Welcome indeed to the second half of our series breaking down issues impacting Americans' ability to vote. Last week, we talked at length about partisan gerrymandering and how that practice allows political parties to ostensibly control the outcomes of elections through shifty redistricting practices like packing, cracking, hijacking, kidnapping, and other tactics that sound like they belong in a Nice Cage movie. 

 

This episode… well, we're talking about legislation. Legislation that some folks believe protects American Democracy, and others believe threatens it. Our goal here is to break down some of the state and federal bills from both sides of the aisle that are making news, so that you have a better understanding of what they say and what the key arguments are from each side. 

 

And then we’ll probably tell you how we feel about them based on our research and experience. But remember, you don’t have to come to the same conclusions we do - all we ask is that you base your conclusions in fact rather than feeling. And that you engage with others with respect and care for their conclusions and experiences. Eh, that’s enough touchy feely for now. 

 

So, this one’s going to feel a little less like an action flick. Maybe more like Kramer vs Kramer with all the back and forth arguing over voter rights legislation. And we're sorry for that. But the bills we're going to talk about in this episode are way too important to reduce to the most sensational headlines. As with most things having to do with laws, bureaucracy, and our government - the devil is in the details here. And you deserve to know exactly what your representatives are voting - or refusing to vote - on. 

 

Some quick definitions before we dive in - throughout the episode you’re going to hear us use the terms restrictive and expansive to describe these pieces of legislation. Unlike many of the definitions we bring you in our episodes, these words mean exactly what it sounds like they mean in this context.  When we say something is restrictive, we mean that it limits access or ability to vote. When we say it’s expansive, we mean that it increases access or ability to vote. And, a single piece of legislation can have both restrictive and expansive qualities. 

 

Alright. Let’s get to it.

Current Legislation

State Voting Bills

This has been a bumper year for state-level voting related legislation.  Nearly 1200 pieces of voting adjacent legislation have been introduced in all 50 states, some of them with provisions restricting access to the ballot box, others with provisions aiming to expand it (Voting Laws Round Up), and some of them... Well, they just talk about election stuff. Like Oklahoma's emergency SB347 that outlines several very specific dates on which localities are not allowed to hold elections for state or municipal office, so that important administrative work can be done.  

 

Which brings us to an important PSA - not every election or voting related piece of legislation out there represents a tug-o-war for the rights of voters.  Some of them are primarily administrative, or reflect new funding methods, or whatever. It’s really easy to get caught up in the sensationalism of the numbers: Almost 1200 voting related bills, 389 pieces of legislation attempting to restrict voter rights, 880 bills championing the rights of voters… These are headline facts. If a piece of legislation contains one provision that restricts some element of voter access, it goes into the restrictive bucket. Likewise, if one provision of another bill increases access in any way, it goes into the expansive bucket. And remember, a single piece of legislation could technically go into both buckets. 

 

Since we can’t cover all the provisions of each of these 1200 efforts, we’re going to talk mostly about the trends that exist across these bills and what those trends mean for state voters and for precedence. But if you’re interested in what’s happening in your state, go out and find the legislation that’s moving (or has moved) through your state legislature. Don’t rely on sensational headlines, or even solely on our summaries, to determine whether or not voters are getting a fair shake where you are. 

 

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. 

 

Ok, it’s time to talk trends. Let’s start with bills that restrict access in some way or another.

 

As of May 14, 2021, 389 bills with restrictive voting provisions had been introduced in 48 states during the 2021 legislative season. But the distribution of these bills is not quite even - certain states are leading the charge. Largely Republican states, to be exact. 49 of those bills were introduced in TX, 25 in GA, and 23 in AZ (Boschma). 

 

Now, before you ding us for being unnecessarily partisan here, you can compare the states that are actively moving these laws through the legislative process to the list of states that are currently under Republican legislative control (meaning that Republicans have a majority in both chambers of the state legislature) or full state control (meaning they control the legislature and the governor’s office) (NCSL)

• Texas - Republican state control, 9 bills moving through the process
• Wisconsin - Republican legislative control, 7 bills moving
• Michigan - Republican legislative control, 9 bills moving

 

So far, 28 of these more restrictive bills have been enacted in 17 states. And the states leading the way here are also under Republican legislative control. 

