Law professors speak on how voting process changes could increase turnout in 2020
"Law professors said they expect the 2020 elections to have a higher voter turnout due to a rise in new voting technologies and reforms that make the voting process more inclusive and enable more people to register to vote and cast ballots.
Photo by Tanmay Shankar/Daily Bruin The event, which was hosted at the Hammer Museum on Thursday evening, discussed the logistics of voting and incidences of voter suppression and negligence of polling booths and technologies in the 2018 election.
The panel was moderated by Rick Hasen, a UC Irvine political science and law professor. Hasen divided the panel into three main topics: election administration, redistricting and gerrymandering, and money in politics.
Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, said he would give the U.S. election system a grade of a B-.
“If you believe as I do that we should be building a system that accommodates every right and opportunity and expectation that every eligible American would participate, we have a very long way to go,” Levitt said.
Levitt added that barely 50 percent of eligible American voters participated in the 2018 midterm elections and barely 60 percent voted in the 2016 presidential election.
Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, a political advocacy organization, said it is much harder to vote in the United States, as she thinks voting has become highly weaponized and politicized.
“In California, in 2020 there is going to be a change in the very way in how we run elections, certainly in Los Angeles,” Feng said."— Noor Ghatala, Feb. 3, 2019
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Daily Bruin website.
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