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The turnabout for Cheney one of the more unlikely twists in Republican politics in recent years, in a party thats had no shortage of them will come into sharp relief next week at a gathering at Jacksons Center for the Arts. Cheney will speak on a bipartisan panel about defending elections, addressing what should be a welcoming audience amid her running battle with former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 sacking of the Capitol.

What Cheney doesnt know until now is that a band of Trump-loving Republicans will be on hand to greet her. They snapped up roughly a quarter of the 350 tickets, at $10 apiece, to give the embattled congresswoman a piece of their minds.

I was here when the Democrats dragged her fathers effigy down a village road behind a truck at one of their rallies, and those are the people who are supporting her now, that shes embraced, an angry Rebecca Cloetta, 66, said over breakfast at a greasy spoon called the Virginian.

Can you believe it? Charging for a ticket! Its a slap in the face, said Rebecca Bextel, 41, another Trump-backing Republican planning to attend the voting event. We have one person representing us Wyoming has a single House member and she shows up in town and it costs $10 to see her. Its embarrassing.

She is not, Bextel vowed, going to get reelected.

Bextel may well be correct. Though theres been scant public polling of her primary campaign against Trump-backed Harriet Hageman, its apparent that Republicans in Wyoming which voted for Trump over Joe Biden, 70 to 27 percent, in 2020 have turned against Cheney en masse since Jan. 6, 2021.

Republican U.S. House candidate Harriet Hageman talks to a supporter at a campaign event on March 7, 2022, in Cheyenne, Wyo.|Mead Gruver/AP Photo

Just as obvious is that Cheney needs Democrats and independents to change their party registration and cast their vote for her in the Aug. 16 primary. Her campaign is loath to talk strategy publicly, but the math doesnt lie and neither do Cheneys actions on the ground here in recent months.

She has shunned town halls and other voter forums in Wyomings overwhelmingly red counties in favor of controlled events. At the March 22 event, which is being hosted by Issue One, a bipartisan organization that advocates for sweeping reforms to fix our broken political system, Cheney will answer pre-selected questions.

When Cheney was censured by the state Republican Party in February 2021, three of the eight votes against the move were by officials from Teton County, which encompasses Jackson. The dissenters included Mary Martin, now the countys GOP chair.

Since then, however, Martin has soured on Cheney. She said the congresswoman is rarely in the state, despite having been urged to explain why she voted to impeach Trump.

She was absolutely invited to come and present what her facts were, to defend why you are doing this and instead she opted to call the Republicans radicals, which has made people upset within the party, Martin said from the Jackson mansion of Nancy Donovan, a prominent Republican donor in Wyoming.

Shes not in the state, she has not been anywhere, maybe one or two places, Donovan echoed. She doesnt show up shes very entitled. Her parents have events at their house, Ive spent money to go to her house to fund her. I truly will never vote for her again. Donovan and Bextel are both members of Hagemans grassroots leadership team.

Martin went further, calling Cheneys work on the Jan. 6 committee duplicity.

Shes been MIA since Jan. 6. And what we all truly believe is that the Wyoming seat is a stepping stone to running for president in 2024 and she needs to get Trump out of the way. And to raise money, shes using the anti-Trump commentary, Martin speculated.

An empty chair labeled "Representative Cheney" sits in front of a meeting room in Rawlins, Wyo., on Feb. 6, 2021. The Wyoming Republican Party central committee voted to censure Rep. Liz Cheney for voting to impeach President Donald Trump. Republican officials said they invited Cheney, but she didn't attend.|Mead Gruver/AP Photo

Cheney declined to be interviewed for this story. But she told The New York Times last month that she will not openly court Democrats by supporting a Democrats for Cheney group or encourage an existing political action committee, dubbed Switch for Wyoming, that encourages Democrats to vote in Republican primaries.

Without an aggressive campaign strategy to win over Democrats, it might seem like a tough sell: Cheney, after all, voted with Trump 93 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight. But some Democratic voters in Jackson are embracing her. They appreciate Cheneys work in Congress prosecuting Trump and theyre ready to switch parties to vote for her.

