Stated Podcast: Attorney Marc Elias
Season 1, Episode 4 of Stated, a podcast by the DLCC
Jessica speaks with attorney Marc Elias about what’s at stake in this year’s elections and protecting access to voting rights. Marc Elias is an attorney who specializes in political and election law. Marc is a partner at Perkins Coie, and the chair of their Political Law Group. He served as general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004. He has also been called the “Democratic Super Lawyer” by the Washington Post. This interview was first published on October 22, 2018 and has been edited for length and clarity.
Marc is a legal expert in voting rights, redistricting, and election and campaign laws. With so many new attacks on voting access and gerrymandering playing a huge role in whether Democrats will flip state legislatures and Congress, Marc offers a historical insight into Republican attacks on voting rights.
Marc: It didn’t mean that there weren’t disagreements between Democrats and Republicans– because there were– but by and large there was a consensus that voting ought to be easier for people and methods of voting ought to evolve with contemporary preferences in terms of convenience.
That changed in 2009. When President Obama won in 2008, we saw a coalition of voters that included voters of color, first-time voters, young voters, students, and the Republican reaction to that was to say okay we need to end this bipartisan consensus and we need to make it harder for certain parts of the electorate to vote. We have seen that we have seen that play out first slowly, and then faster and faster and faster, and you’re seeing it now in a more conservative fashion than ever before.
We’ve all seen the stories of states that enact ID laws that don’t allow for student IDs but allow for hunting licenses. So we have seen these kinds of changes and they are targeting the Obama coalition as a whole, but they are focused I think particularly on first-time voters, young voters, and voters of color.
So we know voting your whole ticket, including state and local offices, is critical towards ensuring fair voting rights in your state. But what can people do to help the fight for voting rights nationwide?
Fundamentally supporting organizations like the DLCC and supporting the candidates and the caucuses that you work with is the single most important thing. That’s because if we have more these state legislative chambers, we will have better lines, we will have fairer districts — and that’s ultimately the best solution.
And finally, Marc offers his legal expertise your rights as a voter on Election Day and what you should do if you are denied access to a ballot.
Basically my advice to folks is that if you go to the polling place and you are not on the rolls, by federal law they have to provide your provisional ballot. That’s good, but, and here’s the bad. Oftentimes you will cast a provisional ballot and that ballot won’t count. Here’s my advice to you for those of you who are listening and face yourself in this situation: The first thing is if you show up and you’re not on the rolls, take a pause and figure out yourself, am I not on the rolls because I’m at the wrong polling place. Because if you’re in the wrong polling place, don’t vote a provisional ballot in the place you are that is wrong– go to the right polling places because in many, many states, in fact the majority of states, if you cast a ballot in the wrong polling place, even though you’re a lawful voter, it is not going to count. It’s an invalid ballot.
The second thing is, if you are on the rolls, but someone challenges you or there is a long line, don’t let them give you a provisional ballot. You are on the rolls you are entitled to vote a regular ballot.
One of the tactics we have seen in places is Republican challengers who will engage in indiscriminate challenging simply to create a backlog and then they will offer the solution of well why don’t we have all these voters just vote provisionally rather than be having to challenge them. The problem is when you once you vote provisionally, your ballot then becomes segregated and subject to a cure process which is going to probably mean another trip for you after the election. If you’re on the rolls, you’re entitled to vote a regular ballot, and don’t let them tell you otherwise.
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