Democrats want to control how the states manage their own elections

 

Hurricane Ida’s destruction and the colossal Biden Afghanistan blunder dominate the news. And given the enormous impact of these two catastrophes, that is entirely appropriate. Yet, there are other things of importance that continue to move forward, that are covered up by the “big news” of the day.

One of those other things is alive and well in Congress. H.R. 4, the illegitimate offspring of H.R.1 and S.1 — known inappropriately as the “For the People Act of 2021” — moves in the same direction: aiding the federal government in taking control of election procedures that belong to the states, and weakening the election system.

The Heritage Foundation, hated by many on the left for its accurate perspective, had this to say about the “For the People Act of 2021”: “H.R. 1 would federalize and micromanage the election process administered by the states, imposing unnecessary, unwise, and unconstitutional mandates on the states and reversing the decentralization of the American election process —which is essential to the protection of our liberty and freedom,” the summary began. 

“It would (among other things) implement nationwide the worst changes in election rules that occurred during the 2020 election; go even further in eroding and eliminating basic security protocols that states have in place; and interfere with the ability of states and their citizens to determine the qualifications and eligibility of voters, ensure the accuracy of voter registration rolls, secure the fairness and integrity of elections, and participate and speak freely in the political process.”

Since H.R. 1 and S. 1 were not passed by Congress, this new effort to destroy our election security — H.R. 4 — is now alive and well. It has been named the “John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021.” Naming it after a deceased and respected gentleman is a good thing to do, and has the added advantage of helping to disguise its true purpose.

“H.R. 4’s goal is to eviscerate the right of states to manage their own elections with appropriate transparency and ballot-security safeguards. It will attempt to misuse the 1965 Voting Rights Act to achieve this goal,” the Real Clear Politics (RCP) evaluation begins. 

“’Preclearance’ is central to H.R. 4 — this plank of the law would require every state election official to submit any election law changes to the Department of Justice for approval. In short, Democrats want states to ask Washington, D.C., for permission to pass local laws that would, for example, require voter ID — a policy that polls consistently find roughly 80% of Americans in support,” RCP continues. 

“Joe Biden and Democrats want their politicized Department of Justice to control how states manage their own elections,” RCP wrote, adding that the “Department of Justice is currently trying to strong-arm states into making their elections less secure and transparent, and Joe Biden wants to expand its mandate to control every aspect of state-level elections.”  

The U.S. Constitution, which controls how our government operates, very deliberately, and wisely, leaves much authority to the states. A country where everything is controlled by the federal government is not what America is or was ever supposed to be. In fact, without the necessary support from the individual states, there would be no federal government for the likes of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the rest to try to commandeer, by hook or by crook. 

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of U.S. Constitution states: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators.”

While the Elections Clause does give the Congress the authority to “make or alter such Regulations,” that does not mean that Congress actually has the authority to replace all state legislatures’ decisions on how their state will hold elections. If the Clause was actually intended to empower Congress to change all election laws nationwide to suit its desires, the Founders would not have written the first half of the Clause that gives that authority to state legislatures.

We have been taught — through outright lessons of failure, or by our elders, if we had sense enough to listen to them — that we must protect the things that are most valuable to us. One of those things is the right and duty to vote. Through voting, American citizens steer their country forward.

Yet, despite that voting is one of the most sacred, most valuable of our rights, there are those who would subvert that process for their own selfish, political purposes.

Mailing out thousands or millions of unrequested election ballots, and not absolutely verifying voter’s identification are just stupid, and put election security at risk. And there are other actions that Congressional Democrats favor that weaken ballot security and invite fraud.

Common sense, which unfortunately is a tool too often not used, dictates making sure that every vote is cast by an eligible voter in that voter’s proper precinct. Yes, that sometimes causes inconvenience. But that is a small price to pay for a secure election system that our nation depends upon. 

