Republican state lawmakers engaged in a nationwide effort to rewrite ballot access laws following the highest voter turnout and safest election in history scored their first major achievement Thursday when Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp
Brian Kemp Democrats View Georgia As Opening Salvo In War Over Voting Tornado Leaves At Least 1 Dead In Newnan, Georgia Bill Clinton On New Voting Restrictions In Georgia: ‘An Attack On Our Democracy’ MORE (R) has signed a major overhaul package that will limit voters’ access to absentee ballots and ballot boxes.
In other states, Democrats have watched with growing concern, knowing that their legislature is next.
“We watched Georgia pretty closely, and we knew our legislative Republicans were likely to introduce something, too,” said Michigan State Senator Stephanie Chang (D), who represents part of Detroit and its southern suburbs.
The day before Kemp signed Georgia’s legislative package, Michigan Republicans introduced 39 bills intended to change a voting process that resulted in President Biden
Democrats See Georgia As Opening Salvo In War Over MLB Voting Could Move All-Star Game Out Of Georgia Following Controversial New Voter Restrictions Biden Lays Majority Of DHS Advisory Council Members MORE carrying the state with 154,000 votes in 2020. Measures include proposals to limit the ability of election officials to send requests for absentee ballots, require a copy of voter identification when submitting an absentee ballot, and a limit on drop boxes .
Those measures add to the more than 250 bills introduced in legislatures across the country this year that will place new demands or restrictions on the way to vote, according to figures from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York. University.
Conservative groups supporting the reforms, such as the Heritage Foundation, which supports legislation such as the Georgia overhaul in seven other states, say the reforms are not intended to target racial voters.
“This is just an old ploy by the left about calling things racist they don’t like. We believe it should be easy to vote and hard to cheat, ”said Garrett Bess, vice president of government relations at Heritage Action. “There was a need for some standardization that was enforced not federally but state by state to ensure that best practices were followed in holding elections.”
The bills ostensibly aim to address the shaken confidence in an electoral reform process dubbed by the administration-appointed Trump the safest and safest in the country’s history.
“Republicans have basically started the fire by claiming there is widespread voter fraud and convincing their base that this is true, and then they act like the firefighter who comes to extinguish the voter fraud that doesn’t exist by all these unnecessary voters. Suppression bills, ”said State Representative Chris Turner (D), president of the Texas House Democratic Caucus.
In interviews, democratic lawmakers drew a direct parallel between former ones President Trump
Donald Trump Democrats View Georgia As Opening Salvo In War Over MLB Voting Could Move All-Star Game Out Of Georgia Following Controversial New Voter Restrictions Biden Dismiss Majority Of DHS Advisory Council Members MORE‘s false allegations of electoral crimes, the January 6 uprising in the Capitol and the bills making headway today in the Republican-controlled legislature.
“After their failed coup attempt, Republicans across the country, especially in Georgia and Arizona, are moving to Plan B,” said state Rep. Athena Salman of Arizona, the whip of the Democratic minority. “I have not heard a fight [from Republicans] that is not connected with the big lie. “
In the midst of a committee hearing this week on a proposal to require voters to submit a copy of a state-issued ID in addition to an absentee ballot, the Republican Chairman of the State House Government and Elections Committee cut off Salman and attempted her vote. for her.
In states like Georgia, Arizona, and Texas, where Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature and governorship, there is little Democrats can do to delay or reduce the new ballot restrictions.
The minority may delay some bills: In February, a single Republican senator voted with the Arizona Democrats to block an attempt to strike a permanent vote-by-mail list. In Texas this week, a committee hearing on a major law was delayed when a procedural snafu caused a hiccup.
This is a very clear line for members of our caucus. We are united in our opposition to bills that would make it more difficult to vote. We’re going to fight it with everything we have, ”said Turner. Still, he admitted, “It’s uphill.”
Even in a state like Michigan, where Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Gretchen Whitmer Democrats see Georgia as opening a salvo in the war on voting rights Michigan GOP leader calls ‘murder’ in response to a question about anti-Trump Republicans unlikely to hone Michigan as the state’s virus spikes increase. would almost certainly veto partisan electoral restriction laws, Republicans have a chance to work around the governor.
In comments to a local Republican club this week, Ron Weiser, chairman of the Republican Party of Michigan, said the party could use a provision in state law that allows the GOP to collect 340,000 signatures – about 15 percent of the total number of Michiganders that Whitmer – to remit an electoral recovery package to the legislature. Whitmer could not veto that legislation.
Many of the key provisions in the new legislation would undoubtedly create new obstacles for minorities and low-income voters, who are more likely to live in areas with fewer voting areas and longer rows. Numerous studies of recent elections have shown that those living in areas with a strong minority wait longer in line to vote than those living in heavily white areas.
A provision in the just passed Georgia law would make it a crime to hand out bottled water to voters waiting in line.
Legislation to revise long-standing voting rules is not limited to swing states. Montana’s Republican-controlled legislature is one step away from approving the end of voter registration on the same day, following an election in which the party retook the governor’s mansion and had control of the legislature. The Missouri State House has approved a new voter identification bill after the state’s Supreme Court threw out an earlier draft. The West Virginia State Senate passed a measure ending same-day voter registration and shortening a period of early voting.
Democratically controlled lawmakers are in the middle of their own roster of electoral revisions. Many, but not all, of these measures would make some of the temporary expansions of voting rights implemented in the midst of the pandemic permanent.
New Jersey lawmakers this week passed a bill to allow voters to vote early, a practice that is lagging behind in the northeastern states. The Illinois legislature sent Gov. JB Pritzker (D) a bill to expand mail-in and roadside voting. Washington lawmakers have passed a bill to restore criminals’ right to vote once they get out of prison.
The big difference in the two approaches to voting rights illustrates the new incentive structure created for Republicans by a former president who laid the groundwork to avert blame for his loss, even before voters actually started casting votes. Democrats who used to fight under the same rules as Republicans now say they are dealing with an opposition that wants to change the rules instead of playing the game.
“You can actually extend your message to a larger electorate or you can try to change the rules. They are going down the path of the losers, ”said Senator Jim Ananich, the leader of the Democratic Minority, Michigan State. ‘It will hurt their party in the long run. But in the short term, they will have some success in the legislature, but we will take them to court. “