Even if theyre not ready to admit it publicly.

I think her politics are crap, but I like how much hate she gets from the people of Wyoming, said a 27-year-old event planner who will register as a Republican for the first time to vote for Cheney. He asked not to be named because its a small town.

There are a lot of things about her that dont appeal to me as a gay man, he said. She was not supportive of her sister until it came out in the news, and that is a big red flag. At the same time, its Wyoming, a population of 500,000. Every vote counts. Wyomings population is just under 579,000, according to U.S. Census figures.

Pete Jenkins, 54, a contractor whos lived in Wyoming for three decades, said he identifies personally as a Democrat he did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020 but is registered as a Republican just to have some influence in Wyoming politics. He said he intends to vote for Cheney and has heard from lots of other Democrats planning to do the same.

I think its a fairly popular thing, he said of the party-switchers-for-Cheney movement.

Cheney needs as many of them as she can get.

Wyoming political strategists say the only path to victory for Cheney is with the help of Democrats and independents. The states 2018 Republican primary for an open governors seat is instructive. Mark Gordon, the GOP state treasurer at the time, was facing stiff competition from the right. More than 10,000 voters switched parties or registered as Republicans for the first time between the primary and general elections.

Gordon won the primary by 9,000 votes against candidates that included Hageman. Turnout was 116,000 and Gordon received just shy of 39,000 votes.

While Cheney has yet to overtly court Democrats, her decision to aggressively investigate Trump as a leader of the select Jan. 6 House committee naturally appeals to voters who detest the former president.

Cheney allies are hopeful that crossover voters will bail her out this time. They are counting on a primary with at least two pro-Trump GOP candidates that will divide the anti-Cheney vote. With the help of even half of the 73,000 Democrats who voted for Biden in 2020, they believe Cheney could pull it off.

That theory isnt lost on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has told members that hes worried that the numbers add up for Cheney and that she might be back in Congress next session, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions. McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump, too, is worried that Democrats will help reelect Cheney. He backed a bill in the Wyoming legislature that would have barred voters from switching parties on the day of a primary election in order to vote for a candidate of another party.

But that proposal died in the Wyoming legislature last week.

At an event in Cheyenne earlier this month where nearly 200 people in cowboy hats and boots showed up to support Hageman, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) urged voters to call their legislators to back the measure.

Ill tell you this, theres only one way Liz Cheney wins, and thats if you let Democrats vote in your primary, so you need to call your state rep and let them know, he said just days before the bill died.

After the event, Hageman told reporters, Im fully confident I can win this race whether the crossover bill happens or not. Its something thats been an issue in our state for many years, its not just 2020.

A progressive organizer who helped get the Democratic vote out for Gordon in 2018 crunched the numbers based on a hypothetical three-way race between Hageman, Cheney and Republican state Sen. Anthony Bouchard. The person said Bouchard because he remains popular among the MAGA set even after Trump endorsed Hageman could play spoiler by drawing as much as 15 percent of the vote.

That could open the door just enough for Cheney to slip through, the organizer said.

It will depend on Cheneys on-the-ground voter engagement not high-priced advertising campaigns that will quickly saturate Wyomings small markets, the person said. We know at least some of these voters will vote if they think their vote will make a difference in a race that means something to them.

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Liz Cheney turns to Democrats to save her hide - POLITICO

Jayapal desperately trying to distinguish the dems from the republicans PHOTO BY DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

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While it is unclear if this subvariant will make people extremely ill, many but not all of the health experts the Washington Post interviewed said a wave will likely come to the U.S., as our surges typically lag behind those in Europe and Asia.

Hang in there (imagine the cat poster): Coming out of an episode of much gloom apologia, The Seattle Weather Blog delivered good news for the girlies who reach unabomber levels of hermit in the winter. Highs could bring bare-legs weather next week! Whoop, whoop.

Okay, okay, a little less reform please: Yesterday, Gov. Jay Inslee officially signed House Bill 2037, which rolls back some of the police reform lawmakers passed last year after many Democrats decided they took it a step too far. The bill basically allows a little more use of force to stop people from fleeing temporary investigative detentions.

