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William Peniston, a candidate for the Missouri state legislature, made disparaging statements about the Mormons[31]and warned them not to vote in the election.[32]Reminding Daviess County residents of the growing electoral power of the Mormon community, Peniston made a speech in Gallatin claiming that if the Missourians "suffer such men as these [Mormons] to vote, you will soon lose your suffrage." Around 200 non-Mormons gathered in Gallatin on election day to prevent Mormons from voting.[33]When about 30 Latter Day Saints approached the polling place, a Missourian named Dick Weldon declared that Mormons were not allowed to vote in Clay County. One of the Mormons present, Samuel Brown, claimed that Peniston's statements were false and then declared his intention to vote. This triggered a brawl between the bystanders.[31]The Mormons called upon the Danites, a Mormon vigilante group,[33]and the Missourians left the scene to obtain guns and ammunition and swore to kill the Mormons.[32]Rumors among both parties spread that there were casualties in the conflict. When Joseph Smith and volunteers rode to Adam-ondi-Ahman to assess the situation, they discovered there were no truths to the rumors.[32][34]Jim Crow lawsEditMain article: Jim Crow lawsJim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States.[35]All were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Democratic-dominated state legislatures after the Reconstruction period.[36]The laws were enforced until 1965.[37]The origin of the phrase "Jim Crow" has often been attributed to "Jump Jim Crow", a song-and-dance caricature of blacks performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface, which first surfaced in 1832 and was used to satirize Andrew Jackson's populist policies. As a result of Rice's fame, "Jim Crow" by 1838 had become a pejorative expression meaning "Negro". When southern legislatures passed laws of racial segregation directed against blacks at the end of the 19th century, these statutes became known as Jim Crow laws.[38]During the Reconstruction period of 1865–1877, federal laws provided civil rights protections in the U.S. South for freedmen, the African Americans who had formerly been slaves, and the minority of blacks who had been free before the war. In the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained power in the Southern legislatures,[39]having used insurgent paramilitary groups, such as the White League and the Red Shirts, to disrupt Republican organizing, run Republican officeholders out of town, and intimidate blacks to suppress their voting.[40]In 1877, a national Democratic Party compromise to gain Southern support in the presidential election (a corrupt bargain) resulted in the government's withdrawing the last of the federal troops from the South. White Democrats had regained political power in every Southern state.[41]Blacks were still elected to local offices throughout the 1880s, but their voting was suppressed for state and national elections. Democrats passed laws to make voter registration and electoral rules more restrictive, with the result that political participation by most blacks and many poor whites began to decrease.[42][43]Between 1890 and 1910, ten of the eleven former Confederate states, starting with Mississippi, passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disenfranchised most blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites through a combination of poll taxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and residency and record-keeping requirements.[42][43]Voter turnout dropped drastically through the South as a result of such measures. In Louisiana, by 1900, black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls, although they comprised the majority of the state's population. By 1910, only 730 blacks were registered, less than 0.5% of eligible black men. "In 27 of the state's 60 parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer; in 9 more parishes, only one black voter was."[44]The cumulative effect in North Carolina meant that black voters were completely eliminated from voter rolls during the period from 1896–1904. The growth of their thriving middle class was slowed. In North Carolina and other Southern states, blacks suffered from being made invisible in the political system: "[W]ithin a decade of disfranchisement, the white supremacy campaign had erased the image of the black middle class from the minds of white North Carolinians."[44]In Alabama tens of thousands of poor whites were also disenfranchised, although initially legislators had promised them they would not be affected adversely by the new restrictions.[45]In some cases, progressive measures intended to reduce election fraud, such as the Eight Box Law in South Carolina, acted against black and white voters who were illiterate, as they could not follow the directions.