With November’s presidential election just weeks away and with polls showing both candidates neck and neck, especially in key swing states, tensions are high. Several plausible electoral map combinations even show the race being decided by one or two electoral votes. So, with every vote mattering, parties look for whatever advantage they can eke out over the competition.
Hence, all eyes turned to Nebraska. Usually a non-entity in the presidential horse race, it has recently risen to national prominence thanks to a new effort to amend the state’s unique method for awarding electoral votes. The state’s five electoral votes are divided based on who wins a representative’s district, with two additional votes given to whoever wins the state’s popular vote.
In 2020, the Republican candidate took four of the state’s votes, with one (the district surrounding Omaha and its suburbs) being awarded to the Democratic candidate.
Since April of this year, Republican Governor Jim Pillen (under the encouragement of Donald Trump) has been working to transition Nebraska to a winner-take-all system. This first attempt failed as the governor could not assemble the votes for the legislative session, but as of September 18, the governor redoubled his efforts.
This time, the effort received national attention, with South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham weighing in, “I hope the people in Nebraska will understand this may come down to a single electoral vote.” Fortunately for Democrats, however, the last-minute changes were dashed when one GOP state senator, Mike Donnell, refused to lend his support, denying the governor the two-thirds majority needed to overcome a filibuster in the state legislature.
However, this electoral episode in Nebraska is not an isolated incident. It is part of a multipronged Republican attempt to restrict and regulate voting rights under the guise of election security. Just recently, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson narrowly avoided a government shutdown after agreeing to drop the SAVE Act from budget negotiations. The bill’s controversy stemmed from the requirement that would-be voters provide proof of U.S. citizenship before casting their vote, with broad leeway with what the states could demand as proof of citizenship.
Available data from a state with similar voter ID laws shows this to most negatively affect college students from participating in federal elections. The bill’s language also meant a state could theoretically disenfranchise married women who changed their last names but whose passport or license may not have been updated. Though the bill and the budget weren’t able to pass through, they are by no means considered dead. Already, a future battle for the budget is being teed up for December, and there is always the possibility that the next session of Congress could act on the bill depending on November’s election.
Georgia is one area where the GOP has had major success in making last-minute election changes, where in a 3-2 partisan vote by the State’s Election Board, all ballots are to be hand-counted. Georgia has been the target of Republican efforts to restrict voting since President Joe Biden’s shocking 11,000-vote victory in the state.
The law that grants the Georgia State Election Board the powers to intervene in the county election process and replace election officials has now mandated hand-counted ballots. This mandate, as opposed to machine tabulations for what will likely be millions of ballots, has caused concerns that it may introduce severe delays and human errors. Said errors can then be used to justify further top-down interference or shake faith in Georgia’s election system.
As the 2020 election showed, a lack of trust in the election process, even if wholly manufactured, can still have dire consequences both on and after election day.
