Politico Tag

A former attorney for the Department of Justice has brought a long-shot lawsuit to federal court in Washington, D.C., arguing that the US Census Bureau is legally obligated to carry out a little-known and never-enforced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. The so-called “penalty clause,” found in section 2 of the constitutional amendment, holds that if a state government illegally infringes on a citizen’s ability to vote, that state will lose Congressional representation in direct proportion to the percentage of its voters it suppressed. Though

Several tapes obtained by journalists reveal an unprecedented strategy by Republican operatives to install politically-motivated voters as poll workers throughout the country. “Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger,” an RNC election integrity official for Michigan was recorded saying. This so-called “precinct strategy,” involves setting up communication lines so partisan poll workers may communicate directly with sympathetic local lawyers over the internet as votes are being cast.

In response to a worrying shortage of election workers for this year’s upcoming midterms, an alliance of civic organizations and major businesses are relaunching their “Power the Polls” program, first implemented to recruit election workers in 2020. Power the Polls was co-founded and remains backed by major corporations such as Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Old Navy. Supply-chain issues, an increase in violent threats to poll workers, and a tight labor market are among the many factors threatening to close down polling places around the

The latest failure of comprehensive voting rights reform on the federal level has prompted renewed flurries of activity from felon voting rights advocates on the state level. The Freedom to Vote Act, which failed to pass the US Senate, would have restored voting rights to any US citizen, regardless of felony status, provided they were no longer serving in prison at the time of an election. Despite this failure, activists remain cautiously optimistic - the number of states that offer automatic voting rights restoration

While Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have been the Senators in their party most vocally opposed to eliminating the chamber’s 60-vote threshold for passing filibustered legislation, a number of other Senate Democrats have expressed their own qualified reservations more quietly. Mark Kelly, Arizona’s other Senator, says he is still not sure how he would vote on changes to the filibuster that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) might bring to the floor. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) favors returning to the “talking filibuster” of