[46]While the separation of African Americans from the white general population was becoming legalized and formalized during the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), it was also becoming customary. For instance, even in cases in which Jim Crow laws did not expressly forbid black people to participate in sports or recreation, a segregated culture had become common.[38]The Voting Rights Act of 1965, passed by huge bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson, aimed to end these practices.[47]A key provision of the act required that states with a history of disenfranchising black voters, namely those in the Jim Crow South, submit to the Department of Justice for "pre-clearance" any proposed changes to state voting laws. This provision was overturned by the Supreme Court in the case of Shelby County v. Holder (2013).[48]In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued, “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."[49]2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandalEditIn the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal, Republican officials attempted to reduce the number of Democratic voters by paying professional telemarketers in Idaho to make repeated hang-up calls to the telephone numbers used by the Democratic Party's ride-to-the-polls phone lines on election day. By tying up the lines, voters seeking rides from the Democratic Party would have more difficulty reaching the party to ask for transportation to and from their polling places.[50][51]2004 presidential electionEditAllegations surfaced in several states that a private group, Voters Outreach of America, which had been empowered by the individual states, had collected and submitted Republican voter registration forms while inappropriately discarding voter registration forms where the new voter had chosen to register with the Democratic Party. Such people would believe they had registered to vote, and would only discover on election day that they were not registered and could not cast a ballot.[52][53][54][55][needs update]Michigan Republican state legislator John Pappageorge was quoted as saying, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election."[56]In 2006, four employees of candidate John Kerry's campaign were convicted of slashing the tires of 25 vans rented by the Wisconsin state Republican Party which were to be used for driving Republican voters and monitors to the polls. They received jail terms of four to six months. At the campaign workers' sentencing, Judge Michael B. Brennan told the defendants, "Voter suppression has no place in our country. Your crime took away that right to vote for some citizens."[57][58]2006 Virginia Senate electionEditDuring the Virginia U.S. Senate election, Secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections Jean Jensen concluded that incidents of voter suppression appeared widespread and deliberate. Documented incidents of voter suppression include:[59]Democratic voters receiving calls incorrectly informing them voting will lead to arrest.Widespread calls fraudulently claiming to be "[Democratic Senate candidate Jim] Webb Volunteers," falsely telling voters their voting location had changed.Fliers paid for by the Republican Party, stating "SKIP THIS ELECTION" that allegedly attempted to suppress African-American turnout.The FBI has since launched an investigation into the suppression attempts.[60][clarification needed]Despite the allegations, Democrat Jim Webb narrowly defeated incumbent George Allen.[61]2008 presidential electionEditMichiganEditOn September 16, 2008, attorneys for then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama announced their intention to seek an injunction to stop an alleged caging scheme in Michigan. It was alleged that the Michigan Republican Party used home foreclosure lists to challenge voters who used their foreclosed homes as their primary addresses at the polls.[62][63]Michigan GOP officials called the suit "desperate".[64]A federal appeals court ordered the reinstatement of 5,500 voters wrongly purged from the voter rolls by the state.[65][failed verification]MinnesotaEditThe conservative nonprofit Minnesota Majority reportedly made phone calls claiming that the Minnesota Secretary of State had concerns about the validity of voters' registration. Their actions were referred to the Ramsey County attorney's office.[66][needs update]PennsylvaniaEditMain article: New Black Panther Party voter intimidation caseOn Election Day 2008, at a polling station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, two members of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP)—Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson—stood in front of the entrance to a polling station in uniforms that have been described as military or paramilitary.[67][68][69]Shabazz carried a billy club, and was reported to have pointed it at voters and shouted racial slurs,[70]including phrases such as "white devil" and "you're about to be ruled by the black man, cracker".[71]The incident drew the attention of police, who around 10:00 am, sent Shabazz away, in part because of his billy club. Jackson was allowed to stay because he was a certified poll watcher and was not accused of intimidation.