In other cop news: UWs student government passed a proposal to implement a pilot program for alternative emergency response services in the U-District. The program is in the early design stages, and the students are still looking for funding, but the goal is to get people services without the potential harm of calling the cops. The supporters of the program say it is not anti-cop but rather pro-community.

Sweep in Chinatown International District: Yesterday the city swept a large encampment in the CID. According to the mutual aid group that serves this area, the city did not provide language access.

Additionally, if you dont read English or Spanish, the citys sweep notices will do little for you. Based on data of the most commonly spoken languages in Seattle, the City of Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs entities communicate city-wide services and programs in Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Somali, Amharic, Korean, Tagalog; if feasible Tigrinya, Oromo, Japanese, Russian, and consider including Arabic, Khmer, Thai, Laotian.

Here we go again: After Pfizer asked for approval on a booster shot for seniors, drugmaker Moderna asked the FDA yesterday to authorize a fourth shot of its COVID-19 vaccine for all adults. Many health officials saw this pattern coming; similar to the flu shot, we would need to keep boosting in order to keep the virus manageable.

ICYMI: Rep. Kirsten Harris-Talley will not return to Olympia for a second term. State Democrats are dropping like flies: Sens. Frockt, Carlyle, Sheldon, and Reps. Sullivan, Dolan, Johnson, Cody, Sells, and others.

The Nazification of Ukraine: President Vladimir Putin invoked Nazis to justify his invasion of Ukraine. Nazi scholars published open letter calling Putins rhetoric factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive. The scholars acknowledged far-right groups in Ukraine, but said that did not justify Russias invasion or the gross mischaracterization of Ukraine. The New York Times discusses.

If anyone could do it, it would be him: Arnold Schwarzenegger posted a video on social media to tell Putin to stop killing Ukrainians and sacrificing Russian soldiers. Schwarzeneggers words are not like the other stop the war #peace posts. The actor is super popular with Russia and its president. Putins twitter only follows 22 accounts, one being Schwarzenegger.

More protections for abortion: Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill that prohibits legal action against people seeking an abortion and those who aid them. Washington state has very strong pro-choice legislation in comparison to other states across the country, and this bill is a direct response to other states, including Idaho, that want you to tattle in order to enforce cruel abortion restrictions.

Speaking of Idaho: Girl, what?

Biden, help the Progressives help you. With what is certain to be a bloodbath midterm election looming, the Congressional Progressive Caucus gave President Joe Biden a list of 55 executive actions he could take that would make Democrats look like they did something with their control of the legislative and executive branches. These actions include addressing the family glitch in the Affordable Care Act, declaring a National Climate Emergency, and canceling student loan debt.

CPC Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who represents Seattle, said in a statement, "We know working people can't wait for relief from rising costsand that Democrats must use all the tools available to provide it, quickly."

My notes app apology: Yesterday, I live-tweeted my notes during one of my scariest endeavors yet: the Downtown Seattle Association State of Downtown event. I thank God for the complimentary cider that got me through it. Im kidding. It was fine.

But anyway, in one of my tweets, I paid KCRHA CEO Marc Dones a well-deserved compliment when they said homeless people are more often the victims of crime than the perpetrators. I added that I was the only snaps at that particular moment (the crowd loved Dones, so there were plenty of snaps/claps/giggles throughout the interview). I have since been informed that others snapped along at that comment as well. I believe all snappers, so I would like to formally apologize for my error, and once again reiterate the more important component of that tweet: Homeless people are more often the victims of crime than the perpetrators. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. With love, Hannah.

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Slog AM: Jayapal Gives Biden 55 Ways to Make Democrats Look Effective, Schwarzenegger Scolds Putin, and This Pandemic OMG - TheStranger.com

History and polling may be on Republicans' side as they try to break Democrats' unified control of Washington, but the 2022 midterm cycle is not a fait accompli, according to strategists from both parties.

