, “what are they doing?” And why do they keep accusing Democrats of trying to cheat? Talk about projection. This is the same party that was pushing for the SAFE Act in Congress and threatening to shut down the government if they didn’t get it. Their claim, which luckily, we have currently moved on from, is that they were just making sure every voter was an American citizen, which of course is important. But it has never been a real problem, no matter what Republican propaganda tells us. But they conveniently forget to mention that the SAFE Act also said, if you didn’t have a passport, something that fifty percent of the population doesn’t have, then your birth certificate had to match your ID. Which of course, would be impossible for say, any married woman who took her husband’s name. And there are lots of people who say, “So just use your marriage certificate to prove that you changed your name,” but the SAFE Act says absolutely nothing about your marriage certificate or license to count as ID, and it takes time to find that document and submit it and process it when we only have weeks before the election.

We need to be incredibly clear. The Republicans were looking to outright disenfranchise the women of America, Republican and Democratic women of all ages, I might add. And it’s not just women they’re looking to disenfranchise, because while the gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson’s scandals have been sucking up all the air in North Carolina, the RNC was quietly trying to block the UNC students from voting. But they recently lost that lawsuit.

If you have to keep changing the laws to get elected, you’re not winning elections. You’re sabotaging elections. The whole thing reminds me of that quote by the Russian communist leader Joseph Stalin, who said, “The people who cast the votes don’t decide the election, the people who count the votes do.”

So look around at what’s happening in America right now. The Republicans aren’t trying to win. They’re trying to make sure the Democrats can’t win. And while that should freak you out, I sincerely hope it also inspires you to get your friends and family out the polls and vote wholeheartedly against this kind of behavior.

[political-us]

In recent years, some legislative actions proposed or enacted by Republican lawmakers have raised concerns about potential impacts on the voting rights of minorities and women in the United States. These measures, often presented as efforts to enhance electoral integrity, have been criticized for potentially suppressing votes from marginalized communities.

1. Proof of Citizenship Requirements:

• Legislation Example: The SAVE Act, introduced by Republican Congressman Chip Roy, mandates in-person proof of citizenship (such as a passport or birth certificate) for voter registration. Critics argue this could disproportionately affect married women who have changed their last names and may not have updated identification, as well as minorities and transgender individuals facing legal identity discrepancies. 

2. Voter Identification Laws:

• Implementation: Some states have enacted strict voter ID laws requiring specific forms of identification to vote. While intended to prevent voter fraud, studies have shown that such laws can disproportionately affect minority voters, who may be less likely to possess the required IDs.

3. Reduction of Early Voting Opportunities:

• Legislative Actions: Certain states have reduced early voting periods or eliminated same-day voter registration. These changes can disproportionately impact minority and low-income voters who may rely on the flexibility of early voting due to work or personal commitments. 

4. Challenges to the Voting Rights Act (VRA):

• Legal Actions: There have been ongoing efforts to challenge provisions of the VRA, particularly Section 2, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate based on race. Weakening these protections could make it more difficult to contest discriminatory voting laws or district maps. 

5. Purging of Voter Rolls:

• State Actions: Some states have conducted aggressive purges of voter rolls to remove individuals deemed inactive or ineligible. Critics argue that these purges can mistakenly remove eligible voters, disproportionately affecting minorities and women. 

It’s important to note that while these legislative actions are often justified as measures to prevent voter fraud and ensure election integrity, multiple studies have found that instances of voter fraud are exceedingly rare. For example, the Brennan Center found just 30 suspected noncitizen votes among 23.5 million votes in 2016, accounting for 0.0001% of votes cast. 

[confettimafia]

Hey you, yeah you!

Procrastinated something voting related and think you can’t vote? You have a weird circumstance and aren’t sure? You are registered but haven’t checked recently?

This is the post for you! I’m gonna go through a few different options, links, and definitions for people so you can ensure that if you are eligible, that you can vote. (Yes, this repeats some links for convenience.)

I think I am registered but I haven’t checked: You should. There are many legal battles going on right now trying to purge voting rolls and such. Also mistakes happen. CHECK HERE. REGISTER HERE.

I have not registered to vote but I will be eligible otherwise: Many states have a late registration deadline, it might still be possible, sometimes even online! CHECK HERE. REGISTER HERE.

I have not registered to vote, I will be eligible otherwise, and the voter registration deadline has passed: Some states allow voting by affidavit or casting a provisional ballot. This means you take an extra step to sign a thing that documents that you are eligible to vote and after the fact this is verified. More people need to know about this. This covers a lot of weird circumstances. “As of March 2024, Idaho and Minnesota did not provide for provisional voting. New Hampshire provides for provisional balloting only when a voter does not provide the required documentation at the time of registration, and North Dakota provides for provisional balloting only in the event of a court order extending polling hours.” To be safe, if you don’t know and this is your only option, you should go to your polling place and ask if they do this. FIND YOUR POLLING PLACE HERE.

I won’t be home for Election Day but I can vote: Some states have early voting right now. CHECK HERE. Some states are still accepting absentee ballot applications. CHECK HERE.

I will be at college during election day: you can either get absentee ballot or early voting at home OR you can register to vote where you go to college. Generally speaking you spend enough time at both places as a college student it’s allowed to register at either location, you can switch you’re registration to college if you’ve met the standards of living there long enough etc. See above for absentee and early voting, but I will relink the registration link HERE.

I will reemphasize affidavit voting. I personally have used this after relocating within a state and forgetting to change registrations. It was a simple form. If you are 18 or will be on Election Day, a citizen, and haven’t had your voting rights stripped from you via felony or something PLEASE check and make absolutely sure you can’t vote. I guarantee you there are thousands if not millions of people who are not going to vote simply because they do not know they can. It’s confusing and annoying, and people have paid a lot of money to keep it that way. Don’t let them take your vote away.

Yes especially get this out to peeps in swing states BUT REMEMBER. Everything down ballot is also incredibly important with slim margins. Even if you are not in a swing state there is so much else you can do with your vote.

(Some more affidavit voting reasons for New York as an example, though these vary per state:

* “If the voter has been issued an absentee, military or special ballot, but wishes to vote in person during early voting or on election day,

* If the voter is voting for the first time and is unable to provide identification,

* If the voter’s name does not appear in the poll records

* If in a primary election, the voter is listed as being a member of one party but wishes to vote as a member of a different party (Does not apply in November)”)

After all this, you are absolutely positive you can’t vote in this election but could in the future: Register now! Then it will be taken care of for the future until it needs to be updated again. This stuff won’t suddenly stop being important and literally life and death at times. REGISTER HERE.

All of this has been incredibly anxiety inducing, but sharing stuff like this to get the word out to frankly a large young left leaning audience here on tumblr is helpful. It helps to do something actionable. For those of you who can’t vote, encouraging people like this helps in its own way too.