On Martin Luther King Day 2019, we cats are sad to report that the Voting Rights Act is gutted (thanks to our conservative Supreme Court), and Republicans are still working hard to disenfranchise people of color across America.
Here in New York, though, things are looking up.
You might be surprised to learn that the Empire State has some of the crappiest election laws in the country. We have no early voting, no same-day registration, and a passel of other rules and regs that are rightly described as "horrific." When we moved here, we were surprised to find out how restrictive it all was — and that state and federal primaries were held on different days. Crazy.
But just last week, the state legislature passed bills to fix all of that. Hello, primary election consolidation! Welcome, no-excuse absentee voting! Hurray for pre-Election-Day ballot casting! We cats are thrilled.
And why was all this suddenly possible? Simple. In November, New York voters turned the State Senate majority-Democratic for the first time in 10 very long years. Which meant that the election reform bills that the lower house had been passing over and over again were finally, finally able to be blessed by the Senate. Our newly Democratic Senate.
See why it's so important to elect candidates with "Ds" after their names? It means more people get to vote. It means that our democracy can survive. And that America can get closer to actually being what it claims to be. We cats PURR.
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