[72][73]Stephen Robert Morse, upon arriving at the scene, filmed Shabazz.[74]The incident gained national attention after the video was uploaded to YouTube and went viral with over a million views.[75][76]The Philadelphia incident became known as the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case.[77][78][79]No complaints were filed by voters about the incident, though poll watchers witnessed some voters approach the polls and then turn away, apparently in response to the NBPP members.[80]Nevertheless, the Bush administration's Department of Justice (DOJ) became aware of the incident and started an inquiry. In January 2009, less than two weeks before the Bush Administration left office, Christopher Coates of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division filed a civil suit under the Voting Rights Act against four defendants, including Shabazz.[81][72]Although none of the defendants challenged the lawsuit, the Obama administration dropped its claims against all but Shabazz in May 2009.[82]A spokesperson for the Obama DOJ stated that claims were "dismissed against the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."[83]Questions about the validity of this explanation served as the basis for subsequent controversy over the case, which was investigated by the United States Commission on Civil Rights,[68]Republican members of Congress,[67]and the DOJ.[74]The federal government eventually obtained an injunction forbidding Shabazz from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling location.[82][84]There was no evidence that Shabazz's actions were directed or incited by the party or its national leader.[85]In response to the controversy, the NBPP suspended its Philadelphia chapter and repudiated Minister King Shabazz in a posting at its website.[86]In July 2010, seven Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to committee chairman Senator Patrick Leahy, calling for a hearing on potential "widespread politicization and possible corruption" in the DOJ in regard to its decision to narrow the case.[67]In December 2010, the Civil Rights Commission released a report concluding that their investigations had uncovered "numerous specific examples of open hostility and opposition" within the Obama DOJ to pursue cases in which whites were victims. The report accused the DOJ of failing to cooperate with investigations into its reason for dropping the case.[72]Critics[weasel words]charged the Obama Justice Department had refused to apply civil rights law in a colorblind fashion; the DOJ, they argued, would never have watered down the case had the alleged wrongdoers been white. The matter had made headlines again in 2010 because of renewed allegations by Coates, the DOJ lawyer who originally brought the case, that the Voting Rights section has long been "hostile" to cases in which minorities were perpetrators, not victims. Coates failed to offer specific evidence that the DOJ acted improperly.[85]Republican Abigail Thernstrom, a former vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who was appointed by George W. Bush, became a vocal critic of the investigations over the New Black Panthers case. In an interview with CBS News, Thernstrom said that she believed "the evidence is extremely weak" that the DOJ during the Obama administration had discriminated against white voters.[87]Thernstrom explained her opinion on the case in a National Review article in which she referred to the case as "very small potatoes".[88]She contended that her "fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring Attorney General Eric Holder down and really damage the president."[87]Controversy fueled by partisan hyperbole, conspiracy theories and misinformation had surrounded the case for over a year.[72]The Washington Post asserted that the DOJ did what all law enforcement entities are ethically obligated to do: pressed only such charges as were supported by evidence.[72]PolitiFact noted that Fox News hosts, led by Bill O'Reilly, regularly criticized the Obama DOJ for maintaining a purported double standard on race issues. O'Reilly interviewed numerous Fox News legal analysts who said criminal charges should have been pursued, per PolitiFact.[89]On July 15, 2010, O'Reilly wrote, "If it were just about the Panthers, the story would be meaningless. But because Attorney General Eric Holder is involved in the dismissal of the criminal charges, the situation takes on some importance."[89]PolitiFact asserted that O'Reilly and Fox had misled the public by muddying the distinction between criminal and civil charges.[89]While the Obama DOJ, under Holder, chose to drop its civil claims against all defendants except Shabazz, the decision not to pursue criminal charges was made by the Bush DOJ.[89]WisconsinEditThe Republican Party attempted to have all 60,000 voters in the heavily Democratic city of Milwaukee who had registered since January 1, 2006 deleted from the voter rolls. The requests were rejected by the Milwaukee Election Commission, although Republican commissioner Bob Spindell voted in favor of deletion.