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Electoral Count Reform Act Advocacy — a Timeline
MWEG began working on advocating for an update to the Electoral Count Act in the summer of 2021 and continued working on this until the Electoral Count Reform Act was passed as part of the omnibus spending bill in December 2022. Following our pattern of member engagement, we worked to inform through library pieces and other content, invite to act through direct calls to action to write letters or make phone calls, and involve through constituent meetings with legislators as well as op-eds and letters to the editor. 2021 July Began laying the groundwork by researching the issue and reaching out to key legislators and coalition organizations October Began initial…
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Press Conference Statement on Utah Fair Districting
Today, Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG), League of Women Voters of Utah (LWVUT), and individual voters filed a lawsuit to block Utah from implementing a congressional redistricting map that constitutes an extreme partisan gerrymander and to reinstate the citizen-led initiative that established an independent redistricting commission and binding anti-gerrymandering requirements. The following statement was read by MWEG Utah chapter communications specialist, Laura Lewis, at a joint press conference: MWEG is an organization dedicated to peacemaking. Peacemaking can sometimes be counterintuitive, because peace isn’t just an absence of conflict — it can be messy, requiring hard and complicated work to create resilient and cooperative societies where citizens solve problems without resorting to coercion.…
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Updating the Electoral Count Act of 1887
For a downloadable two-page info sheet on the Electoral Count Act, click here or scroll to the bottom of this post. The Electoral Count Act (ECA) of 1887 sets out the process of casting and counting electoral votes after a presidential election. It is intended to encourage states to resolve controversial electoral outcomes prior to sending results to Congress in order to avoid the conflicts of interest and pursuit of partisan power that would likely occur if Congress were charged with resolving every election dispute. Unfortunately, the text of the ECA is confusing and antiquated, which means the counting of electoral votes remains vulnerable to abuse by partisan actors. The…
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Message to MWEG Members on the December 14 Electoral College Vote
In this letter to our members, we sought to inform about the Electoral College and to express our concerns about the attacks on our democratic system that took place this election season. According to the processes outlined in the U.S. Constitution and by federal law, the Electoral College voted today, even as the president continued to attack the results of the election. It is undeniable that the actions of the president, his staff, and many members of Congress have constituted an unprecedented assault on the legitimacy of our elections. Despite the opposition, our democratic systems continue to prevail. The lower courts, Supreme Court, secretaries of state, Attorney General, and other…
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Call to Action: Contact Your Elected Representatives About the Commutation of Roger Stone’s Sentence
On Friday, July 10, 2020, President Trump commuted the sentence of his longtime friend and advisor Roger Stone, who was convicted of federal crimes (seven felony counts, including obstructing a congressional investigation, tampering with a witness, and five counts of lying to Congress) and then sentenced to 40 months in prison. While this is within the legal bounds of the president’s powers, it is unethical and corrupt to abuse those powers to commute the sentence of someone convicted in an investigation into that president’s own campaign. To do: Contact your members of Congress and ask them to call out this latest action for the self-serving corruption it is. In less…
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Call to Action: Protect Democracy by Ensuring Government Oversight
On June 20 the president continued his pattern of weekend firings by unexpectedly terminating Geoffery Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Berman had been overseeing many high-profile investigations, including one into President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Berman’s firing, while legal, did not follow regular norms and patterns. In conjunction with other recent firings, it raises questions about Trump’s repeated removal of government officials actively investigating claims against his administration and his associates. In April and May, President Trump fired five inspectors general, including those looking into allegations of impropriety at the State Department, Department of Defense, and Department of Health and Human Services. Congress has…