 

• FL, GA, IA enacted sweeping legislation via omnibus bills. All three are Republican controlled states.
• Arkansas and Montana have each enacted 4 pieces of legislation. Republican control there, too. 

 

This is where the tie between last week’s conversation on gerrymandering and this week’s breakdown of legislation becomes glaringly obvious. Remember that we talked about how, after the 2010 census, partisan gerrymandering was so significant that even though Democratic candidates won 1.5 million more votes in Congressional elections, Republican candidates won 33 more seats in Congress? Well, those same principles apply to elections for state legislative seats. Gerrymandering directly affected (and continues to affect) the outcome of state elections, currently putting the power in the hands of Republican candidates. Currently, Republicans hold legislative control in 30 states, and full state control in 23 (NCSL). And, that makes it very, very easy to pass legislation that has the potential to lend strength to the party in control. 

 

But what do these bills even look like?  Many of these bills share common emphasis in 4 key areas: voting by mail, voter ID, voter registration, and voter roll purges. 

 

Vote by mail restrictions

It’s no secret that expansions of absentee and vote by mail programs contributed heavily to the ability of many Americans to vote in the 2020 fall election. But bills currently moving through state legislatures, and some that have already been enacted are looking to limit access to these programs. 

• 16 separate restrictions across 12 states have already been enacted, and 32 more bills in 15 states are moving through the legislative process. These bill contain restrictions ncluding:
• Laws that shorten the timeframe in which people can request mail in ballots. Georgia cut their window by more than half as part of their legislation.
• Laws that make it harder for states to send a mail in ballot automatically, by regulating how long people can stay on vote by mail registers, or by requiring that voters specifically confirm that they would like to receive a mail in ballot
• Laws that make it more difficult for absentee voters to return their ballots in-person, including shorter windows for return, limits on ballot box availability, and restrictions on assistance returning the ballot. 
• Laws require stricter signature regulations, and
• Laws establish or expand on identification rules for mail in voting. 

 

Now, on their face, these restrictions don’t sound particularly oppressive. After all, we want mail in voting programs to be as secure as possible, right? At least as secure as in-person voting? At different points in time, both parties have argued for more security and regulation around mail in ballots in Georgia, which was a hotbed of controversy in November because of its no-excuses absentee policy.  And the main contention on the table is the potential for fraud or undue voter influence. Requiring identification and limiting time windows, proponents say, would cut down on the likelihood of people casting votes in others’ names or voting more than once. (Fowler)

 

But when we’re considering these regulations, and what they’re designed to do, we also have to look at whether or not these restrictions are necessary to correct or prevent a real problem. Are they making it more difficult for legitimate voters to cast their ballots without demonstrated evidence of fraud?  We won’t cover all the evidence for and against fraud in vote by mail programs tonight - if you want to know what the research said before the 2020 election, we have a whole episode on that just for you - but here’s what evidence from last year’s election, the one with record vote by mail numbers, tells us:

There’s still no evidence of significant vote by mail fraud.  Even in the hottest of hot button states, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan.  All three of those states have recently completed reviews of contested mail in ballots and election results and found pretty much nothing. Bupkiss. Nada. Well, that’s not exactly true - Wisconsin has referred 30 people for prosecution for suspected voter fraud. Out of 3 million. That’s 0.001%. One thousandth of one percent. 

 

Voter ID requirements

So far, 3 states have enacted laws that impose new or stricter ID requirements for voting in person. And, at least 15 bills related to voter ID for both in-person and mail in voting are in progress. 

 

Arguments for voter ID laws are pretty straightforward: People should have to prove they are who they say they are in order to vote in an election.  Forms of identification accepted at the polls have varied from state to state, ranging from explicit ID like a driver’s license or Passport to voter registration cards and utility bills. But many states, like Missouri, are working to implement stricter photo ID policies.  They maintain that these policies are necessary to prevent fraud at the polls, like people voting in place of their dead friends or relatives. And, they (at least here in Missouri) assert that there are assistance programs to help voters ensure that they have the appropriate ID to vote (Fessler). 

