They talked about how the states are preparing for a large increase and answered viewers questions about the voting process. Were thrilled to be presenting a timely panel entitled access to the vote, the ballot and the mailbox. Sponsored by the aba section of civil rights and social justice. This panel is one of many in a series of Rapid Response webinars. Were planning additional programs on a variety issues so please visit american bar. Org crsj for you be dates on these programs. Before we go to our program and how today will work, its my pleasure to turn it over to angela j. Scott, the 2020 2021 chair of the aba section of civil rights and social justice for a few remarks. Welcome, angela. Thank you, jamie. Many thanks to you and the entire civil rights and equal Opportunity Committee for planning this very timely panel. So its my pleasure to welcome everyone who is watching. Before i begin, and i say this before i say anything, i just want to make sure that you all know that im speaking in my personal capacity and that and not on behalf of my employer. Nothing that i or any of the panelists say today represents any views or of any component of the federal government. I just want to make that clear. In this day and age of a global pandemic, who would have thought that we would be living through Something Like this, but obviously over 210,000 americans have passed away from covid, so it is imperative that voters are aware of all of their options so that they can cast their ballots safely during this upcoming pandemic. And we know that certain voters had obstacles and barriers to voting even before the pandemic. So, for example, disabled and elderly individuals who were in longterm care facilities faced challenges that you and i may not and those barriers are obviously increased because of this pandemic. There are also Homeless Individuals and folks who for whatever reason list a p. O. Box as their resident address. Theyre not easily able to cast a vote. We know in various states and jurisdictions that there are new laws requiring purging from voter rolls or requiring identification that may not be easily available to some people. All of these constitute obstacles that can suppress the vote in many cases. And so to this end, the civil rights and social justice section is engaging in multiple efforts to stop some of these obstacles. We want to highlight the efforts through your programming and through some of the other efficients that we have planned. Were engaging in multiple efforts for our members to volunteer and serve the community in ways that will help ensure that people can vote this upcoming election. Our section along with other entities are helping people attorneys, to become poll workers through our aba poll Worker Initiative and those who cant do that, for those who cant be official poll workers or who cant commit to a long day of service like that, there are Election Protection opportunities. So the civil rights and social justice section is helping to facilitate, connecting our members and attorneys with nonpartisan organizations, some of whom weve partnered with in the past, Lawyers Committee for civil rights under the law, national bar association, we are helping to connect individuals who want to serve in shifts to help engage in nonpartisan Election Protection efforts. Our members are also working hard to create a tool kit that is designed for assisting individuals and Community Organizations in helping others. We all know there are many, many, Many Organizations that are well intentioned. We just want to make sure they have all of the facts and information and tools that will be helpful for them to be able to help other people. And finally in addition to this one, we have wonderful upcoming programming designed to take a deep dive into overcoming some of these obstacles. Obviously we have this Wonderful Program and coming up soon we have another program called obstacles at every turn, native vote in a world of coronavirus. We have our fifth annual state of Voting Rights program coming up. And we have another program on dignity, rights and democracy, a conversation. So we really encourage you all to join us for all of this, join the section, join us in all of these efforts. Im going to have to jump off, but, again, i want to thank you, jamie, all of the panelists, all of the Committee Members and the staff for putting this together. Elections are quintessential to our democracy through our nonpartisan programming and through our Community Service Voting Initiative this is year. Our members of the civil rights and social justice section with committed to being a part of solutions and a part of the nonpartisan effort to ensure that all eligible votes are counted. We look forward to you joining us. I think thats it. Im going to turn it back over to jamie. Thank you so very much for those comments, angela. Its wonderful to see you today. You too. During todays program, we encourage you to ask questions of our panelists through the q a, not the chat function. If you do not see the controls, please ensure your screen is not idle. We will address questions at the end of the day of the panel. We will be recording or sharing a recording of this program to everyone who is registered so you can share it widely with your networks. There will be captions available on the recording. And with that, were thrilled to bring you todays program entitled access to the Ballot Access to the vote, the ballot and the mailbox. There are four members of the panel. You will hear from them for several minutes each about their perceptions and expertise on the issues being discussed today. Then, we will open up for discussion and questions from the audience. I will provide a bio of each panelist before they speak. For purposes of initial introductions, im pleased to welcome our esteemed panel of elected officials, scholars and practitioners. The honorable kim wayman, secretary of state of washington, attorney general of oregon, law professor justin levit and attorney general jennifer holmes. Welcome and thank you all. More americans are expected to vote by mail in the upcoming president ial election than in any previous election in our country. Due to changes made by states in response to the pandemic. More voters are likely to cast their ballots by mail than go to the polls in person. But most voters have not voted by mail before. And that may lead to some uncertainty about whats ahead in the next few weeks. First, we will hear from secretary wayman. She is washingtons 15th secretary of state, first elected in 2012. She is serving her second term and is only the second female secretary of state in washingtons history. Prior to being elected to this office, kim served as the county elections director for nearly a decade and was elected county auditor. As washingtonians, we have had vote by mail for a number of years now. Can you please tell us about Washington States experience with vote by mail and how you address issues of safety and security. I would be happy to. Thank you so much for allowing me to be on this panel and thank you for the work that the committee and the bar has done. This is a really important topic and a very important year to do this work. Im going to take a minute to bring up hopefully if the tech agrees, a Powerpoint Presentation and just walk through what i would term the speed version of Washington State elections. And are you all seeing that . Okay. Im not. Thats kind of fun. I love technology. All right. There we go. Well, let me talk a little bit while im trying to get the tech to work. So there we go. Here in Washington State, and i think this is true of Election Officials across the country, we were election geeks by nature like many of you are law geeks and we were kind of like the offensive line in football. We dont really you guys dont Pay Attention to us until something usually goes wrong or we have a pandemic and now Everyone Needs to vote by mail. So let me real quick in the next five to ten minutes, share with you washingtons kind of path to this and what we do here to ensure that every eligible washingtonian has a right to register to vote and also have their ballot cast. Giving you scope and scale of washington elections. We have 4. 