In particular, some Democrats are hoping to flip the script on Republican "Dems in disarray" attacks as intra-GOP flaps, so far overshadowed by the Russia-Ukraine war, threaten to create more drama.

BIDEN GEARS UP FOR MIDTERM ELECTIONS AS DEMOCRATS FEAR FOR MAJORITIES

Republicans must stop squabbling among themselves, according to GOP strategist Cesar Conda.

The first year of President Joe Biden's administration was defined by Democratic quarrels over his sprawling list of social welfare and climate priorities. And similar forces are at play within Republican politics, Conda told the Washington Examiner. One example is the Republican National Committee's censure of Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois over their House Jan. 6 panel membership, he cited.

"Republicans need unity, or at least the perception of unity, going into the November elections," Conda said.

The RNC censure, which included language describing Jan. 6 protests "as legitimate political discourse," was criticized by the likes of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who is RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel's uncle. The committee later clarified the censure clearly differentiated between the violent and peaceful protesters.

Another example is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's complaints regarding National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott's 11-point "Rescue America" proposal. The Florida senator's pitch has been panned as a potential tax hike.

We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare after five years," McConnell said. "That will not be part of the Republican Senate majority agenda."

Democrats such as former consultant Christopher Hahn concurred that Republican disagreement could "change the math" Nov. 8.

"There are many primaries between traditional and Trump Republicans," the Aggressive Progressive podcast host said of onetime President Donald Trump. "In some states, there are already plans to mount third-party campaigns to thwart candidates who traditional Republicans view as a threat to democracy itself."

He added that "the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and Trumpists winning primaries are the GOPs biggest obstacles to retaking the Senate."

Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin is a role model for managing the pro- and anti-Trump factions of the party, according to former GOP-turned-independent analyst Dan Schnur.

"The only thing that can keep Republicans from winning back their majorities is Republicans," he said of hard-line GOP lawmakers. "Distancing themselves from Trump might put some Republican candidates in an awkward position with their base, but sticking too closely to him could hurt them in November."

Despite the discord, Republicans have a roughly 4-percentage-point average advantage over Democrats on a generic congressional ballot. A Morning Consult tracking poll published last week found that the GOP had a 1-point edge over Democrats when respondents were asked the same question, 42% to 43%. That is a 3-point improvement compared to last September, when Democrats had 44% support to Republicans' 40%.

The main concern in this month's Morning Consult poll was the economy, incorporating taxes, spending, jobs, unemployment, and wages. Republican voters were slightly more enthusiastic than their Democratic counterparts, and the GOP had eroded Democrats' September 27-point lead among Hispanics. Democrats now only have a 10-point margin of victory with the demographic.

Republicans should not assume disaffected Democrats and independents will automatically swing toward the GOP, according to Conda. Instead, Republicans should present "commonsense" solutions to crime, education, immigration, and inflation problems, he contended. That contradicts McConnell, who would prefer not to provide details until after the contests.

Rather, Conda advocated a former House Speaker Newt Gingrich-esque "Contract with America 2.0" because Democrats' "woke politics and inattention to crime and education" are driving away Hispanics and Asian Americans.

"They should be tough on China and illegal immigration but must be careful not to talk about those issues [in] ways that alienate Asian and Hispanic Americans," the ex-aide to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Vice President Dick Cheney said. "Republicans must be the alternative, not just the opposition."

But the RNC is less anxious than Conda given that former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama suffered losses in their first terms Clinton losing 50-plus House seats in 1994 and Obama shedding 60-odd seats in 2010.

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"There is no bigger liability to Democrats than Kamala and Biden on the campaign trail, RNC deputy press secretary Nicole Morales said of Vice President Kamala Harris and her boss.

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Biden and Democrats hope Republicans will blow midterm election prospects - Washington Examiner

The Democratic Party is perceived by voters as being both ineffective and out of touch and, as a result, stands to suffer substantive seat losses in the midterm elections,new pollingby Schoen Cooperman Research indicates.