 

But those who oppose these laws say they suppress voting, especially among racial and language minority groups, and low income people.  The logic goes something like this:  minority and low income voters are less likely to have access to the resources they need - time, money, transportation, access to bureaucratic systems, ability to communicate -  to comply with stricter voter ID policies. They may lack the resources to obtain the identification, or the resources required to remedy the situation if they misplace their ID or forget to bring their ID when they visit the polls. And, because voting has little perceived benefit for many minority and low income people, they are less likely to expend extra effort to do so.  

 

Both of these are compelling arguments, but who has research on their side?  That’s actually a tricky question to answer.  

 

First, we have to go back to the question of voter fraud. And not just any fraud, but specifically those types that could be resolved through the use of stricter voter ID regulations. Do we have evidence that voter impersonation is a real problem in state or federal elections? No. We just don’t. We don’t have evidence that it’s an issue at all. Research indicates that the occurrence of voter impersonation, double voting, and other types of ID-related fraud sits somewhere between 0.0003 and 0.0025% (Debunking). Again, we’re in the thousandths of one percent. One investigation by the Washington Post found just 16 cases in which individuals were charged with voter fraud in the 2020 November election. 16. In the whole election. There just isn’t compelling evidence that these restrictions are needed. 

 

But will they make it harder for minorities to vote?

 

The idea that strict ID laws suppress votes has become a pretty widely accepted principle in many political spheres, but little research has actually been done that can effectively test the hypothesis.  In 2017, a group of political scientists set out to solve the mystery using data obtained through the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (or CCES). That bank of data includes a lot of demographic information not just for registered voters, but for people who actually cast a ballot. And, it looked like their conclusions showed real evidence that strict voter ID laws suppress minority votes. But in 2019, another group of researchers set out to validate the conclusion using more data, and was unable to replicate the result. (Pryor)

 

Bottom line: We don’t know if these tighter regulations will disenfranchise minority or low income voters. But we do know that there’s not much in the way of compelling evidence to support the idea that they’re necessary. 

 

Restrictions to voter registration

Several bills are in motion that make it more difficult for people to register to vote, requiring stricter ID, disallowing voter registration on election day, and prohibiting automatic voter registration. 

 

Opposition to same day voter registration claims that these programs make it easier to commit fraud because election officials have no time to verify the accuracy of voter registration information, and that they make election administration harder because officials can’t anticipate the number of voters, ballots, or precinct workers that will be needed. Those all seem like logical concerns. 

 

But the thing is: before this year, 20 states had active same day registration programs. And, there have been no significant reports of fraud in those states even with same day registration. In all of those states, voters are required to show identification of some sort and proof of residency to register. And, in some of them, the ballots are considered provisional until registration information can be verified.  All of those states use state-wide voter systems to verify that the voter has not already cast a ballot - in real time. Some states require the person be present to register and vote, others limit the locations where one can register… the point is, that it has been done effectively and without fraud.  

 

As for the cost and chaos caused by unpredictable voter turnout:  States have figured out how to solve for that as well, and it has not proved so cumbersome as to overwhelm election administration so far. (Same Day)

 

Those who support same day registration programs say that they have a discernible impact on voter turnout. And, there is some evidence that same day registration increases voter turnout (somewhere around 5% is a common estimate), but there isn’t evidence that these policies shape any partisan outcomes or benefit any specific populations. 

 

Those who maintain that these regulations are necessary 

 

Voter Roll purges

And the final thread among these restrictive pieces of legislation is the expansion of acceptable timeframes and and methods in which election administrators can purge the voter registration database.  The idea here is that people who lose eligibility to vote in a certain state (or county) should be removed from the list of people who can walk in and cast a vote, or mail in a ballot. These people may have moved, may have committed a crime that disqualifies them from voting, or they may even have died.  Proponents of these restrictions claim that too many ineligible voters stay on the roll for too long, leaving the door open for… you guessed it, didn’t you? Fraud. Those who oppose these more intense purges say that they run the risk of removing eligible voters from the rolls and disenfranchising those for whom re-registration could be a burden.

 

We’ve already talked extensively about the lack of evidence that people who shouldn’t be voting are voting in any quantity that would influence even a state election. So we won’t re-cover that ground. But we do have evidence that aggressive voter roll purges can affect people who are still legitimate voters.  In Wisconsin, use of new information databases wrongly flagged 4,700 voters as having moved and nullified their registration. Those voters were still allowed to cast provisional ballots, but the case is currently with the Wisconsin Supreme Court to determine if use of data like this to purge the rolls is acceptable.