7 million registered voters and i anticipate by election day we will be knocking on the door of 5 million. Weve had a number of laws over the last 20 years that have really catapulted washington forward to be in a position that quite frankly like oregon was very good for a pandemic it turns out. It begins with voter i. D. In 2006, following the closest governors race in 2004, washington adopted voter i. D. Laws that have served our voters well. We have not had issues with suppression and we even withstood a challenge and im proud of the way we rolled it out. It wasnt politicized too much and it is really worked well with our system. Weve had online Voter Registration since 2008 and we have been a vote by mail state since 2011. Some of the in the last ten years, the activities and advancement that is weve made have expanded access. Starting, of course, with prepaid postage that we started doing in 2018 and in 2019 was really the huge expansion of access in Washington State. Same day registration, automatic Voter Registration and all of these really great advancement that is im proud to have been part of im not taking credit for it. Ive been an election administrator getting to enact these laws. We build out the controls that balance it out. And one of the big things we did in 2019 was rollout a near realtime statewide Voter Registration system. This is the backbone for a lot of the access that we have. Here in washington, our balloting will be available 20 days before election to any voter who wants to come in and get one. They have to be in the mail by our county auditors 18 days prior to election day. And we have over 500 ballot drop boxes that voters can drop their ballot in if they dont want to put it into the usps and were thankful for that right now. Certainly theres been a lot of interesting reporting about the usps. Here in Washington State and this is one area where oregon and washington differ. Im sure my colleague from oregon will talk about it in a moment. Washington is a postmark state. As long as we receive a ballot with a postmark on or before election day within the day following election day, that ballot can be counted and is counted as long as it meets all of the other eligibility requirements. And let me stop here for a minute and just talk a little bit about what we do to inspire that confidence. Certainly the president and the attorney general the u. S. Attorney general have made some pretty disparaging remarks about the security and the safety of vote by mail and ive been running votebymail elections for almost 20 years now. I can tell you the security controls that we have in place like checking and verifying every signature of every return ballot against the signature on the Voter Registration record is our linchpin for security. We make sure the signature matches and we dont want to disenfranchise a valid vote. We contact a voter if their signature doesnt match or is missing. Sometimes voters forget to sign their envelopes. We give that voter an opportunity for a second chance. Thats an empowering move that we started probably 15 years ago. But its also another security check. I quarantiguarantee you, if you a letter from your election official that says your ballot has been returned and you havent voted, youre going to be on the phone right away to make sure that ballot has been set aside and prosecuted if it is a crime. Another thing that were seeing a lot of here in washington that is a little bit newer in the last probably five to ten years is what we call the ballot chase. And that is where campaigns will get that list of voters after election day whose signatures do not match, theyll find their supporters, and follow up on this as well. This helps us reduce the rejection rate. Thats another reason why its good that our counties reach out to voters because it equalizes it for everyone. Its not the wellfinanced campaigns or wellorganized campaigns that have that advantage. Another thing that we have with our new vote wide system, the voters have the ability to i totally missed this, register to vote online and they can do that up eight days before election day. And then we do still have inperson same day registration up through 8 00 Election Night. Voters can track their ballot through our portal as well. Once they put it into the mail stream or put it into the ballot drop box and the county receives it, they can follow that path of signature checking to it being ready to count and can have an assurance that their ballot is received and if theres a problem, they can contact Election Officials to rectify that. As i said earlier, we have a 21day certification period in washington. So those latearriving ballots can still be counted. One of the things that i think is important to get on all of your radar if its not already is that i think were going to see a shift in november that most of the country has not seen before and i think oregon and washington voters are used to this. I think our counterparts across the country are going to be shocked to find out that theyre not going to know who won the election on Election Night and i think most voters think that is a final answer and i think all of the lawyers on this call know thats not the case because were working after election day to certify those results. But as you see in this bar graph, this is a typical return pattern that we see and this is from our 2020 august primary election. What i can tell you, though, this is off the chart in a way ive never seen before. Typically we do see about 50 o 60 of our ballots come in election week because of that postmark element. But you notice that we see a spike not only on wednesday after election day, but thursday. And what we saw in august is is that the volume was so crushing for our counties who are got at processing ballots, it took them an entire day to get a lot through their latearriving ballots that close at 8 00 on Election Night. I mention this because i think its a trend were going to see across the country. The latearriving ballots are going to happen. You potentially are going to be hundreds of thousands that get to their Election Offices with valid postmarks