The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for March 20, 2023
Today’s Links
Articles & Resources:
Idaho Statesman – Idaho lawmakers move forward with bills limiting ways to vote. Students push back
Idaho Legislature – HB 124
Democracy Docket – Idaho Removes Student IDs from List of Acceptable Voter ID
Democracy Docket – March For Our Lives Sues Idaho Over New Voter Suppression Law
County 10 News – Local legislators divided on crossover voting bill, which will become law without the governor’s signature
Wyoming News Exchange – Crossover voting ban on its way to governor
Op-Ed – Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray – Gray: Ending crossover voting a huge success for election integrity in Wyoming
Politico – Open season on open primaries
Groups Taking Action:
March for Our Lives Idaho, Babe Vote, Open Primaries
Today’s Script: (Variations occur with audio due to editing for time)
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
We’ve got updates on bills in Idaho and Wyoming we’ve covered recently, both of which make it harder for certain groups of citizens to vote – and one of which spawned two lawsuits.
We told you earlier about an attempt to remove student IDs as a valid form of identification for elections in Idaho, something happening around the country. HB 124 was signed March 15 by Gov. Brad Little, and now restricts valid voting ID to a state-issued voting ID card, Idaho driver’s license, federal photo ID, tribal ID, or firearms permit.
The Idaho Statesman reports that within two days, lawsuits were filed by two voting advocacy groups representing young voters, claiming the bill unconstitutionally discriminated against student voters.
Two other anti-voter bills are pending in the Idaho legislature, including HB 126, limiting the acceptable documents when registering to vote, affecting poor and tribal voters, and HB 137, which blocks the use of a sworn affidavit when the voter doesn’t have an ID. State data shows 2,400 voters used an affidavit in 2022.
Meanwhile in Wyoming, a bill restricting primary “crossover voting” on which we recently reported has passed the legislature, and will become law without Governor Mark Gordon’s signature. HB 103 requires voters changing party affiliation to do so at the candidate filing deadline – realistically BEFORE the public actually knows who is officially running.
We have articles & groups taking action at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org. I’m Brian Beihl.