5 Questions for Josh Douglas: Election law expert on voting rights, redistricting - Lexington Herald Leader

Josh Douglas is an election law expert and professor in the University of Kentucky College of Law.

The U.S. Senate recently defeated a bill that would have expanded access to the vote in America. Did Kentucky, a state that’s been widely praised for its recent bipartisan-led election, even need that legislation?

In part. Kentucky was rightfully praised, and it was a national story for bipartisan election reform. We did some modest things: we expanded access to the ballot a little bit, added three days of early voting, we expanded or enhanced election security through post-election audit requirements, requirement of new voting machines to have a paper trail. But, we still have a 29 day voter registration rule where if you don’t register to vote 29 days before the election, you’re out of luck. And three days of early voting is good, but it’s not great.

The bill would have required Kentucky to make more movements toward expanding access to the ballot, and that can only be a good thing.

Why are state legislatures in general writing so much new election legislation?

Unfortunately, a lot of this stems from The Big Lie of Trump and his supporters thinking they actually won the 2020 presidential election, which we know is just false. It created this narrative that we needed to change election rules to make it harder for certain people and certain constituencies to vote.

Luckily, Kentucky did not follow that trend because we had a bipartisan agreement on some modest election reforms. I’d like to see Kentucky expand upon that.

Is there any legislation you’re looking out for in Kentucky?

We’re going to have the first federal election this year where we have three days of early voting, so I don’t expect the legislature this session to do much on voting bills. I think everyone kind of wants to see how the new reforms work in this federal election. But I’m hopeful that, come 2023, there’ll be continued push to expand voting access.

The Kentucky Democratic Party is suing over Republican-drawn House and US Congressional maps that are now law. Can you evaluate that case?

Both maps are egregious partisan gerrymanders. I don’t think anyone can dispute that the maps were drawn to achieve some kind of political advantage. The question is whether that’s unlawful or not.

The lawsuit argues that both maps violate the Kentucky Constitution, which says that all elections shall be ‘free and equal.’ That’s a pretty bland phrase, so what does it mean that elections shall be free and equal? Well, courts in both Pennsylvania and North Carolina have struck down maps in those states for being partisan gerrymanders for violating the exact same language in those state constitutions. And then, the house map has also been challenged under this Kentucky constitution for splitting counties too much.

The real question is: is the Kentucky Supreme Court, where this is ultimately heading, going to construe the state constitution broadly to protect voters and to protect the fairness of elections in the same way that the North Carolina and Pennsylvania Supreme Courts did?

What in your mind is the single most pressing election law issue in the US? What about in Kentucky?

in the US, it’s the ability of the losing candidates to accept defeat. In terms of election law, another one is the replacement of professional election administrators with partisans. It’s becoming even more concerning as you have these partisan legislatures taking over the authority of election officials. Election officials are getting harassed and lots of people are resigning from those positions.

In Kentucky, one concern is the still-high level of felon disenfranchisement. I think we still have too restrictive voting rules when it comes to things like the voter registration time period, 29 days before an election, and excuses required to vote absentee. We made a lot of strides over the past year, but we’re still really far behind a lot of other states in our election rules.

source: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article257717838.html

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