[90]2010 Maryland gubernatorial electionEditIn the Maryland gubernatorial election in 2010, the campaign of Republican candidate Bob Ehrlich hired a consultant who advised that "the first and most desired outcome is voter suppression", in the form of having "African-American voters stay home."[91]To that end, the Republicans placed thousands of Election Day robocalls to Democratic voters, telling them that the Democratic candidate, Martin O'Malley, had won, although in fact the polls were still open for some two more hours.[92]The Republicans' call, worded to seem as if it came from Democrats, told the voters, "Relax. Everything's fine. The only thing left is to watch it on TV tonight."[91]The calls reached 112,000 voters in majority-African American areas.[92]In 2011, Ehrlich's campaign manager, Paul Schurick, was convicted of fraud and other charges because of the calls.[91][92]In 2012, he was sentenced to 30 days of home detention, a one-year suspended jail sentence, and 500 hours of community service over the four years of his probation, with no fine or jail time.[93][94]The Democratic candidate won by a margin of more than 10 percent.[95]2015 early voting controversy in MarylandEditIn Maryland's Montgomery County, Republicans planned to move two early-voting sites from densely populated Bethesda and Burtonsville to more sparsely populated areas in Brookeville and Potomac. They claimed to be aiming for more "geographic diversity"; Democrats accused them of trying to suppress the vote. The Burtonsville site had the most minority voters of all the early-voting sites in the county, while the proposed new locations were in more Republican-friendly areas with fewer minority residents.[96]The Republican election board chairman admitted at a County Council committee that he and two GOP colleagues held a conference call with the chairman of Montgomery's Republican Party Central Committee. They said the call, from which Democrats were excluded, was legal. Democrats called it a violation of Maryland's Open Meetings Act. Todd Eberly, a political science professor from Saint Mary's College, called the claim by the Republicans, "a stupid defense."[96]2016 presidential electionEditFurther information: United States presidential election, 2016The 2016 presidential election was the first in 50 years without all the protections of the original Voting Rights Act. Fourteen states had new voting restrictions in place, including swing states such as Virginia and Wisconsin.[97][98][99][100]KansasEditIn early 2016, a state judge struck down a law requiring voters to show proof of citizenship in cases where the voter had used a national voter registration form. In May, a federal judge ordered the state of Kansas to begin registering approximately 18,000 voters whose registrations had been delayed because they had not shown proof of citizenship. Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach ordered that the voters be registered, but not for state and local elections. In July, a county judge struck down Kobach's order. Kobach has been repeatedly sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for allegedly trying to restrict voting rights in Kansas.[101][102]North CarolinaEditIn 2013, the state House passed a bill that requires voters to show a photo ID issued by North Carolina, a passport, or a military identification card to begin in 2016. Out-of-state drivers licenses were to be accepted only if the voter registered within 90 days of the election, and university photo identification was not acceptable.[103]In July 2016, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a trial court decision in a number of consolidated actions and struck down the law's photo ID requirement, finding that the new voting provisions targeted African Americans "with almost surgical precision," and that the legislators had acted with clear "discriminatory intent" in enacting strict election rules, shaping the rules based on data they received about African-American registration and voting patterns.[104][105]On May 15, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the Appeals Court ruling.[106]North DakotaEditNorth Dakota abolished voter registration in 1951 for state and federal elections, the only state to do so.[107]It has since 2004 required voters to produce an approved form of ID before being able to vote, one of which was a tribe ID commonly used by Native Americans. However, it was common and lawful for a post office box to be used on this ID instead of a residential address. This has led to North Dakota being accused of voter suppression because many Native American were being denied a vote because they did not have an approved form of ID with a residential address.[108]North Dakota’s ID law especially adversely effected large numbers of Native Americans, with almost a quarter of Native Americans in the state, otherwise eligible to vote, being denied a vote on the basis that they do not have proper ID; compared to 12% of non-Indians. A judge overturned the ID law in July 2016, also saying: "The undisputed evidence before the Court reveals that voter fraud in North Dakota has been virtually non-existent."