Democrats may have lost the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, but that doesn’t mean Americans across the country won’t see a wave of progressive legislative victories take effect over the next few years.
But thanks to a wave of victories for progressive activists in states around the country, millions of Americans will still be affected by changes that affect their daily lives which otherwise would go by the wayside, sacrificed to the upcoming two years of likely total inaction in Washington.
In conversations with some of those victorious campaigners in recent days, it was clear that many believe that the legislation which Democratic candidates claim to support is often more popular than those candidates themselves.
Michigan voters also decided on the fate of a constitutional amendment to expand voting rights in the state, and delivered another clear victory for the left on that issue. A proposal to establish early voting, enshrine existing ID requirements (which do not prevent residents from voting without an ID), and authorising ballot drop boxes won easily, 60 per cent to 40 per cent.
Activists involved with that campaign declared that the results were evidence that their stance on voting rights — namely that access to the vote should be expanded through multiple avenues — was the broadly popular position among the electorate.
“Voters, regardless of who they support as a candidate, we all want every voter to have access to the ballot,” said Nancy Wang, executive director of Voters Not Politicians, a nonpartisan voting rights group based in the state. “We want convenient access to voting. We want to prevent partisans from interfering with our elections, for example, by hijacking canvassing boards…So there’s a lot of commonalities still, even though in politics we see a lot of polarization.”
And she hopes her campaign’s success can be a model for others.
“We’re hoping that one of the things that we can serve as … an example for how people can come together and take back our political power,” said Ms Wang. “I think there’s lots of opportunity for people to take their power back and to kind of make our elections fair for all voters, even as our politics and politicians are being driven farther apart.”
This story was originally published by The Independent. Read more here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/midterm-elections-2022/grassroots-ballot-measures-democrats-midterms-b2228401.html