arriving the day after the election and will not be eligible to be counted in those states. I think we already are seeing litigation on that front across the country and i think we will see more of it following election day. But this is definitely going to delay the results in states across the country. This was a New York Times graphic that i just thought was great. The dark blue states are the states that have a history of votebymail elections. The gold states have how shall we say, very restrictive absentee laws. And all of the remaining states are ramping up their operations and we are going to have a wide array of absentee ballot processing and election activity that is vote by mail. I can assure you that my colleagues have been reaching out to our office and to our county partners and were all sharing a lot of information, probably the best thing that comes out of all of the preparations for cybersecurity, so we have been really working trying to get ready for 2020. One of the things the last thing ill leave you with is, we have a national hashtag called get out the vote excuse me. My brain is full. Trusted info 2020 and thats really trying to drive people to trusted sources of information like your county Election Officers, your state Election Officers, or the bar association, aclu, organizations that you can trust for information so that people know what they need to do. With that, i hope i hit my time right and thank you for letting me present. Thank you very much, secretary. We will next hear from attorney general rosenbloom. A former federal prosecutor, she was first elected as oregons 17th attorney general in november 2012 and was reelected to a second term november 8th, 2016. She is the first woman to serve as Oregon Attorney general. She has served as secretary of the American Bar Association as well as chair of the aba section of state and local government law. Attorney general rosenbloom you represent another one of the five states that exclusively votes by mail. I know youve been dealing with some recent litigation related to vote by mail. Can you tell us about this and any other relevant legal issues . Sure. Thank you so much, jamie. I want to go like this when you say were one of the vote by mail states. But, look, we understand its a lot more difficult for states that havent been to get up to speed and im so proud of those in so many states who are really making this effort because it is so important. Any state that allows for absentee voting, which we used to call it that, can easily, fairly easily, make this transition in a year where it is so important to do that. So let me start by saying thank you to you, jamie, for inviting me to the section of civil rights and social justice. I love working with you. Our sections do a lot together. And thank you to secretary wayman and my fellow panelists and for everyone who shown up virtually this morning. We have about 250 people on this panel webinar. Thank you so much for joining us. Obviously, elections are at the heart of our democracy and this year states are facing unprecedented challenges from the global coronavirus pandemic and frankly concerns about diminished faith in the election process. I think secretary wayman would agree with me that our two states have had a bit less scrambling to do than many other states and thats because our existing vote by mail, what i call vote at home systems inherently solve the problem of potentially crowded voting polling places and the fru infrastructure for getting ballots to people is already in place. Its been 40 years in oregon, unofficially, and officially 20 years since we voted statewide for all of our elections. Oregons system of mail voting is similar to what we just heard about washingtons prose. There are differences and thank you for flagging your concerns, kim. But i can allay those to some degree. Voters receive a ballot in the mail with the postage paid, return envelope, and an optional secrecy sleeve. Its not required to use it. Its a nice thing to have. They typical arrive a few weeks before election day. About two weeks. And they can be returned by dropping them in the mail, yes, or by returning them to our official drop box locations. I think you mentioned you have about 500 in washington and i think we have about a comparable number here. This is an important statistic. Historically about 40 , only 40 of people have used the mail in oregon. And so 60 have used the drop boxes. And so thats why i can calm your concerns a little bit. We emphasize in oregon getting your ballot in early. We dont worry about the postmark as much as you might think we should and thats because were good at getting our ballots in early. If we dont, we put them in the drop boxes. 60 of oregonians do not use the mail. They use the drop boxes. Theyre at all of the Election Offices and also down at the pioneer square, theyre over at the lumberyard, theyre places that is convenient for people to drive up. You dont have to get out of your car. You can also have the option of going to a county Election Office and voting there with assistance during that twoweek period. There are not long lines. Its not like waiting in line and having to be six feet apart in the rain, potentially, and the potential exposure to the virus. Instead you have the opportunity to get that help at any time that the office is open during that twoweek period. One difference is that oregon requires our ballot to be returned by 8 00 p. M. On election day. A postmark on election day is not good enough and that means if youre going to use the mail, you do need to allow time for delivery and the post office this year is recommending one full week. We are telling people, even more than a week if you do intend to use the mail. Given the intent to which oregon has successfully relied on the mail system for elections, i was very concerned and i know that you were as well in washington, when news broke out about the changes that the postmaster general was unilaterally making. I want to talk about that a little bit. The Postal Service was dismantling mail sorting machines, disallowing overtime and requiring trucks to leave at scheduled time, even if that meant mail got left behind in the post offices. They were suggesting that they would no longer treat outgoing election mail as first class mail unless states paid the higher first class rate. The post Office General counsel was blunt about the impacts these changes could have on election mail. Oregon got a letter indicating that the state the service in our state would be slower than it has ever been. In fact, the suggestion was that if our Election Officials used the time allotted to design ballots and got everything in place, voters actually might need to send their ballots back on the same day they got them which is obviously unrealistic. So we were very concerned. Here we were thinking, a ha, we got it made. Were a vote by mail state and we realize that our vote by mail could be endangered. If this was the worst case possibility in oregon where we have the infrastructure in place, the consequences in other states of course might have been very dire indeed. Fortunately the Postal Service is designed so that