[102]However, the denial of a vote on this basis was also an issue in the 2018 mid-term election.[108]In the run-up to North Dakota's election for U.S. Senate in 2018, state lawmakers implemented changes to voter identification rules, citing nine "suspected" double voting cases. Under the new rules, voter IDs had to include a residential address, rather than a post office box. The change led to rebuke and lawsuits from Native American voters on a Turtle Mountain Chippewa reservation, as well as claims of partisanship from then-Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, as the law was championed by Republican state representatives. The voters claimed discrimination, and in legal filings cited a survey that indicated 18% of Native Americans lacked a valid ID due to the new street address requirement, while the requirement only affected 10.9% of non-Natives. The survey pinned the discrepancy on higher poverty rates and lower transportation access in areas with higher proportions of Native Americans. The legal battle quickly rose to national attention.[109]While former Attorney General Eric Holder called the rule "nothing more than voter suppression", North Dakota House Majority Leader Republican Al Carlson, who sponsored the law, said "Our attempt was never to disenfranchise anybody. From a legislative standpoint, we wanted the integrity ... in the ballots, but we also want to have anybody that wants to vote that is a legal citizen be able to identify where they live and be able to vote."[110]Ultimately, the legal battle ended when the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in November 2018, which effectively left the rule in place.[111]In July 2019, the ID law was judged to be constitutional.[112]A settlement of the dispute was reached in February 2020.[108]OhioEditThis section contains information of unclear or questionable importance or relevance to the article's subject matter.Since 1994, Ohio has had a policy of purging infrequent voters from the rolls. In April 2016, a lawsuit was filed, challenging this policy on the grounds that it violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA)[113]and the Help America Vote Act of 2002.[114]In June, the federal district court ruled for the plaintiffs, and entered a preliminary injunction applicable only to the November 2016 election. The preliminary injunction was upheld in September by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Had it not been upheld, thousands of voters would have been purged from the rolls just a few weeks before the election.[113]WisconsinEditWisconsin has enforced a photo ID law for all elections since April 7, 2015.[115]A federal judge found that Wisconsin's restrictive voter ID law led to "real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities"; and, given that there was no evidence of widespread voter impersonation in Wisconsin, found that the law was "a cure worse than the disease." In addition to imposing strict voter ID requirements, the law cut back on early voting, required people to live in a ward for at least 28 days before voting, and prohibited emailing absentee ballots to voters.[102]A study by Priorities USA, a progressive advocacy group, estimates that strict ID laws in Wisconsin led to a significant decrease in voter turnout in 2016, with a disproportionate effect on African-American and Democratic-leaning voters.[116][117]2017–2018EditElection Integrity Commission and CrosscheckEditMain article: Presidential Advisory Commission on Election IntegrityIn May 2017, President Donald Trump established the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, purportedly for the purpose of preventing voter fraud. Critics have suggested its true purpose is voter suppression. The commission was led by Kansas attorney general and Republican gubernatorial nominee Kris Kobach, a staunch advocate of strict voter ID laws and a proponent of the Crosscheck system. Crosscheck is a national database designed to check for voters who are registered in more than one state by comparing names and dates of birth. Researchers at Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Microsoft found that for every legitimate instance of double registration it finds, Crosscheck's algorithm returns approximately 200 false positives.[118]Kobach has been repeatedly sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil rights organizations for trying to restrict voting rights in Kansas.[101]On February 20, 2016, while speaking to a committee of Kansas 2nd Congressional District delegates, regarding their challenges of the proof-of-citizenship voting law he championed in 2011, Kobach said, "The ACLU and their fellow communist friends, the League of Women Voters—you can quote me on that, the communist League of Women Voters — the ACLU and the communist League of Women Voters sued".[119]Often, voter fraud is cited as a justification for such measures, even when the incidence of voter fraud is low. In Iowa, lawmakers passed a strict voter ID law with the potential to disenfranchise 260,000 voters. Out of 1.6 million votes cast in Iowa in 2016, there were only 10 allegations of voter fraud; none were cases of impersonation that a voter ID law could have prevented. Only one person, a Republican voter, was convicted. