They’re Trying to Engineer Another Voter Purge through the Courts

This week, we’re keeping you up to speed on the state of voting rights in the courts in three states, and we call for an economic justice perspective on the developing coronavirus situation in the U.S.

 Voting Rights & Voter Access 

1. A conservative group is trying to engineer a voter purge through the courts in Pennsylvania. We just moved to intervene in the case to stop them.

   Allegheny County, PA was sued by the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), in a challenge claiming that the county’s voter registration list requires further paring back, despite a routine list maintenance the county just undertook in January. The choice of that county is not random.

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2. We should all be outraged at this appeals court ruling for Ohio voters.

   The 6th Circuit ruled in our case, Mays v. LaRose, that Ohio voters unexpectedly jailed at election time—even though they are innocent until proven guilty—have no constitutional right to a ballot.

   Why this ruling is such a stunning blow to our democracy

   What other jurisdictions are doing to help late-jailed voters

3. Keep your eyes on Wisconsin’s ongoing voter purge case.

   Last week, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals blocked an attempt to purge more than 232,000 voters from the state voter roll. Now, the organization that called for the purge is taking their case to the state supreme court.

   Why this purge would target Black voters

 Economic Justice 

4. When working people don't have paid sick time, we're all more at risk of contagion.

   As the coronavirus spreads in the U.S., we should all be concerned that the majority of low-paid workers—including more than half of all Latinx workers across the country—still do not have access to a single paid sick day off work.

 “These are the people who are really living paycheck to paycheck. So, they have a tremendous economic need to go into work, even if they have symptoms of the flu or the coronavirus.” 

— Amy Traub, Demos Associate Director of Policy and Research, in Yahoo Finance

Throughout Women’s History Month, members of the Demos staff will be recognizing their heroes. Demos Director of Communications Arlene Corbin Lewis started us off.