 

Like so many of these other provisions, we have to ask whether or not these restrictions are solving for a real and actual problem, or if they’re limiting access on an unfounded basis.

 

Expansive legislation

 

Ok, now expansive legislation.  And man, if you thought there were a lot of restrictive laws… there are 880 bills with expansive provisions at play in 49 states.  And we’re going to list every one of them. This is going to take some time, folks, so buckle up.  Just kidding.

 

The provisions in these bills mirror those in the restrictive legislation. They focus on expanding mail in voting, expanding access to early voting and same day registration, increasing polling locations and hours. And we just covered all of the talking points for those.  The one place they differ significantly is in the restoration of voting rights for formerly incarcerated individuals who have completed their punitive sentences.

HR1/For The People Act

H.R. 1 is a PACKED piece of legislation. It contains 10 main sections, or titles, all with subsections (subtitles) outlining specific guidance. It covers so many of the issues we touched on in the state legislation we discussed, laying down federal law that would go toe-to-toe with these new state rules. 

 

However, right now it’s dead in the water. Everyone’s favorite monarch Senator, Joe Manchin, wrote a pretty blunt Op-Ed that effectively sunk any prospect of it passing at this time. It’s not that this piece of legislation should be given up, but it’s probably a better use of your time to talk about the legislation that’s currently in play, because you’re going to be hearing a lot more about it for the time being. We’ll come back to address HR 1 in another episode, because… well, there’s a lot to it, and it’s not dead dead, but the current road block means its not going anywhere at this moment. Basically the Republicans in the Senate voted against even opening it for argument in the Senate. They currently do not seem interested in even talking about voting rights legislation, let alone voting on it. It could easily be its own show by itself, and it frames a lot of very interesting things going on in the US with respect to voting.

But for now, we’re going to talk about the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

John Lewis Voting Rights Act

Where it stands right now:

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is currently the last, best hope for some sort of voter reform coming from the Democratic side of the aisle. This is in large part thanks to Joe Manchin. With H.R. 1 effectively scuttled, and no other legislation forthcoming, this act aims to be a step towards bringing our elections a little closer to fairness. How? Well by taking a page from Hollywood’s playbook.
That is, by recycling an old story and telling it again. Well, recycling an old law, in this case.

Key Provision:

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (its full name), is actually a restoration of the full protections of the original, bipartisan Voting Rights Act of 1965. Politically attentive listeners may know that this Act was actually reauthorized by Congress in 2006, but the Supreme Court gutted it in 2013. (John Lewis Voting Rights and Advancement Act, 2020)

 

To understand this act, therefore, we have to hop into the way back machine, and take a look at the case of Shelby County v. Holder (2013), and what problem, exactly, Shelby County, Alabama had with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 

Well, aside from the obvious.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was enacted as a response to the nearly century-long history of voter discrimination faced by certain groups in the US. Take a guess. Take a guess which groups. Hint: it ain’t white folks. 

 

Now, very specifically, Section 5 of the 1965 Act prohibits eligible districts from enacting changes to their election laws and procedures without first gaining official authorization. Eligibility was determined by those districts that had voting tests in place as of November 1, 1964, and less than 50% turnout for the 1964 presidential election.

Why these two provisions? After all, does it not make sense to ensure that the voting population is literate? Or a comprehension test? Would it not be wise to ensure that the voting population was able to comprehend the legislation and issues they were voting on? It is not just protecting democracy to make sure people aren’t showing up to polls and checking off boxes willy-nilly? Does it not also protect the voter from inadvertently casting a vote against their own self interest? Aren’t the tests a reasonable way to ensure future generations have a country to grow up in by securing our democracy against the illiterati? Won’t somebody think of the children?!

 

Well, yeah, no. Some of you may have guessed this already, but poll tests are just super duper discriminatory against the uneducated. The uneducated usually were also poor; lacking education because they could not spare the time to go to school. Their labor was needed to run a farm or work in a mine or otherwise support the family. And wouldn’t you know that there was just, accidentally probably, a massive overlap in the illiterate population and the Black population? Even in the 1960s? You know, during segregation?