changes that affect nationwide mail delivery are supposed to go through a regulatory process that allows for public input. These are not the kinds of things that a postmaster general can decide to do and then immediately implement. So i was very pleased to join with my neighbor to the north, attorney general ferguson, the washington ag and colleagues from a dozen other states in a lawsuit to these changes. And were all, guess what, winning our lawsuits. Austral as recently as yesterday, the pennsylvania case, the federal judge ruled in their favor as well. Not quite two weeks ago, we obtained the judgment we asked for. So the u. S. Postal service has been asked to do the following things, one, abandon the leave mail behind policy under which postal trucks were required to leave at specified times even if the mail was nearly ready for them, two, continue its practice of treating all election mail as first class mail regardless of the paid postage. Three, fix or otherwise replace machines needed to timely process and deliver election mail and, four, suspend recent policy changes until after the election. So with this injunction in place, i am reasonably confident that our mail election will once again be very successful. But, as other panelists will describe in more detail, there remains significant legal issues surrounding the upcoming election. Advocates are seeking a number of accommodations to enable a meaningful vote during this unprecedented time. And interestingly, a lot of what theyre asking for is consistent with oregon practice after 20 years of successful experimentation and experience, not requiring mailed ballots to have witness signatures or a notary. When i say that, i mean we have consistently have good if not great, most of the time, voter turnout, both in primaries and general elections, and almost zero voter fraud. There are several lawsuits challenging the kinds of accommodations that state and local Election Officials are making in light of the pandemic. And i imagine we will be talking about some of those too during our discussion. For now, i would just say, having an existing votebymail system means theres no basis for those types of challenges in oregon in washington or the other vote by mail states. And if anything good can come out of this circumstance, make it will be that other states will follow our lead and adopt vote at home or whats also known as vote by mail which has a long track record of avoiding fraud and making it easy for every voter to vote and have it counted. Thank you. Thank you so much, attorney general. Next we will here from professor levit. Hes the professor of law and fellow at loyola. He was a Deputy Assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of u. S. Department of justice where he primarily supported the Civil Rights Divisions work on Voting Rights and protections. He holds a law degree and a masters degree in Public Administration from harvard university. Professor, can you tell us about your professional and Academic Experience on these issues and whats some of the issues may be Going Forward . Sure, and i try to do that by giving some context to some of the states that arent in as good of a position as oregon and washington are. Ive been a civil rights lawyer for a very long time. I still consider myself doing civil rights law. Im delighted to join you all and im delighted to join my fellow panelists. This is an Allstar Group that youve managed to put together, including people who are very much on the front lines of all of these fights in different ways. Youve got secretary wayman and the attorney general as state officials on the front lines. You have jennifer as a litigator on the front lines and its really been a privilege to watch them work on what havebehalf of voters in different ways. Washington and oregon, i think, have been doing a wonderful job with their own elections so far. No surprise there. Theyve got a lot of experience at running elections this way. As you heard from both of them, that experience helps a lot in adjusting to pandemic circumstances. Because they havent had to make a lot of adjustments. Their systems actually work pretty well to absorb the massive dislocation the pandemic is providing elsewhere. When you do it right, when you plan for it, misconduct in mail elections is minimal, truly minimal. If you plan for it, mistakes leading to problems in mail elections are also minimal. But not everybody, as youve heard from both of them, not everybody is in the same position as oregon and washington are. Just were getting in washington. To put it into perspective, a moment of sharing just a few slides about where various groups stand this year. So this is 2016. This is data from the election. This is from a survey they run every few years, just to track the mechanics of casting counting ballots. You can see, there is a wide disparity in the extent to which, before this year, states, individuals and states cast ballots by mail. You can see washington and oregon very much on the righthand side of the graph, with close to 100 , nearly 100 , of voters casting ballots by mail. Where i am now in california, were hovering around 60 . In four states in this category, encouraging even for states like california, encouraging even more voting by mail is not an insignificant lift, but comparatively easy. There are an awful lot of states in a very different category. States that have historically had 4 , 5 , 6 voting by mail. You heard this from the secretary general, theyre in a different place in terms of getting systems ready. Its not trivial to scale up from 4 , 5 , 6 voting by mail to 50 or 60 . I know because ive talked to folks on the receiving end of this. I know what officials in washington and oregon have been doing, helping counterparts across the country, which is wonderful to see. People are suddenly in need of that expertise. It is not just expertise. You need, for example, machinery to suddenly scale up from 10,000 ballots to a million ballots that youre counting by mail. This happens to be a ballot sorting machine. It is one of several. Its not the only one on the market, but i show it to you so you get a sense of, thats not a small desktop piece of machinery. That takes a fair amount of budget and time to order and get up and running, to really get your ability to process mass i amounts of mail ballots in time. Its not just about machinery either. You have heard some of the litigation over, and some of the other adjustments and processes, procedures, to helping people cast ballots by mail when theres suddenly a very different scale and different volume. Things like ensuring that when you have a postmark rule, the post office knows to stamp, to cancel a prepaid envelope, is muscle memory for states with long history of vote by mail. Theyre in contact with postal officials. It is part of the season the attorney general mentioned the suit against the post office. They know whats going on in the post offices. New york, less voting by mail, its not muscle memory yet. They learned the hard way in the primaries, that the post office doesnt automatically cancel a stamp when there is no stamp to cancel. That may mean ballots arent postmarked