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, the architect of the bill, admitted, "We've not experienced widespread voter fraud in Iowa."[120]AlabamaEditAlabama HB 56, an anti-illegal-immigration bill co-authored by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and passed in 2011, required proof of citizenship to be presented by voters on Election Day.[121]Much of the law was invalidated on appeal at various levels of appeals courts or voluntarily withdrawn or reworded.[122][123][124]In its 2014 Shelby County v. Holder decision, the Supreme Court of the United States allowed jurisdictions with a history of suppression of minority voters to avoid continuing to abide by federal preclearance requirements for changes in voter registration and casting of ballots. Within 24 hours of that ruling, Alabama implemented a previously-passed 2011 law requiring specific types of photo identification to be presented by voters. The state closed DMV offices in eight of ten counties which had the highest percentage black population, but only three in the ten counties with the lowest black population. In 2016, Alabama's Secretary of State (SOS) John Merrill began the process to require proof of citizenship from voters, despite Merrill saying he did not know of any cases where non-citizens had voted. Four-term Republican Representative Mo Brooks found that he himself had been purged from the rolls. Merrill also declined to publicize the passage of legislation that enabled some 60,000 Alabamian former felons to vote.[125][126]Alabama's requirement regarding proof of citizenship had been approved by federal Election Assistance Commission Director Brian Newby.[127]Kobach had supported Newby in the federal suit, and had appointed him to an elections position in Kansas prior to his EAC appointment.[128]In 2018, critics accused the state of intentionally disenfranchising non-white voters.[129]The suburban and rural outreach efforts by the Doug Jones campaign were successful and he captured the U.S. Senate seat, the first Democrat in 25 years to do so, and in a state that President Trump had won by 30 points.[129]GeorgiaEditIn Louisville, Georgia, in October 2018, Black senior citizens were told to get off a bus that was to have taken them to a polling place for early voting. The bus trip was supposed to have been part of the "South Rising" bus tour sponsored by the advocacy group Black Voters Matter. A clerk of the local Jefferson County Commission allegedly called the intended voters' senior center to claim that the bus tour constituted "political activity," which is barred at events sponsored by the county. Latosha Brown, one of the founders of Black Voters Matter, described the trip's prevention as a clear-cut case of "...voter intimidation. This is voter suppression, Southern style." The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund sent a letter to the county calling for an "immediate investigation" into the incident, which it condemned as, "an unacceptable act of voter intimidation," that "potentially violates several laws."[130][needs update]Georgia's Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, was the official in charge of determining whether or not voters were allowed to vote in the November 2018 election and has been accused of voter suppression. Minority voters are statistically more likely to have names that contain hyphens, suffixes or other punctuation that can make it more difficult to match their name in databases, experts noted, and are more likely to have their voter applications suspended by Kemp's office. Barry C. Burden, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of its Elections Research Center said, "An unrealistic rule of this sort will falsely flag many legitimate registration forms. Moreover, the evidence indicates that minority residents are more likely to be flagged than are whites." Kemp has suspended the applications of 53,000 voters, a majority of whom are minorities. Strict voter registration deadlines in Georgia prevented 87,000 Georgians from voting because they had registered after the deadline.[131]"Even if everyone who is on a pending list is eventually allowed to vote, it places more hurdles in the way of those voters on the list, who are disproportionately black and Hispanic," said Charles Stewart III, Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[132][needs update]IndianaEditIn 2017, Indiana passed a law allowing the state to purge voters from the rolls without notifying them, based on information from the controversial Crosscheck system. The Indiana NAACP and League of Women Voters have filed a federal lawsuit against Connie Lawson, Indiana's Secretary of State, to stop the purges.[133]In June 2018, a federal judge ruled that the law violated the National Voter Registration Act.