[EL] Effect of the proposed (and enacted) state voting bills: pre-COVID vs. COVID-related regulations

[Mark Scarberry]

I wonder whether anyone has categorized these bills in terms of whether
they:

1. Make it more difficult to vote than was the case pre-COVID;
2. Restore the law and voting regulations to their pre-COVID status;
3. Leave in place some but not all COVID-related changes that made it
easier to vote; or
4. Make it more difficult to vote in some ways but easier to vote in other
ways than was the case pre-COVID.

Perhaps there are other relevant categories or more specific categories
that could be useful to consider.

This is not to say that pre-COVID rules were optimal. It is relevant to
whether emergency-related changes ought, in some sense, to create a kind of
ratchet (similar, I suppose, to the non-retrogression standard for
preclearance before Shelby County). To the extent that the experience with
the COVID-related measures shows that they are workable and not subject to
abuse (or vice-versa), they could be seen as a kind of short-term
experiment. Of course, we don't know how they might work over a longer
term, as parties have a chance to adjust to them.

Mark

[image: Pepperdine wordmark]*Caruso School of Law*

*Mark S. Scarberry*

*Professor of Lawmark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu
<mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu>*
Personal: mark.scarberry at gmail.com
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