 

Some of you are probably just shocked to learn this information. But yeah, poll tests of all stripes have usually been deployed in order to keep two population groups from voting: Blacks, in general, and poor Whites. And these tests were not exactly administered fairly. One test had 68 questions on it of varying difficulty. The official in charge of voter registration would ask a question “at random” of a prospective voter, and only by answering correctly could you vote. Answer wrong and, sorry, but the official feels you are just not literate enough to comprehend the weighty matters at stake in this election. Please study up, work hard, and who knows? By the next election you may be smart enough to vote. (Public Broadcasting Service, n.d.)

Oh, and lest you think that one correct answer would be enough, the official could ask as many of the questions as they felt necessary. Even if you answered all 68 questions in this particular test, the official may “arbitrarily” decide you still aren’t eligible to vote. It doesn’t help that these tests were designed to cause someone to fail. Here are some sample questions:

“Does enumeration affect the income tax levied on citizens in various states?” (Yes)

 

“Appropriation of money for the armed services can be only for a period limited to _____ years.” (Two)

 

“If no candidate for President receives a majority of the electoral vote, who decides who will become President?” (POP QUIZ FOR OUR LISTENERS) (House of Representatives)

 

“The only laws which can be passed to apply to an area in a federal arsenal are those passed by ___________________________________________ provided consent for the purchase of the land is given by the _________________________________________.” (Congress; state legislatures)

 

So yeah. I’d fail. A lot of these questions are about obscure parts of the Constitution that the average American citizen neither knows, nor has much need to know, because it doesn’t generally matter to them. Reading through the questionnaire, it’s… Shoot, I’d be willing to bet not a single person in Congress could pass it without some help, honestly.

 

But the thing is, some of the questions are just so easy.

“True or False: The Supreme Court is the chief lawmaking body of the state.” (False)

 

“Chose one: Communism is the type of government in: ___US ___Russia ___England” (Russia)
(Public Broadcasting Service, n.d.)

The short of it being, these tests were obviously inequitable questions that served one purpose: eliminate  “undesirable” voters. 

 

So if your county or state had a test like these, it was most likely being racist AF and was unconstitutionally infringing on the voting rights of American Citizens. But since you can’t just say that any particular law is necessarily impacting turnout, they tied it together with the 50% threshold. Because, well, these things worked. As a result of racial discrimination in state voting laws, only 3 percent of voting-age black men and women in the South were registered to vote in 1940. In Mississippi, less than 1 percent were registered. (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2021)

 

Now, the Shelby County v Holder decision basically put an end to all that. Section 5 prohibited eligible districts from changing their elections laws without review, and section 4(b) defined eligible districts. On a party line vote, the Supreme Court decided that the renewal of section 5 violated Congress' authority under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which protect every person’s right to due process of law and protect citizens from having their right to vote denied due to “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Due to exceeding this authority, the 1965 Voting Rights Act violated the Tenth Amendment, which basically says that any power not given to the federal government by the Constitution belongs to the states, as well as Article 4 of the Constitution, which guarantees states’ rights of self governance. (Shelby County v. Holder, n.d.)

Which is a long, convoluted way of saying, the SCOTUS decided that Congress shouldn’t have done what they did because they can’t do what they did, so therefore States no longer have to do what Congress says in this part of the law. And basically immediately after this decision, a bunch of states passed voting legislation, like new restrictions around voter ID, early voting, or same-day registration.

 

North Carolina passed strict photo ID requirements, eliminated same-day voter registration, shortened the early voting period by seven days, and made it so that ballots cast at the wrong polling location got thrown out. Florida began purging voter rolls immediately, only to have the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rule that their previous purge in 2012 violated the National Voter Registration Act while they simultaneously stopped the new purge until they got more accurate registration data, because the data they were using was deemed inaccurate. In fairness, they also expanded early voting. Texas immediately enacted two laws that had already been deemed to violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act Section 5 provision. One was a voter ID law that required photo IDs to match the state’s voter rolls, which basically meant anyone who had changed their name or moved (like… women who got married, for example) couldn’t vote. And on and on and on. And that’s only as of late 2014. (Brandeisky et al., 2014)

 

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, as it was originally written, was intended to address these discriminatory practices. Specifically, it was meant to review changes that have historically been used to discriminate against voters, such as the institution of voter ID laws or reducing the availability of multilingual voting materials. (John Lewis Voting Rights and Advancement Act, 2020)