Indeed, the findings of our survey which was conducted among likely 2022 midterm election voters show that the electorate is increasingly pessimistic about the direction in which President BidenJoe BidenRepublican senators introduce bill to ban Russian uranium imports Energy & Environment Ruling blocking climate accounting metric halted Fauci says officials need more than .5B for COVID-19 response MORE and Democrats are steering the country and feel that the partys priorities do not align with their own.

In order to have a fighting chance in the midterms as well as a shot at holding on to the presidency in 2024 Democrats need to embark on a broader course correction back to the center. The party needs to show voters that they are focused on solving problems and addressing quality-of-life issues and that they reject the progressive lefts embrace of big government spending and identity politics.

Indeed, a majority of voters (54 percent) including 56 percent of independents explicitly say that they want Biden and Democrats to move closer to the center and embrace more moderate policies versus embracing more liberal policies (18 percent) or staying where they are politically (13 percent).

Most voters (61 percent) also agree that Biden and Democrats are out of touch with hardworking Americans and have been so focused on catering to the far-left wing of the party that theyre ignoring Americans day to day concerns such as rising prices and combatting violent crime.

Equally concerning for Democrats, there is a clear sense among the 2022 electorate that the state of the country has deteriorated since Biden became president and that he has not lived up to expectations.

Bidens net approval rating is 9 points underwater (54 percent disapprove, 45 percent approve), which marks a 4-point drop since our December poll (51 percent disapprove, 46 percent approve). A plurality of voters (43 percent) also say that Biden has done worse as president than they expected, rather than better (19 percent).

As inflation has risen, the economy has become a particular area of vulnerability for Democrats. Indeed, voters growing economic pessimism is one of the driving forces behind their dissatisfaction both with the current state of the country as well as with Biden.

Bidens approval rating on handling the nations economic recovery is 21 points underwater (59 percent disapprove, 38 percent approve). This marks a notable 17-point decline from our December polling, when Bidens approval rating on the recovery was negative 4 points, 50 percent to 46 percent.

In addition to harboring negative views about the economy generally, two-thirds of voters (68 percent) blame the Biden administrations policies for inflation either fully or partially.

Indeed, inflation which is at its highest level in 40 years is the top issue (51 percent) for voters, followed by the economy and creating jobs (32 percent). Yet only 16 percent of voters believe that Bidens main focus is on the economy. Thus, voters trust Republicans over Democrats to manage the economy (47 percent to 41 percent) and control inflation (48 percent to 36 percent).

In addition to the economy, voters see Biden and Democrats as underperforming on other important issues and in key roles, notably on policing and crime.

As violent crime surges across the country a trend that voters are nearly universally concerned about (85 percent) by a 2-to-1 margin, voters blame Democrats over Republicans for rising crime rates (52 percent to 25 percent). Further, Republicans are trusted over Democrats to reduce crime (49 percent to 34 percent).

Despite Bidens more moderate rhetoric on law enforcement and policing lately, most voters still agree that Biden and Democrats are soft on crime (56 percent) and a plurality agree that Democrats in Congress support the radical defund the police movement (46 percent).

Notwithstanding Democrats weaknesses on the economy and crime, our data on the COVID-19 pandemic is relatively encouraging for the party. Indeed, a majority of voters (53 percent) approve of the way Biden is addressing the pandemic.

To be sure, Democrats success in the midterms hinges partly on Americans feeling like COVID-19 is under control by Novemberand, positively, nearly one-half of voters (46 percent) now say that the pandemic is either completely or mostly under control, while just 12 percent say it is not under control.

Voters are also notably less concerned about the pandemic now than they were in December. Currently, voters are concerned, rather than not concerned, about the pandemic by a 24-point margin compared to December, when voters were concerned by a 50-point margin.

That being said, these improving dynamics vis--vis the COVID-19 pandemic will likely not be enough to tip the scales in Democrats favor, given the enormity of the challenges Biden faces at home and of course, the crisis hes facing in Eastern Europe.

Collectively, our data paints a picture of a Democratic Party that is unable to connect with voters on basic "kitchen table" issues, namely the economy and crime.

In his State of the Union address, Biden attempted to refashion his economic agenda in light of the Build Back Better plans failure and tried to sell some of the same big-spending proposals as anti-inflationary and deficit-reducing measures.