Abolishing honest elections and re-imagining legislative procedures

Deceptively called the “For the People Act of 2021,” H.R. 1 and S. 1 should more accurately be named the “Act to Encourage Cheating and Vote Fraud.”

Critics of this legislative boondoggle charge that it federalizes and micromanages the election process now administered by the states. It also imposes unnecessary, foolish, and even unconstitutional mandates on the states, and puts the federal government in charge of elections, which is a reversal of the decentralization of the American election process as created by the Founders to protect our liberty and freedom. 

The Founders established a federalist system that deliberately did not cede all power to the federal government. 

Furthermore, it interferes with states and their citizens in determining qualifications for voters, ensuring the accuracy of voter registration rolls, securing the integrity of elections, participating in the political process, and determining district boundaries for electing their representatives.

States will be forced to implement perilous methods such as early voting, automatic voter registration, same-day registration, and no-fault absentee balloting. The latter is the tool of choice of vote thieves.

Early voting is convenient, but voting early can put those voters at risk of casting their ballot before late-breaking developments occur that might affect their decision.

Same-day registration prevents election officials from verifying the eligibility of registrants, and allows ineligible voters to register and vote. It also makes it difficult to predict how many voters will appear at polling places, and thus more difficult to adequately staff the polling places.

The bill would also force precincts to allow voting by persons registered to vote in other precincts, preventing adequate steps to prevent ineligible voters from casting ballots, or to prevent people from voting more than once.

The accuracy of registration lists will be degraded by automatically registering individuals from state databases, such as DMV and welfare offices. These registrants likely will include large numbers of ineligible voters, including aliens, and multiple or duplicate registrations of the same individuals.

Online voter registration allows for massive fraudulent registrants through actions of cyber criminals if registrations are not tied to existing state records, such as a driver’s license.

These election revisions are a strategy for increasing fraud and abuse and are plain stupid. We must have an honest election system that will reflect the actual choices of eligible voters. The election system already needs to be strengthened; this bill will essentially destroy its security.

Elections are too important to allow foolish mechanisms in the system for no better reason than for a bit of convenience, which is a prominent reason cited for making these changes. Voting is too important to be made too easy.

Those behind these absurd changes also cry out against “voter suppression,” which they term any sensible idea that helps to protect the integrity of the election system, such as photo IDs and signature verification for mail-in ballots. We need photo IDs for lots of normal things we do, but somehow requiring an ID to vote is suppressing voters.

In addition to a clean and honest election system, we need a sensible system for creating legislation. Every piece of legislation offered should focus on making things in America better for the American people. Not some of the people; not a political party, but things benefitting the nation at large.

Bills should be limited to one topic and be only long enough to describe that topic. Having more bills of such a limited nature is far simpler, therefore better, than having a few gargantuan bills of hundreds or thousands of pages with multiple issues addressed.

Legislative language should be as brief as possible to get the concept of the legislation across, not written so as to make the intent difficult to understand. Most bills should be no longer than about 50 pages, which still is a significant read for legislators, particularly if there are more shorter bills to study.

Passage of legislation that affects the nation should be passed by a 60 percent or 67 percent majority. A truly beneficial bill will be able to gain that level of support. If it doesn’t gain enough support, it wasn’t a good enough bill.

No cheating! A good piece of legislation that benefits the entire country, and has broad bipartisan support, should not be a mechanism that members can load with pork-barrel items or items to benefit partisan goals. 

Trying to get a pork feature passed by tagging it onto a very good piece of legislation, hoping it will slide through if people are afraid to vote the good legislation down to prevent the bad feature from getting through, is blackmail.

No riders or amendments should be allowed that are not directly related to the topic of the legislation.

And while we are improving things, we need to remember that whatever the job is, the best qualified people are who deserve that job. If they are all men or all women, or all black, or all Asian, or all Latina, or all white or any combination of those groups, those who have displayed the highest level of competence and actual ability for the job in question are who should get the job.

