Impact2020: April 30, 2020
Welcome to your Impact2020 briefing for Thursday, April 30. Some progressive groups are making an old-school adjustment amid the COVID-19 crisis, an election law that once benefited Democrats in Florida now works in the GOP’s favor, and Kris Kobach sees his Kansas voting law struck down in court.
On the Ground
Making snail mail great again
Just about every form of traditional campaigning is still on pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. So a handful of progressive grassroots groups are adjusting with an old-school approach: writing letters.
McClatchy’s Alex Roarty has the scoop on an alliance of liberal organizations who are launching a program to send upwards of 10 million partially handwritten letters through the U.S. Postal Service to typically low-turnout voters throughout the country this fall.
“The unconventional effort is indicative of how political advocates of all stripes are now scrambling to reassess how to conduct their voter outreach efforts and looking for different ways to communicate,” Roarty writes. “Especially difficult for some smaller, grassroots-oriented groups is the restriction on neighborhood canvassing operations, in which staffers or volunteers walk door to door trying to advocate for a cause or candidate.”
Leaders of the campaign hope the letters can be an effective substitute.
First things first
A Florida law that allows candidates from the current governor’s political party to be listed first on the ballot will stand, an appeals court ruled Wednesday. The Miami Herald’s David Smiley reports how the upholding of the 1951 law, passed when Democrats controlled Florida politics, has returned a “political advantage to the GOP in a key swing state ahead of the 2020 election.”
The ruling “is one of the most significant decisions” from a series of election-related challenges Democrats filed in the last two years, Smiley explains. That’s because it gives candidates named first on the ballot a bump, called the “primacy effect,” worth up to five points, according to one expert for the plaintiffs of the lawsuit.
To put that in perspective, “That’s a massive bump in a state where Al Gore lost the 2000 presidency by 537 votes and three statewide races were decided in 2018 by less than half a percentage point.”
Voting wars
A federal appeals court rejected Kansas’ effort to reinstate a law, crafted by former secretary of state and current GOP Senate candidate Kris Kobach, requiring prospective voters to provide birth certificates and other documents before registering to vote.
The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law not only placed undue barriers to Kansans exercising their right to vote, but “disenfranchised approximately 30,000 would-be Kansas voters,” Bryan Lowry and Jonathan Shorman report for the Kansas City Star.
When the law took effect in 2013, it forced thousands of potential voters into a suspended registration status because they didn’t provide the required documents. The court says this undercut the state’s argument that it ensured the integrity of elections.
Credit: Wichita Eagle, file photo
In an interview, Kobach disputed the ruling. He added, “I have a high level of confidence that it will be overturned by the Supreme Court if the Attorney General appeals it to the Supreme Court.”
But the chance of a successful appeal is slim, according to Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine. Hasen said the law has been difficult to defend in court because evidence shows it “literally disenfranchised tens of thousands of people.”
Trail Mix
Election disruption
Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang sued the New York State Board of Elections for canceling the June Democratic presidential primary, Syracuse.com’s Geoff Herbert writes.
The South Carolina Republican Party is trying to intervene in a potentially historic legal action in the state Supreme Court where Democrats are seeking a ruling to expand absentee voting, John Monk and Emma Dumain report for The State.
Reactions are mixed from voters in Michigan Rep. Justin Amash’s hometown after he announced his potential presidential run as a Libertarian. MLive’s Brian McVicar has the story.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly, who recently lost to liberal challenger Jill Karofsky, said he will participate in the controversial voter purge case after recusing himself in December, Riley Vetterkind reports for the Wisconsin State Journal.
Ad watch
Democratic governors such as California’s Gavin Newsom, New York’s Andrew Cuomo and New Mexico’s Michelle Grisham appear in a new digital ad from Donald Trump’s campaign praising the president’s response to the coronavirus, McClatchy’s Michael Wilner reports.
Battle for Congress
A PAC called Security is Strength reserved $1.6 million in air time in the weeks leading up to Election Day in support of Sen. Lindsey Graham in his South Carolina Senate race against Jaime Harrison, Emma Dumain reports for the State.
Staffers for Sen. Ed Markey opted to join a union, becoming the first statewide campaign in Massachusetts to be represented by a union, the Boston Globe’s Victoria McGabe reports.
Number of the Day
8%
Joe Biden leads Trump 50% to 42% in the battleground state of New Hampshire, according to a new St. Anselm College poll.
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For planning purposes
April 30
Trump meets with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy
A new episode of the Beyond the Bubble podcast is available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts
May 2
Kansas primary (conducted by mail)
May 12
Nebraska primary
“It’s a public good”
Samantha Bee makes a case for saving the United State Postal Service. And yes, it has to do with voting.
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This story was originally published April 30, 2020 at 1:18 PM.