Instead of repackaging a failed progressive spending bill one that most voters either dont prioritize or oppose the president should make a commitment to reducing inflation by practicing fiscal discipline while also ruling out any new spending initiatives that lack bipartisan support.

At the same time, though it was encouraging to hear Biden call to fund the police, rhetoric is just a first step. Absent a Democratic effort to approach criminal justice legislation in a bipartisan manner, the GOP will be able to weaponize the issue against Democrats in the midterms.

Ultimately, if Democrats do not embrace a strategic shift to the political center, they risk historic defeats worse than 1994 or 2010 in this years midterm elections.

Douglas E. Schoen and Carly Cooperman are pollsters and partners with the public opinion company Schoen Cooperman Research based in New York. They are co-authors of the book, America: Unite or Die.

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New polling confirms Democrats' left-leaning policies are out of touch | TheHill - The Hill

This story has been updated to include new Associated Press data and reporting.

You might remember the uproar last year over Texass new voting law: Democratic lawmakers in the GOP-controlled legislature fled the state for weeks in an attempt to block the bill, which they said would disenfranchise voters, and Republicans threatened them with arrest upon their return. The law eventually did pass, and with Texass primary earlier this month, we got our first look at whether the worst fears of Democrats and voting rights advocates were warranted.

Thousands of votes were, in fact, thrown out, directly as a result of a new requirement in the law. A new AP analysis of data from Texas found that a whopping 13 percent of the states absentee ballots were discarded or uncounted.

And in the states biggest county, the new procedures it mandated contributed to a hugely messy vote-counting process.

Its been every bit as catastrophic as we feared it would be, said James Slattery, a senior staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project. I think the onus is on the legislature to acknowledge the harm that it did to Texas voters by passing Senate Bill 1 and make amends by repealing it next year.

But that probably wont happen given that key Republicans who pushed for the law have continued to defend it.

Heres what we saw in the primary and what it could mean for other states that have enacted or are considering similar laws.

The new law does a few things: It bans 24-hour and drive-through voting, prevents officials from mailing unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, requires monthly voter roll checks, and gives more latitude to poll watchers. It also adds a requirement that voters provide their drivers license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number when applying for a mail-in ballot and write that same number on their mail-in ballot when sending it in.

Democrats and voting rights advocates were adamant that the new ID requirement for mail-in ballots introduced huge room for human error, and huge amounts of human error occurred. Some 27,000 mail-in ballots were initially flagged for rejection across 120 counties in the state. The secretary of states office has yet to publish statewide mail-in ballot rejection figures, but the AP data, collected from 187 of Texass 254 counties, found 22,898 were rejected.

The statewide rejection rate for mail-in ballots has typically been between 1 and 2 percent in past elections and was about 1 percent in the 2020 general election when mail-in voting rates were much higher. But in the 2022 primaries, county-level rejection rates ranged from 6 to 22 percent, according to data compiled by the Texas Civil Rights Project and shared with Vox.

In four counties that reported the reason they had rejected mail-in ballots, those identification requirements were to blame over 90 percent of the time. In Harris County, which encompasses Houston and is the most populous county in the state, it was 99.6 percent.

This was foreseeable. Even some Republican officials were worried about mail-in ballot rejections ahead of the primary. Texas Secretary of State John Scott said during a February town hall that it was his biggest concern of this election cycle. In a statement Tuesday, Sam Taylor, a spokesperson for Scott, acknowledged the issues with mail-in ballots during the primaries and said his office is devoting a significant portion of its voter education efforts to the new ID requirements.

We are confident we will have all the information we need to apply any lessons learned during the primary to an even more robust voter education campaign heading into the November general election, Taylor said.

But others have continued to defend Senate Bill 1. Gov. Greg Abbott has blamed local election officials for misinterpreting the new law. And state Rep. Briscoe Cain, the laws leading proponent, has argued that it had no adverse effect on the chaotic vote counting process in Harris County if anything, he said it made it a whole lot easier to fire the county election administrator who oversaw it.