Congress creates H.R. 1/S. 1 to address varied election processes

With the chaos of the 2020 presidential election, much of it due to the COVID-19 pandemic, something desperately needs to be done to stabilize and secure election procedures.

Under the direction of the U.S. Constitution, state legislatures have the duty and authority to establish how elections are handled in their state. Consequently, there are lots of variations in election processes.

Responding to this chaos, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have created legislation to fix this. Titled H.R. 1 in the House, and S. 1 in the Senate, the “For the People Act of 2021,” this legislation is designed “To expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and implement other anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying our democracy, and for other purposes,” according to the introduction to the bill.

That description certainly identifies some good and needed improvements. And while drastic action is called for to repair the heavily damaged election process in many of the states, two organizations have published reasons why they believe the “For the People Act of 2021” is seriously flawed, unworthy of passage, and even dangerous.

AMAC, the Association of Mature American Citizens, “is centered on American values, freedom of the individual, free speech, and exercise of religion, equality of opportunity, sanctity of life, rule of law, and love of family,” it’s website states. “This legislation – 791 pages – is a monstrous federal takeover of elections and an assault on the First Amendment. AMAC is working to block this bill from ever becoming law.”

The other organization is Heritage Action, a component of The Heritage Foundation. Heritage Action states that the “For the People Act of 2021” “is full of unconstitutional and unnecessary policies that liberals want to use to further hijack America’s election processes. It is ANYTHING but ‘for the people.’”

Yes, these two organizations are conservative in nature. And some find that fact enough to ignore anything and everything associated with them. But an objective analysis of H.R. 1/S. 1 shows many significant problems.

Heritage Action cites three major problems with the bill:

“1. It forces taxpayers to finance political campaigns. If it passes, you’d be paying for the campaigns of self-professed socialists like Bernie Sanders and AOC. To add insult to injury, H.R. 1 will also allow politicians to double dip and take a second salary from their campaigns. 

“2. It eliminates the ability of states to control their own elections. H.R. 1 forces states to enact same-day voter registration, automatically register voters, implement online voter registration, allow voters to cast ballots outside of their precinct, keep ineligible voters on voter rolls in perpetuity, register voters without verifying eligibility, and allow people to vote without showing any identification.

“3. It undermines our 1st Amendment rights. H.R. 1 unconstitutionally increases government censorship over political campaigns, activity, and speech. Using a very vague standard, the bill regulates any speech that is deemed to impact an election (which is almost anything). 

“H.R. 1 would also force political nonprofits to publicly disclose donors, but don’t be fooled, this isn’t about transparency. This is about making it easier for the militant Left to dox conservatives, threaten their families, and get them fired from their jobs.”

The government of the United States of America is a federal system. In such a system, much power and authority are not held in a central government, but are retained by the individual states. Remember, it was through the agreement of the states that the nation was created.

The 10th Amendment to the U.S Constitution states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This is a fundamental element in our nation’s creation, and is part of the Bill of Rights.

Much of what H.R. 1/S. 1 proposes would transfer some authority now held by the states to the federal government, against the design of the nation, and the 10th Amendment.

Further, the items in point 2 of the Heritage Action objections would open voter registration, voter eligibility and voter identification to massive fraud, and make it possible for thousands of ineligible people to cast ballots, or to cast ballots in places other than where they may legally do so, or even in more than one place.

In many instances, this bill will legalize many of the questionable and illegal goings-on of the past election, where at least four states changed election procedures, ignoring the Constitutional mandate to make changes through the state legislature.

The weakening of the voter registration process and other elements of voting are preposterous. Their lack of secure requirements invites voter fraud. These same weaknesses were present in several states in the 2020 election.

Proof of identity — not the mere say-so of a person — and proof of eligibility must be provided at voter registration, when requesting absentee ballots or voting by mail, and when showing up at polling places. No exceptions!

Additional censoring of political speech is an outright contravention of the First Amendment.

The “For the People Act of 2021” is a disaster waiting to be unleashed.