unless you ask for it. Similarly, states without things like sameday and automatic Voter Registration, which you heard both oregon and washington have, have a harder time making sure registration rules stay up to date and current. Thats even more important than usual. After a summer in which registration rates dropped because people werent doing registration rates in large volumes outside county fairs. When youre transitioning to much more voting by mail, where small errors in the registration rolls can lead to much bigger problems then you would have while voting at the polls. It is also true, i think you heard from the attorney general, that voters who werent used to voting by mail, you make mistakes when you do something for the first time. That is always true. Thats no less true in the election process than it is elsewhere. Making sure that states have rules to accommodate the mistakes, and making sure that states are proactive in contacting voters to minimize the number of mistakes. I dont know whether i couldnt have seen i hope youve seen some of the really, really Creative Design work and imagery around informing pennsylvania voters in the last week or so about the need to use their inner secrecy inve loenvelope. Ballot goes in an envelope, which goes in another envelope. Youve heard more about naked ballots that i think you ever expected to hear in recent past. Thats a good thing. Thats actively attempting to educate voters who dont have the experience already into how they can cast ballots that will be counted. Another thing that people are contending with is litigation, yes. All over the place. In order to help accommodate the changes of the pandemic, when the world changed and election rules didnt, that actually sent elections backward. So all of us have had to adjust an awful lot in terms of what we do, how we do it, including having this webinar in a studio that most people didnt have in their home until now. Election rules had to change, too, and an awful lot of states werent already encouraging voting by mail. Election officials either couldnt or wouldnt change the rules in time. Some were locked in by state constitutions. I dont mean to suggest this was always an option everywhere. Voters and those looking out for voters naturally turn to the courts. Ive been tracking all of the election litigation related to covid19 this year. Im up to 262 cases in 45 states as of yesterday. I imagine that in the few hours this morning or this afternoon, there have been some more casec. It is constantly running. It can present a challenge for voters at this point, in knowing exactly what the rules are. I know consciousness litigants, youll hear from jennifer in a second, are working in the courts and working to ensure the voters on whose behalf theyre litigating know what the rules are, so they can, win or lose, make sure theres the best possible chance for ballots to count. The thing thats going to keep this election from going awry in states that arent oregon or washington isnt the structure of voting by mail. The structure actually works. The system works when it is given the opportunity to, who. U. S. Postal service can handle the volume when they want to, and those like the ags are helping them want to. The vote by Mail Processing works to keep things safe and secure, as you heard from secretary wineman. There are lots of ways to make sure you are who you say you are and that your ballot will be counted. The thing that is going to keep this election out of the hands of the lawyers in a system that increasingly relies on voting by mail is encouraging voters to make a plan. Its really simple. It takes five minutes. Its not much more detailed than knowing what you want to order from dinner before you step to the front of the line or before waiter is standing there, tapping on a pad. Check your Voter Registration. Find out the rules in your state, to know whether you can vote by mail or whether you can vote early, and how you do that. Rules are different everywhere. Then do it as early as you possibly can, one way or another. Three simple steps will keep things smooth. Even as voting is a little bit different in a pandemic year, it doesnt have to be disruptive. One last point i wanted to make, and this may be a little bit of a transition, weve been talking about voting by mail and all of the things that states are doing and will need to do in order to make sure they can vote by mail effectively, or increase voting by mail. But all of that effort in voting by mail is designed to relieve pressure on polling locations, poll workers, and inperson options. Rosenblum mentioned, in oregon, you can go and vote in person if you want or need to, and that is really important as a fail safe. There are, just like there are communities that are hard to count in the census, there are communities that are hard to mail. Communities that, for cultural reasons or sociological reasons, want desperately to be able to count their ballots in person, to vote in person. Minority communities, language minority communities in particular, disability communities. There are plenty of reasons why people may want to be able to vote in person, as well. The push to voting by mail has this year has really been to ensure that theres space for those people who want to vote in person, to vote in person, given limitations on locations and poll workers. So its creating the space for people to show up in person when they want, rather than exclusively using the mail and shutting down all inperson options. And that is really important, poll workers, really important. Law schools following suit, in 2018 loyola was the Second School in the country to cancel classes on election day in order to specifically push students out to work at the polls. They serve as poll workers and a lot of schools joined it this year across the country and it is important to remember as we make shifts so more people vote by mail, people continue doing that this year. We still make sure there are options for those. There is a lot more time to discuss that. Now we hear from attorney general hall, assistant council of the naacp. She works on cases that advance Racial Justice in areas of educational equity, Economic Justice and Voting Rights. Jennifer, received from Stanford Law School and distinction in political science. Can you tell us about some of the civil rights and other legal issues you are currently addressing or may be developing in the near future. Let me thank you for inviting me and this wonderful panel, i feel proud of my league, and absentee vote by mail and options by voters during the pandemic, i would like to make a historic vote about what it was like prepandemic and we are still trying to do. Many of you are familiar with the Voting Rights act which the Supreme Court gutted section 5 which is the crown jewel of the Voting Rights act in a case called Shelby County in 2013. The reason it is so wonderful, jurisdictions and states covered, had a history, any voting changes or election changes precleared and approved by the department of justice before they could implement them and had to demonstrate the changes had not had a different impact on minority voters. This was a