Voter suppression update

With the Republican Party choosing to serve as the political vehicle for swindles, mob violence, and cultish devotion to a crook, it's natural to look around for someone -- anyone -- among it's leading figures who looks to be a "normie." Glenn Youngkin passed as such a one long enough to be elected Republican governor of Virginia last year; he seemed not enough of a crackpot to repel voters looking for a change.

But it turns out he joins the rest of his party in pushing back access to voting, undoing the reforms that previous Democratic administrations put in it. Can't let those Black people vote so much ...

Virginia Jim Crow laws dating back to 1902 permanently disenfranchised anyone with a felony conviction. That's a lot of Virginians, most of them Black. The two recent Democratic governors restored voting rights by executive action to over 300,000 felons who had completed their sentences. A state court ruled that the clemency power of the governor required individual consideration before these grants should be effective, so people who had been barred had to fill out a form to get their rights. But the Democrats made it work.

Youngkin's administration has complicated the form -- and now seems to be neglecting to process them. The struggle to restore full citizenship goes on ...

• • •

On the other side of the country, the former swing state of New Mexico, now with a Democratic Governor and legislative majority, is moving in the opposite direction.

New Mexico has become the 26th state, plus D.C., where at least anyone who is not in prison can vote. And new voting reforms include much more: 

[The legislation] contains a flurry of other measures that are meant to strengthen voting rights in the state, including the establishment of Election Day as a state holiday and the expansion of ballot access on Native land. Native people living on reservations in New Mexico did not gain the right to vote until 1948, and HB 4 addresses continued hurdles by requiring language translation at the polls, reducing the distance people on reservations must travel to cast a ballot, and allowing input from tribes on where voting precinct boundaries are set. 

“This is a huge step in the right direction,” said Ahtza Chavez, executive director of NM Native Vote, an organization that advocates for the rights of Native people. “Tribes, Pueblos, and Nation will now have a Native American Voting Rights Act section in the [New Mexico] election code to build upon.” 

The bill would also further automate the state’s registration system. Under the new program, the state would automatically register eligible New Mexicans when they interact with the Motor Vehicle Division, for instance while renewing a license; these new voters would later receive a mailer at home enabling them to opt out if they choose. Currently, people are asked to decide immediately, while they are still at the MVD. 

Colorado made this same switch in 2019—delaying the stage at which people are asked if they want to opt out—and that resulted in a dramatic jump in the number of registrations.

When I worked on the election in 2004 in New Mexico, under a far too bipartisan consensus, state officials actively worked to prevent Native Americans living on the pueblos from becoming part of the process. Time and organizing can make change ...

Who gets to vote is still up for grabs

The first time I began to understand a bit about how Native Americans' right to vote is frequently denied was in 2004. Not that what I saw that year was anything new ... but it bears remembering.

The Democratic-adjacent political consultancy we were working with in Albuquerque, New Mexico had assigned an eager young man several months before the November presidential election to try to increase the vote coming out of the state's nineteen recognized Pueblos. These tribal entities were deeply rural and isolated, mostly very poor without money jobs except perhaps at a dingy casino, and organized under Native governments. Nowadays, the state of New Mexico advertises them to tourists. Then the Pueblos were just pockets of poverty to be romanticized by whites as historic artifacts and kept out of sight.

Our organizer went to work vigorously. He drove hundreds of dusty miles on dirt roads, held numerous meetings with elders and tribal authorities, and finally persuaded several hundred eligible people to sign up to vote. Then he arranged for their registration forms to be delivered to the appropriate county governments in which their particular pueblos were located.

As Election Day approached, nobody heard anything. The new registrants were not contacted. Finally Democratic Party election lawyers made some calls and were assured that all was well.

On Election Day, our organizer returned to some of the hamlets where he'd worked so hard in order to drive voters to the polls. But his passengers were turned away; there was no record of their registrations. The election lawyers eventually determined that NONE of these 300 or so citizens were entered on the rolls. So they could not vote.

And just to rub it in -- most of the counties where the Pueblos are located were run by white and Hispanic Democrats. It seems that out there in the countryside what disqualified a voter was being a tribal citizen ...

This June, the Native American Voting Rights Coalition issued a report titled: Obstacles at Every Turn.

Not nearly enough has changed since 2004 for Native voters: too many election rules seem designed to make voting very difficult. Potential Native voters are disqualified by not having addresses recognized by the post office, by election offices and polling places which are only open limited hours, by limited numbers of polling places, and by having to take costly drives over long distances on unpaved roads in order to cast a ballot.

And then last week, the Supreme Court approved an Arizona law which strictly limits who can carry a voter's completed ballot to their polling place. This is aimed straight at impeding voting by tribal citizens living far off the beaten path. The highest court has made it abundantly clear that it will not protect against partisan, often racist, restrictions on voting.

National legislation protecting voting rights would seem the obvious remedy -- but it seems we may not get this because of the unwillingness of a few Democrats in the U.S. Senate to use their power to make it happen.

Voting rights for Native Americans still depend on the determination of the people to claim the vote.

A new Democratic congresscritter

Today a headline that did my heart good. State Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D) easily won the Albuquerque-area district left by U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland when Haaland was appointed President Biden’s interior secretary.

This is a district I know something about. The E.P. and I worked in it during 2004, John Kerry's failed run to replace George W. Bush in the White House. Though not directly engaged in the Congressional campaign, we were constantly aware that this working class, heavily Latinx city had an entrenched Republican Congresswoman who no effort could seem to displace. Our get-out-the-vote mobilization didn't do the trick either. Heather Wilson was first elected in 1996 and lasted through 2007. 

The seat finally turned Blue in 2008 and has remained in the Democratic column ever since. (It's reliable Blue status was one of the reasons Biden could risk pulling Haaland out of it.) It has served as a launching pad for the upward path of Martin Heinrich, now one of New Mexico's U.S. Senators, as well as the state's current Governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Stansbury is a New Mexico native, who served as a policy advisor to the Council on Environmental Quality during the Obama administration. 

Her Republican opponent tried to take her down by highlighting her support for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and endorsement of the Breathe Act, a proposal from the Movement for Black Lives that would redirect federal law enforcement grants to social services. Like many cities, Albuquerque has seen an increase in homicides in the pandemic year. But the police department also admitted to ballooning reports of police misconduct, 275 percent more than in previous years. Voters made a choice.