Right-wing groups lead new 'under the radar' effort to restrict voting access: report

Right-wing groups are dialing up their efforts to enact tighter voting laws ahead of the 2024 elections without attracting much attention, The New York Times reports.

The Times describes the latest efforts to restrict voting access in a “second wave” of legislation that follows efforts in 2021 driven by Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Republican-controlled legislatures allied with the former president have passed significant new restrictions in Ohio, Arkansas and Wyoming.

Billionaire-backed advocacy groups have formed a new hub within the GOP that focuses on election advocacy.

But unlike the first wave in 2021, the new effort to restrict voting access has moved away from advancing expansive measures with a new strategy described to The Times by an operator as “radical incrementalism,” by focusing on more limited goals less likely to provoke political backlash.

But Joanna Lydgate, who serves as chief executive of States United, a nonpartisan election group, warns that the more targeted approach to attacking voting rights has the potential to be impactful.

“They haven’t stopped trying to change how our elections are run. They’re just doing it out of the spotlight,” Lydgate told The Times, noting that some of the measures the groups are promoting could go into effect in time for next year’s presidential race.

“American voters will feel the impact,” Lydgate said.

Republicans have advanced such measures under the stated goal of “election integrity,” but Nick Corasaniti and Alexandra Berzon write for The Times that “a spate of recent proposals suggests clear, and sometimes strikingly specific, political aims. National Republicans recently sought to change the rules for a single race in Montana — for the U.S. Senate — to tilt the scales toward the Republican candidate.

“In Ohio, Republican state lawmakers are seeking to make it harder to pass a ballot initiative, just as a coalition of abortion rights groups is collecting signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot.”

Cleta Mitchell, who leads a push for tightening voting laws during a call with Michigan activists obtained by The Times attributed GOP election losses to “electoral systems.”

“I think you have got to figure out what we have to do, where to fix the system that gives a Republican candidate a potential chance to win,” Mitchell said.