prophylactic, Voting Rights and civil rights lawyers, and, and lawyers go casebycase, all along elections and voters subjected to disenfranchised practices, they were not as litigators. This will come all, approach, where they are trying to do every discriminatory practice after and that is the circumstance, we are doing this Voting Rights litigation. And we safely exercise the right to vote. They are giving their voters the opportunity to use vote by mail and you saw by the graph put up by others, they dont have the option. Those are the jurisdictions, if you give me a moment i will show you a couple slides of that. Hope you all see my screen here. I will talk about 3 cases they are litigating recently with absentee Ballot Access. Louisiana had very limited excuses people could use to request absentee ballots before the pandemic. It is incredibly limited and they dont have an opportunity, so we feel no one should have to choose between exercising their right to vote and their health. Louisiana ands common all louisiana in this could choose to vote absentee and vote in person. People who prefer to vote in person. And they act as a relief ballot as pressure unfolds on election day. Thankfully we have a good court ruling, the absentee ballot had to be expanded. A higher risk of covid19 with medical conditions. Anyone who is, anyone taking care, all of those are additional reasons to request absentee ballots. This is nowhere near universal vote by mail that other states have. A far cry from washington and oregon. In addition the court ruled louisiana had to extend, and people have options, if they need assistance with voting, they exercise their right to vote. Similarly in South Carolina, pushing the state to allow no excuse absentee voting and to eliminate the requirement on absentee ballots. I believe attorney general rosenblum mentioned in oregon now witness requirements but in South Carolina, before this lawsuit, to watch you sign it and they had to sign it and of course under the current social distance to find another person, many live alone or others, they are not comfortable witnessing a ballot. The witness signature requirement referred it for people exercising their right to vote. Because of that, the legislature moved or got a ruling in this case, they will allow no excuse absentee voting. And it is not insecure, they will, and they can be a valuable tool, the legislature didnt but john religion and continue litigating. There was a caramel case by the Democratic Party that also was similarly released and they got a ruling with a witness signature requirement, and right now the signature requirement did not require absentee ballots. The panel actually saw the District Courts decision in the Fourth Circuit court of appeals. Right now the reality on the ground, there is no witness signature needed. Professor lemmon mentioned theres a lot of lawsuits going on. We see our role is two fold, and not everyone, following this, they are in South Carolina now and a number of people whose sole job is voter complementary piece from litigation. Here, what they had on absentee voting and curbside voting. They may not know in many places if you are elderly or have an ambulatory problem or other, into the polling place, curbside voting, pulled out a ballot and facilitate you voting from the car window to the curbside and that makes it easier, and that been on curbside voting. We want to strike down certain requirements, put on absentee ballots and absentee voting in alabama including witness signature requirements and in alabama a photo id requirement, and if you are absentee you have to copy, provide a copy of your id with your absentee ballot. The average person doesnt have a printer at home, or a scanner and it is difficult for them to adhere to this going out in public. When child practices, the current status of the litigation the trial ended a week and a half ago, eagerly awaiting a ruling, when it was initially filed over the summer, a preliminary injunction. It was overturned by the Supreme Court, the case was pending so the whole litigation and trial, we are optimistic since the judge was on our side. The litigation that is happening. It is difficult to prove there are many changes happening with voting rules and voting requirements, it is worth it, the option exercise their rights in the pandemic, had a different impact on, and they do not fall into the category, but during the pandemic. These voting restrictions, during the pandemic, the impact on black voters is magnified. To the us Postal Service, various state attorney general who secured the injunction in that case and rooted out our case and on that side as well. The last thing i wanted to mention, trying to figure out how to navigate, start with the personal, make your plan, the first website i listened here, everything you need to know about voting, links where to go, has links to in various states and how you can get Election Protection, poll monitoring. There are many websites, a government website, registration, usa. Gov in firm Voter Registration, with Voter Registration. After you confirm you are registered, the registration deadlines coming up starting as early as this week. Unless you are in sameday registration you are running out of time. And if youre lucky enough to have universal vote by mail or have early voting options and absentee ballots. Figure what options are available, which ones you want to use. I know i plan to vote early or in person. I am going to go down the street to the rec center and vote. Everyone here should have a plan where you say it like that in 5 seconds. Once you have a plan figured out, does your state require a id, specific rules about, things like that. They tripped up officially with those things. And uncertainty, and you use that as and after you turn in your ballots, you want to follow up, send a mail about her absentee ballot you can check the status of it. Many states allow you to track whether the ballot has arrived and whether it has been counted. With the signature or some other tools. If you vote in person, you vote provisional ballots, many states enable you to check on the status of traditional ballots and you cure the problems of traditional ballots. Your test is not over, you make sure it is counted. Once you figure out your own situation make sure your family and friends have a plan. Finally i would like to encourage everyone here to volunteer and election day. You mentioned the importance of becoming a poll worker. I am so excited the ada has initiative, another option, one that lds was partnering with or whichever initiative you use, if you are healthy and able to volunteer to be a poll worker. I greet you encourage you to do that. Generally speaking, older, many of them are high risk for covid19 and are unable or unwilling to work on election day but also volunteered to do Election Protection from the lawyer committee. You can join lds prepared to vote team, and and the issues that are going on, mostly covers 9 states that have the worst voter discrimination problem, you help us connect with groups on the ground on election day. Finally, after election day, in the postShelby County world we need everybody especially