How Hillary Clinton’s Allies Are Expanding the Vote Behind the Scenes

Every week, Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia sits in his office in Richmond for a few hours with a stack of papers and reads the names of convicted felons. The governor, a close friend of Hillary and Bill Clinton, checks that they have all served their time and that none is on parole. Then his staff rush out and send thousands of letters with the governor’s seal and the news: Your right to vote has been restored. Governor’s orders. As of late September, McAuliffe’s had re-enfranchised some 59,000 ex-felons, his office said. Many of them lean Democratic and could help tip the scales for Clinton in the key swing state of Virginia in November.

For this, the governor has earned the scorn of Republicans, the scrutiny of the state supreme court, and the praise of civil rights groups who say his executive orders are only fair to ex-felons who have served their time.

McAuliffe’s executive orders are just one part of a new wave of voting rules that could help Clinton get elected in November. Much scrutiny has fallen on Republicans in the past five years for pushing restrictive new voting laws in state legislatures, but Democrats’ efforts to expand the vote to young voters and African Americans may have a more decisive effect on the 2016 election.

At the vanguard of this effort is a team of top Democratic attorneys and strategists working on an unprecedented countrywide effort to expand its voter base to improve Clinton’s odds in November against Trump. They are relying on a variety of legal tools to increase voting hours and ensure there are enough polling sites at convenient locations, focusing on swing states including North Carolina, Florida and Ohio.

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Nationally, Republicans have been largely absent during these efforts, even while at the local level some have protested Democrats’ efforts as politically motivated. A spokesperson at the Republican National Committee declined to comment. In North Carolina, a key swing state, teams of lawyers are going county-by-county to add early voting days, pressuring supervisors of elections to include additional days and polling sites. In predominantly Democratic Wake County, home to the state capital of Raleigh, early voting hours have been expanded by 50%. In the blue counties that are home to Charlotte and Fayetteville, the Clinton campaign has bargained for similarly increased hours.

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The mastermind of the Democratic efforts is a bullish Washington attorney, Marc Elias, who has aggressively challenged voter ID laws and curtailed voting in the states. Teams of lawyers jointly under the direction of the Clinton campaign, Elias and the party are responsible for knowing the ins-and-outs of each state’s election laws. He counts among his clients the Democratic National Committee and various arms of the, several Democratic super PACs including the Clinton-supporting Priorities USA, as well as the Clinton campaign itself. George Soros, the billionaire investor, has given $5 million to a trust that funds Elias’ litigation.

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http://time.com/4513236/hillary-clinton-voting-rights/