via NBC:
Legislators in 38 states have introduced nearly 200 bills this year that would allow state governments to “subvert” elections, according to a report by three nonpartisan groups tracking such bills.
The analysis by the States United Democracy Center, Protect Democracy and Law Forward found that legislators — predominantly Republicans — put forward 185 bills in their state legislative sessions from Jan. 1 through May 3 that would increase the risk of subversion by politicizing, criminalizing or interfering with elections.
That number is on pace with those from sessions in the past two years, which the groups also tracked. Fifteen of the bills introduced this year have so far been enacted.
NBC News obtained the report ahead of its public release Thursday morning.
Its findings suggest that the election denial movement is alive and well in statehouses across the U.S. — even though an overwhelming number of election deniers (candidates who have echoed former President Donald Trump’s continuing false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him) lost their races in pivotal battleground Senate and secretary of state elections in last year’s midterms — and that attempts to make it easier to overturn elections will persist if such legislation is left unchecked.
The analysis defined election subversion as the result of any bill that proposed one of five actions: usurping control over election results, requiring partisan or unprofessional election audits or reviews of results, seizing power over election responsibilities, creating unworkable burdens in election administration or imposing disproportionate criminal or other penalties.
“Legislators are trying to make it harder for trusted election officials to do their jobs, and easier for partisan politicians to overturn the will of the voters. While many may think this threat abated after the midterms, it most certainly did not,” Maya Ingram, a senior policy development counsel at the States United Democracy Center, said in a statement to NBC News. “In fact, legislators are coming up with new ways to interfere with elections.”