attorneys, against Voter Suppression your communities, equipped with the tools and sophistication to report issues that are going on to garner Media Attention to petition local government to provide testimony, all sorts of things that shine a light where there are issues in our election. Voter suppression takes many forms, very disparate impacts on minority communities, and the machines break down, they dont get the funding that provides that machine and all sorts of things. We need lawyers to be attuned to these issues and to engage in places where decisions are made issues. Every election, not just this election but the more you do it the more you will be an experienced and knowledgeable about it and a future army of poll workers do retire from that job. I am going to end there. If i could ask and one tiny little thing, the only ways to increase for systemic change in jurisdictions that are not quite as advanced is if we are just as interested in the way we conduct elections as we are right now. Precisely what jennifer said, this is an ongoing, every two years, we have elections all the time. As fair as can be all the time. Dont just wait until november 3rd or thereafter when you have result of the president ial election, to be just as engaged a month after the election the week before. Thank you, justin and thank you, jennifer, also for the resources that you shared. Once you get a good overview of the issues from the excellent panel we would like to open up for questions from the audience, take questions into the q and a, thank you to the panelists who have been hard at work responding to many of the questions popping up. I will do my best to pull up for questions from our panelists. To get started, attorney general rosenblum, mentioned the recent victories in court, any concerns with the usps might comply or not, with the injunctions, the equipment removed and destroyed been replaced in those affected states. Do you have status estate in oregon . If you get an injunction you want to make sure they comply, you want to come back and told them in contempt. How do you know under these circumstances, the judge will welcome us back if need be, you have to get clearance to tell you in affidavits better than attached to the pleadings what their experience is and the number are postal Union Workers. Postal Union Workers are on the inside and guess what, Postal Service knows that we have molds to keep watch on what they are doing and in compliance, we will be apprised if we learn they are not clients but as to the question about machines, if you follow the testimony of the postmaster general, some of the machines, maybe most of them, so we dont have any assurance the Postal Service put things back the way they were before to ensure those will be handled as quickly as much as previously. I dont know if i can give you that reassurance. Hopefully i came close to answering it. The provisions of the injunction. Thank you so much. Another question. What can be done about states that purged voters, dont let the voters know, people will be able to reregister in time to vote, tackle that. I will jump in, this is why it is so critical, really encourage those people who you influence and are connected to to verify with Election Officials some of those Voter Registration cut outs are approaching in some states and once they pass the voting, i am happy to say, we encourage voters and 1993. We want to comply with federal law. Call me crazy. Just because you think you are registered doesnt mean you are actually registered, check your registration check it again. It doesnt take long at all, you can check. The second thing, stay engaged after the election, that is the right answer for anybody on november 3rd, get the word out, check now. Longerterm putting procedures in place like oregon and washington, automatic Voter Registration or sameday Voter Registration, helps make it as accurate, and the secretary said sage responsibility, registered correctly in the right place and vote automatic registration to help that happen continuously so you dont get a flood of changes in the last minute turned out to be more accurate, turns out to be cheaper, with Voter Registration cards in the final day, something everybody can support. Red states and purple states have done it. It is in more states if you care about. Everyone is saying this upcoming election the way to figure out, check your registration now before the registration deadline. If you are involved in being what your secretariats of state is doing, if you attend hearings, what practices they are putting in place that might govern future potential purchases whether they are sending out postcards, and living in the state and you can get in on the front and have input on that practice that is taking effect. Staying engaged with election day. Thank you. Have you noticed any foreign interference with Voter Registration . He is not seen foreign interference, i dont want to say things out loud because you jinx them, any evidence of compromises of the system on Washington State. What you read over the last four years, are concentrated ongoing nonstop effort, china and iran to get into state and local Election Offices, Voter Registration systems or anything they can weve been focused the last four years with laser focus on securing our system and it is happening in all 50 states, much more fire walls, with Cyber Security legislation, and state partners, putting things like authentication for tabletop exercises, it has been ongoing, and we have been under attack and continue to be. We are fighting it off and we will protect everyone and that is the bottom line. Vote by mail helps because it is paper. We have paper ballots to back up any system that gets attacked. Go ahead. Let me take the broader perspective, not just about that but spreading misinformation, it is important to get your information from a trusted source, make sure you are thinking critically about what your media diet is, those are trusted sources, some of those are coming from foreign actors trying to threaten misinformation or influence people. You said it better than i did. In 2016 we got hacked but it wasnt the ballot, the machines but us, the information we believe and what we got excited about and we were and continue to be the weak link, that also means we are a source of strength. All of us have individual agencies, exactly what jennifer mentioned, be careful about information, passing it on before we take a deep breath or responding to things but turns out what they are hacking is us we can each respond to that with a little patience and thought, the most security you could ask for. Question, how is the confusion about voting twice going to be handled . Folks are confused, there are mixed messages about submitting an absentee ballot, how will these discrepancies be resolved. Through tweets responding, but you should not vote twice, this attempt to confuse voters, and is wrong, is actually illegal. Every state, every single one, not only deterring votes by the prosecution, making sure the roles are checked off, the second ballot doesnt count, in some cases the ballot counts and in other places the absentee ballot changes statebystate, that