Democratic Secretaries of State discuss protecting the vote at Netroots Nation 2020

Wel­come back to our con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of Net­roots Nation 2020, tak­ing place exclu­sive­ly online for the first time ever due to the nov­el coro­n­avirus pandemic.

It has been long a tra­di­tion at Net­roots — Amer­i­ca’s largest annu­al gath­er­ing of pro­gres­sives — to give atten­dees a choice of three fea­tured pan­els dur­ing at least one or two of the times­lots dur­ing the three-day conference.

Today’s menu of fea­tured pan­els con­sist­ed of three com­pelling ses­sions about press­ing top­ics: legal ini­tia­tives to pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties from the Trump regime in the courts, tack­ling the cli­mate cri­sis, and defend­ing vot­ing rights.

This post will sum­ma­rize the vot­ing rights pan­el, which was mod­er­at­ed by Vin­cent War­ren, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights and a lead­ing expert on racial jus­tice, crim­i­nal jus­tice and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry policing.

The ses­sion is avail­able to watch on demand if you’re inter­est­ed.

Pan­elists included:

• Denise W. Mer­rill, who is cur­rent­ly serv­ing her sec­ond term as Con­necti­cut’s 73rd Sec­re­tary of the State, and has worked to expand vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion through Elec­tion Day, online, and auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion through their Depart­ment of Motor Vehi­cles (DMV). She also serves on the Board of Advi­sors to the U.S. Elec­tion Assis­tance Commission.
• Jena Gris­wold, Colorado’s thir­ty-ninth Sec­re­tary of State, the youngest Sec­re­tary of State in the coun­try, and only the tenth woman in Colorado’s his­to­ry to hold cur­rent statewide con­sti­tu­tion­al office. She has described her world­view as informed by her blue col­lar, rur­al upbring­ing with­in the state and, in 2019, spear­head­ed and passed into law one of the largest pro-democ­ra­cy, bal­lot access reform pack­ages in the nation.
• Joce­lyn Ben­son, the Sec­re­tary of State of Michi­gan, a for­mer Dean of Wayne State Uni­ver­si­ty Law School in Detroit, a co-founder of the Mil­i­tary Spous­es of Michi­gan and a board mem­ber of the Ross Ini­tia­tive in Sports for Equal­i­ty. She is also the author of State Sec­re­taries of State: Guardians of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Process.

The pri­ma­ry ques­tion put to each of the three Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sec­re­taries of State was how they could pro­tect the vote in their states in the midst of a glob­al pan­dem­ic, the var­i­ous vot­er sup­pres­sion tac­tics of the Trump regime, and the effect of the first two items on mar­gin­al­ized groups.

Gris­wold tout­ed the pri­ma­ry recent­ly held in Col­orado on June 30th, where vote at home, bal­lot drop box­es (of which she’s had one hun­dred and nine­ty-one installed), same day reg­is­tra­tion and in per­son vot­ing were all available.

The pri­ma­ry had the high­est turnout of any non-pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry elec­tion in the his­to­ry of the state, espe­cial­ly among peo­ple of color.

It’s a dif­fer­ent sto­ry in New Eng­land. Mer­rill told atten­dees that Con­necti­cut is tied for last with Alaba­ma for ease of access to their means of voting.

Part of the prob­lem is infra­struc­tur­al, but it has also been an uphill bat­tle against the state’s Repub­li­cans, who have not been shy about fil­ing law­suits against loos­en­ing the rules regard­ing absen­tee bal­lots, the imple­men­ta­tion of bal­lot drop box­es and expand­ed access to ear­ly vot­ing. It also does­n’t help that, due to a his­to­ry of vot­er sup­pres­sion that goes back decades with­in the state, peo­ple of col­or are typ­i­cal­ly reluc­tant to not vote at home. That said, 82% of the pub­lic with­in the state in a recent poll want­ed the option of not hav­ing to vote in person.

Ben­son empha­sized secu­ri­ty and acces­si­bil­i­ty as her top con­cerns. She stressed the need for greater secu­ri­ty pro­vi­sions to pre­vent any dis­rup­tion of the 2020 elec­tions. Michi­gan has been focus­ing on edu­cat­ing vot­ers as much as pos­si­ble to pre­pare them for the changes com­ing with the avail­abil­i­ty of vote at home.

(Ben­son has also had to deal with per­son­al attacks by Don­ald Trump.)

She empha­sized that vote at home was ini­ti­at­ed nation­al­ly on behalf of mil­i­tary per­son­nel and their fam­i­lies, and that the dilu­tion of the Vot­ing Rights Act in recent years affect­ed two local town­ships; she would like to see the Vot­ing Rights Act restored to its pre­vi­ous, or in a more vig­or­ous, state.

All three offi­cials con­firmed that CARES funds had helped them in their work to main­tain their vot­ing infra­struc­ture, and none have seen any evi­dence that shows vote at home to ben­e­fit either major polit­i­cal par­ty once implemented.

Vot­ing rights are sure to be dis­cussed again lat­er today when Stacey Abrams takes the vir­tu­al stage for the Net­roots Nation open­ing keynote.

You’re wel­come to watch that keynote along with us (it will be free to stream, unlike the con­fer­ence’s pan­els and train­ings). If you can’t watch, we’ll have a recap up here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate after it concludes.