Voters whose mail-in ballots were flagged for rejection did have the opportunity to correct them to ensure that they were counted. But the process proved confusing and looked different depending on when the problem with a voters ID number was discovered.

You can see all the different ways that this can go wrong. What if the ballot never gets back to the voter? Or they dont see it and think its junk mail? Or they correct the number issue online but dont realize they need to send the ballot back? Slattery said.

For some voters, the process was just too arduous.

A lot of voters get these letters of rejection, and they just dont bother, said Michele Valentino, a Democratic election judge in Dallas.

Some flaws can be expected when implementing a new system for the first time, but this bodes poorly considering how low turnout was relative to general elections: Fewer than 1 in 5 voters cast ballots in the primaries, which is higher than in the past six midterm primaries but still a lot lower than the roughly 46 percent of Texans who showed up for the last midterm general election in 2018.

I can see this issue compounding and worsening as we reach the midterms this year, said Jasleen Singh, counsel in the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, where she focuses on voting rights and elections. That theres even this much hardship that voters are encountering at this stage is incredibly concerning and dangerous for democracy.

The AP analysis showed a higher rate of rejections in Democratic than Republican counties (15.1% to 9.1%). That was also predictable: Voters of color typically bear the biggest burden from any restrictions on voting, and they make up a large share of many of those Democratic-leaning counties.

But there are reasons for Republicans to be concerned too. Mail-in voting was already restricted primarily to people over age 65, people with disabilities, and college students. That means that the population of people who vote by mail in Texas has historically skewed older, whiter, more rural, and more conservative, and the new voting law isnt likely to change that. Some smaller counties were not yet accounted for in the AP data.

There are already staggering rates of mail-in ballot rejections in urban centers such as Harris County, and there are still a lot of rural counties in Texas that have yet to report their own rejection data, but its possible that the new ID requirements might end up hurting the constituents of the Republicans who wrote the law more so than others, Slattery said.

Florida and Georgia have already enacted similar bills, both passed by party-line votes, that impose new restrictions on mail-in voting. Its part of Republicans national push to curtail access to mail-in voting and discredit the results of the 2020 presidential election, when many states expanded mail-in voting due to the pandemic.

Florida now requires voters who are requesting mail-in ballots to provide a drivers license number, another non-driver identification number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number on their application. It doesnt go as far as requiring that information to be written on the ballot itself, as Texas has. But Texas did reject thousands of mail-in ballot applications over its new ID requirements. Florida could encounter similar issues, though the state has a much bigger and more established mail-in voting operation that could make it easier for voters to adjust. Voting rights groups have sued over the law, and a federal judge is expected to rule in the case before the states primaries in August.

Georgias Senate Bill 202 similarly requires a voter to provide their drivers license number or other ID number and date of birth when requesting a mail-in ballot and write that information on the mail-in ballot before sending it in. It has drawn legal challenges from the Biden administration and civil rights groups arguing that it makes it harder to vote for people of color and people with disabilities.

What were seeing with [the Texas law], and I think with many of the laws passed last year, are these layering effects. In places where it was already harder to vote, its now even harder to vote, Singh said.

Other states are still considering similar measures, and though the outcome of the Texas primaries should make them wary of doing so, Republicans pushing those bills havent shown any signs that they intend to reverse course.

According to the Brennan Center, at least 18 bills in five states would newly require voters to provide their Social Security number, drivers license number, or voter record number when applying for a mail-in ballot. An Arizona bill would require voters to present an ID when returning a mail-in ballot and reduce the list of acceptable forms of voter ID to those that include a signature, a fingerprint, or a unique security code. And three bills in Missouri, New Jersey, and Washington propose new grounds for rejecting a mail-in ballot, including if the signature does not appear to be valid, though the New Jersey and Washington bills are unlikely to pass.

These cookie-cutter laws that a national organization has drafted without close consultation with local election officials and that are jammed through without really serious and careful debate could end up blowing up, Slattery said.

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The Texas primaries showed the risk of restricting mail-in voting - Vox.com