 

It has been revised a little since first introduced. As it currently stands, it creates a pathway for citizens or the federal government to challenge new voter laws in the courts, especially if the parties can show the new law hurts minority voting rights. It also requires that all changes made to voting laws are publicly announced, affording more opportunity for voters to respond to the new requirements. It would provide new rules for polling places on reservations, requiring states to pay for polling places at no cost to tribes. And, importantly, require states to seek approval from the Justice Department’s civil rights division for changes to state or local election procedures. A proposed revision to the act would mean that all 50 states would have to let the Justice Department review proposed changes before they were enacted. (Stevenson, 2021)

 

Any changes to the number of at-large elected positions within a state or smaller political subdivision, all redistricting, all changes to voter ID requirements, all alterations to multilingual voting materials, all changes to precinct locations or to early voting access, and all changes to how voter rolls are purged would be required to pass review by the Justice Department. (Stevenson, 2021)

What one side says/Arguments for

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act wouldn’t retroactively nullify the laws that were passed after the 2013 Supreme Court decision. However, it would stop all laws in the future from moving forward without Justice Department approval. Without question, it would slow down, perhaps even stop, voter-suppression activity. (Kilgore, 2021)

 

Those against HR 1 due to it being a sweeping bill that changes a lot of aspects of the American voting system tend to support this bill a little more, due to the fact that it is relatively narrowly tailored to a small portion of voting legislation. It wouldn’t establish any automatic voter registry or change the standards for mail in voting across the nation. Its burden, as it were, would only be felt by those who are changing how voting is done in their state, and it would likely only chafe those who are trying to do something that would harm certain American’s right to vote. (Kilgore, 2021)

Arguments against

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the arguments against this bill basically boil down to government overreach. It would give the federal government considerable power over state and local election laws. Republicans are staunchly against this, protesting that it would essentially have the government control the entire election system. And when you’ve been trumpeting about a “deep state” for the last four years, you can’t very well allow your constituents to see you letting “them” control the elections. (Stevenson, 2021)

 

One interesting argument against this law only comes up if the 50 state requirement for voting law review is added to the bill. This seems to be the neatest way to fix the law to remain in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling, but it does have one pretty significant downside: it would be a huge burden on the Justice Department. In fact, without a significant funding increase for the Justice Department, it may well freeze all voting legislation changes in the United States for the foreseeable future. In fact, previously opponents of the Voting Rights Act supported a 50 state solution precisely because it would bugger up the whole system and paralyze changes to voting laws. (Kilgore, 2021)

Conclusion

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is a much narrower piece of legislation, far less sweeping than HR 1, and should not be viewed as a replacement for the provisions of HR 1. However, it does lay the groundwork for a check to the powers of less than honorable actors who would try to disenfranchise Americans through inequitable laws. No single law prevents voters from going to the polls; such a law would be unconstitutional. However, as things currently stand, it is perfectly Constitutional to put obstacle after obstacle in the way of voters to discourage them from going to the polls. Our entire government is formed on a foundation of checks and balances. I see no reason why one more should be considered the straw that broke the camel’s back.

New development:  The DOJ is now suing the state of Georgia because of their new restrictive voting laws. 

Shameless Plug

Next episode will be 1 year! Keep an eye out for some cool things!

Good News

I wanna talk about a budding Olympic superstar in this week’s good news. Sha’Carri Richardson became the youngest qualifying track and field athlete so far for the United States this last weekend, when she won the 100 meter dash with a blistering time of 10.86 seconds. That’s the sixth-fastest legal time ever recorded professionally.

Note that I did not say “for a woman.”

 

If you haven’t checked her out, you should. She’s got an incredible energy, and is so unabashedly… herself. She’s undeniably vibrant, running this last weekend with long acrylic nails and firebolt orange hair. In her interviews it’s apparent how much her family means to her.

 

She’s already an icon, and the final reason she’s in this week’s good news section, as if she needed more reasons to be here, is that she’s an openly LGBTQ+ athlete. In interviews before the race, she proudly stated that her girlfriend picked out the color, because “it spoke to her, the fact that it was just so loud and vibrant, and that’s who I am.”

Pretty dang cool. Happy to see an out athlete out there dominating.

Bibliography

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