[134]2019–2020EditGeorgiaEditSee also: 2020 Georgia (U.S. state) electionsGeorgia made efforts to correct voting problems that had occurred in the 2018 election. In the 2020 statewide primary, however, many irregularities were reported, including missing machines at polling places and mail-in ballots that never arrived at voters' houses.[135]When early voting started for the 2020 United States presidential election voters reported standing as long as 12 hours in line to vote.MississippiEditSee also: 2019 Mississippi elections and 2020 Mississippi electionsIn late June 2020, Gail Welch, a Jones County election commissioner, posted a social media comment saying: "I'm concerned about voter registration in Mississippi. The blacks are having lots [of] events for voter registration. People in Mississippi have to get involved, too." Welch later explained that she'd meant to send the message privately, not publicly, but also claimed that she was "trying to strike a match under people and get them to vote," and told reporters that whites have had high voter registration numbers "in the past."[136]TexasEditSee also: 2020 Texas electionsIn March 2020, it was reported that Texas leads the South in closing down voting places, making it more difficult for Democratic-leaning African-Americans and Latinos to vote. The 50 counties that have experienced the greatest increases in African-American and Latino populations had 542 polling sites closed between 2012 and 2018, while those with the lowest increases in minority populations had only 34 closures. Brazoria County, south of Houston, closed 60% of its polling places, below the statutory minimum; the county clerk promised this would not happen again. Texas law allows the centralization of vote centers, which sometimes make it easier for people to vote. However, the 334 poll closures outside of vote centers still put Texas ahead of Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.[137]Texas limits who can request absentee postal ballots only to voters over 65, those sick or disabled, those who will be out of the county on election day and those who are in jail.[138]Attempts in court to expand mail in voting before the 2020 elections because of health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic have been unsuccessful.[139][140]In addition, some eligible postal voters want to lodge postal ballots in advance in drop-off points rather than rely on the postal service, which had warned that ballot papers may not arrive in time to be counted on election day.[141][142]However, on October 1, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, ordered a limit of one drop-off location per county.[143]Harris County, for example, received national media attention because it is larger than the size of Rhode Island and has 2.4 million registered voters but is being served by only one voting drop-box location.[144]On October 10, a judge blocked the order to allow only one absentee vote drop-off point per county, on the basis that it would affect older and disabled voters.[141]A Texas appeals court on October 23 confirmed the ruling that the Republican governor cannot limit drop-off sites for mail ballots to one per county.[145]WisconsinEditThis section has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.See also: 2019 Wisconsin elections and 2020 Wisconsin electionsIn 2019, district court Judge Paul V. Malloy of Ozaukee County, Wisconsin removed 234,000 voters from state rolls.[146]Wisconsin's Attorney General Josh Kaul appealed to halt the purge, on behalf of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.[147]The issue was brought before the court by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL),[148]a right-wing organization mostly supported by the Bradley Foundation, which funds such political causes.[148]The lawsuit demanded that the Wisconsin Election Commission respond to a "Movers Report," generated from voter data analysis produced by the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a national, non-partisan partnership funded in 2012 by the Pew Charitable Trusts. ERIC shares voter registration information to improve the accuracy of voter rolls.[149][150]The report tagged 234,039 voters who may have moved to an address that had not yet been updated on their voter registration forms. Despite thin evidence for removal of that extraordinary number of qualified voters, Wisconsin may be forced to comply with Malloy's order.[151]On January 2, 2020, WILL said it asked the circuit court to hold the Elections Commission in contempt, fining it up to $12,000 daily, until it advances Malloy's December 17, 2019 order to purge from the voting rolls hundreds of thousands of registered voters who possibly have moved to a different address.The case being litigated in a state appeals court, but it was thought that the conservative-dominated Wisconsin Supreme Court would be likely to hear it.[152]The purge was claimed to be targeting voters in the cities of Madison and Milwaukee, and college towns, which all tend to favor Democrats.[148]Disenfranchisement expert Greg Palast ties the Wisconsin effort at voter purging as part of a national Republican strategy.[153]