you cant actually vote twice and have it be effective, every state makes it illegal. With this many lawyers in one place at one time, if you combat this garbage with the facts, people are frustrated with states like mine, i am okay with that, i keep combating it with the fact that one of the fact we share with people is it is a felony in every single state to vote more than once. You are lawyers, making people aware of that, it is asking people to commit a felony. Every platform we can, we continue to beat the drum and it goes back to what jennifer was saying, that we have to continue to provide trusted information through the sources and channels we have available and we have to ramp up our activity. We were all planning to do it and now is the time to ramp it up and get that information to people. Yes, thank you all. Are any of you working on litigation to address the poll tax being imposed on people convicted of felonies who have been given the right to vote and states are requiring restitution, court fines or fees paid before they can vote. I will add quickly in our state and washington we change the law over ten years ago, we call the legal financial obligations but they do not need to be paid before someones right to vote is restored. I am working on that litigation actually in florida specifically. Unfortunately, that ruling from the eleventh circuit, did not see things our way. Linking the payment of financial obligations to their ability to vote, is not a poll tax, and there are many campaigns to fund raise and pay off their legal financial obligations so they can vote . It is not just about this election, when a person committed a ne, a constructive member, the civil rights and Voting Rights, if they dont carry the consequences with them that make it more difficult to vote in housing. We encourage you to look into these efforts to pay off people and the litigation right now, will likely resolved before this election necessarily. Stay tuned on that. There was a related question where to contribute these efforts, the florida rights restoration coalition, helping individuals pay off, i will drop the link. Thank you so much. In addition to the litigation we need to work with state legislatures to change the laws and practices. 2020, we need to go is there one clearinghouse clears Voting Rights litigation . What is the best way to compile Voting Rights claims since there are many causes of action, to find federal causes of action. Any thoughts on that . Some quick thoughts and other resources. I dropped the link in the chat, all of the covid19 related elections this year, by no means litigation including disenfranchisement or convictions not related to the pandemic but incredibly important isnt on my list. Michigan has great civil rights litigation that tries to track voting litigation when it exists. At ohio state, another litigation track record, but tracks prominent cases but how difficult it is to track state law cases in particular. We dont have in many states, accessible ways, with litigation. The Brandon Center has a good website with great information. With this negotiation we keep track state and local cases, we put that together for you and provided as a link, it is very helpful. On the topic, has to do with litigation, all of this is tracking, fully comprehensive, changes, covered by session 5. We have a report called democracy diminished, that could have been prevented. It dropped through the chat. Excellent. I am sorry not to get to everyones questions. We will try to respond and how busy they are, in a couple of questions, we want to see if theres a question any of our panelists would like to address. It is a great way to end on. There are some other favorites, somebody had a Voter Registration, 1825 and what we should tell them to help them engage to register. I will take a stab at that. This seemed important because voting was a habit. The more you get Younger Voters to take part, they become life on voters. It is not hard to register to vote but if you dont have somebody bring a get with you, help them take that step, taking that step, there are plenty in the chat, every state had individual resources if you google how i registered there had been a comprehensive list, how to best register to vote. They take that opportunity, we really need more of it. A final plug for the voting home system. Stop thinking of it as vote by mail because there are many ways to cast a ballot after you have the time with your family, and for your kids into the kitchen. Have them sit around and have a civics lesson. People are feeling lost out sick, forget about it. It is more fun and you have more time and it is relaxing and you can do a better job. You take it to the dropbox and take it to the Election Office, so many ways of voting. The important thing is vote and as jennifer said, make your plans now. To change your address in oregon, we had wildfires, people who have been evacuated, we are helping them to do that. People live under bridges who are homeless, we are helping them to vote. We have people in indian reservations, we are bringing shuttles into town for them to be sure they are comfortable casting their vote. There are so many ways to vote. Part of the materials for the webinar, making a plan to vote but use it as a checklist. I echo my colleagues comments, in washington and oregon, on election day, it varies by county, we have a project called the vote squad. The mod squad whatever. Those of you old enough to remember will get that reference but it is designed to connect people with counties and fill in those needs. We have drop boxes that need to be close at 8 00 on Election Night and there are needs even though we dont have traditional im sure oregon is the same way. Use the dropbox, it is not mailin ballots. Now postmarks necessary. I am so sorry. There have been a ton of Great Questions especially states and jurisdictions i dont know off the top of my head. I want this in my state, universal male in voting, maybe i have already and just dont know. And what they push for, the chat and the q and a, things they advocate in the future. Thank you also much. To the audience, if you can stick with us a few minutes, a short video we want to share with you and if you want to leave we understand that. There are 35 days until election day. Early voting is underway in some states. We have a heightened duty to protect our democracy and rule of law. I hope everyone will do what they can to ensure every eligible citizen has a safe and fair opportunity to cast their vote. As you heard throughout the panel it is crucial that we have enough poll workers on november 3rd and some states need volunteers to count votes that day, take your local Election Officials. Our campaign 2020 coverage continues with candidates campaigning and debating. Cspan, unfiltered view of politics. On friday the house is back at 9 am eastern to consider two binding resolutions, one involves conspiracy theories and another condemns medical procedures on ice detainees and others without the consent of the patient, that is live on cspan. At 9 am eastern on cspan2, health and human services
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