Welcome to The Markup, an insider legislative update from the Voting Rights Lab. If you want to receive these weekly updates going forward, please be sure to subscribe. (It’s free!) Today is Monday, April 19. We're tracking 2,048 voting bills that have been...
VRL Policy
Voting Restoration: A Spark of Hope in State Election Legislation
In the next week, Washington Governor Jay Inslee is expected to sign H.B. 1078/S.B. 5086 into law. This bill restores the right to vote to tens of thousands of Washingtonians with past felony convictions once they return home from prison. Once it becomes law, more...
The For the People Act
Download our brief on H.R.1/S.1 here. H.R.1/S.1 protects our freedom to vote Better in-person voting On Election Day for the 2020 general election, around 30% of likely voters took at least 30 minutes to vote. About 15% (more than 8 million voters) took an hour or...
The Quiet Attack on Drop Boxes: Another Tactic to Make it Harder to Vote
As those in the voting rights movement are well aware, states across the country rushed to adjust their election systems to allow for safe voting during the 2020 pandemic, in part by expanding access to absentee ballots. The Voting Rights Lab policy team tracked these...
The 2020 Backlash Begins: Early Trends in Photo ID Requirements for Absentee Voting
Record-breaking turnout in 2020, along with rampant misinformation spread after the election in an attempt to cast doubt on the results, has provoked some legislators into proposing new voter suppression methods. My team and I have been scouring pre-filed and recently...
Protecting Public Health in the 2020 Elections
Report Summary COVID-19 has affected the way we live and work—and inevitably, it will affect the way we vote this November as well. The Union of Concerned Scientists, the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the Voting Rights Lab will be co-releasing a report from...
Recommendations for Expanding Vote by Mail During a Pandemic
Executive Summary Our election system is unprepared for the current pandemic. The only way to ensure the continued functioning of our democracy and the safety of our citizens is for every state to provide every American with access to a mail ballot. Yet in order for...