Rick HasenVerified account

Some states, with Republican legislatures and governors, have passed laws making it harder to register and to vote. /5

These Republican-passed laws are sometimes justified on anti-fraud grounds, or administrative efficiency, or public confidence. /6

But when it gets down to it, they are usually motivated by a desire to depress Democratic/minority turnout and gain political advantage. /7

As to the one-way ratchet argument "why can Democrats expand voting rights but Republicans cannot contract them?", /8

the answer depends on view of the franchise. If voting is about allocating power among political equals, then courts should not allow /9

states to make it harder for eligible voters to register and vote unless there's a real, not pretextual, reason for doing so. /10

But not all buy that we are truly political equals. And say if voters are "lazy" or don't care, voting should be tough to weed out "/11

"low information voters." Early voting is bad, on this theory, because people can't be trusted to know if they have enough info to vote /12