The Attack on the Popular Vote

In the fall of 2020, facing what many believed to be the most consequential election of their lifetimes, voters flocked to the polls—or to their mailboxes. Almost two-thirds of  Americans eligible to vote turned out for our last presidential election. That was the highest voter-participation rate for any national election since 1900.

The big numbers resulted in part from the increased availability of the mail-in voting option, put in place in response to concerns about voting in person during the COVID-19 pandemic—and changes most states made to their voting laws in order to reduce the risk that polling places become disease vectors.

As a result of the record-breaking turnout, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, "this fall, in more than half the states, millions of voters will face hurdles to vote that they have never before encountered in a presidential election." 

Last week, the Brennan Center released a Voting Laws Roundup that reveals a marked rise of voter suppression that could affect the outcome of the election that will be determined in the next month. This latest Roundup shows that since the 2020 election, legislation restricting voting rights “almost doubled compared with the number of restrictive laws enacted in the past two presidential election cycles combined.” (Their italics.)

Between Jan. 1, 2021, and Sept. 16, 2024, at least 30 states enacted 78 restrictive laws, more than 60 of which are now in effect in 29 states.

Many of the new restrictive voting laws target mail-in voting, also called “absentee” voting. According to last week’s report, “at least 22 states will face 38 new restrictions on their ability to vote absentee that were not in place in 2020.”

A Small Piece of the Big Lie

These restrictive measures were put in place following Donald Trump’s assertion that voting by mail “shouldn’t be allowed,” and the former president’s false claims that “any time you have a mail-in ballot, there’s going to be massive fraud.”

The Brennan Center is a nonpartisan law and policy organization named for Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., who was nominated by Republican Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower and confirmed by a near-unanimous vote (with only Sen. Joseph McCarthy voting against him). Brennan’s most important decisions include Baker v. Carr  (1962), which helped establish the principle of “one person, one vote.”

While the Brennan Center is non-partisan, it is not non-political—in this way it is not unlike other voter-integrity organizations such as the League of Women Voters. Prior to the 2020 election and, following Trump’s warnings that mail-in voting threatened the integrity of the vote, the organization issued an analysis titled “The False Narrative of Vote-by-Mail Fraud.”

“An exhaustive investigative journalism analysis of all known voter fraud cases identified only 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud from 2000 to 2012,” the report concluded. “As election law professor Richard L. Hasen notes, during that period ‘literally billions of votes were cast.’”

Despite the consensus among independent researchers that the mail-in ballot is secure, Republican lawmakers responded to Trump’s demands that they restrict the practice.

“These new laws curtail access to absentee ballots in several ways, including by shortening the window to apply for or return a mail ballot, restricting assistance in returning a mail ballot or mail ballot application, reducing the availability of mail ballot drop boxes, barring election officials from sending mail ballot applications or ballots to voters who did not specifically request them, imposing stricter signature requirements for mail ballots, and shortening the period during which voters can fix signature issues.”

Meanwhile in California

As our colleague Jonathan Vankin pointed out in a piece that you can find in his (and our) book, How California Works, the Golden State refused to buy the lie.

“When it comes to expanding “people power,” California is near the head of the pack among U.S. states. In 2021, following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud caused his defeat in the 2020 election, 19 states passed laws making it harder to vote, in the name of combating the imaginary “fraud.”

“But California and 23 other states went in the pro-democracy direction, passing laws to expand voter access—including California’s AB 37, which made mail-in voting universal, guaranteeing that any voter who could not make it to a polling place on election day, or just didn't want to, was still able to cast a ballot.”

That’s why, when you receive your ballot in the mail this week, you can know that all of your fellow Californians also got one—and here, we are defending democracy and winning.

The California Voters’ Bill of Rights guarantees you:

1. The right to vote if you are a registered voter. 
2. The right to vote if you are a registered voter, even if your name is not on the list of registered voters, by casting a provisional ballot.
3. The right to vote if you are still in line when the polls close.
4. The right to cast a secret ballot without anyone bothering you or telling you how to vote.
5. The right to get a new ballot if you have made a mistake, if you have not already cast your ballot.
6. The right to get help casting your ballot from anyone you choose, except from your employer or union representative.
7. The right to drop off your completed vote-by-mail ballot at any polling place in California.
8. The right to get election materials in a language other than English if enough people in your voting precinct speak that language.
9. The right to ask questions to elections officials about election procedures and watch the election process.
10. The right to report any illegal or fraudulent election activity to an elections official or the Secretary of State’s Office.