{"id":56018,"date":"2021-07-22T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=56018"},"modified":"2021-07-22T08:02:46","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T12:02:46","slug":"demagoguing-the-voting-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2021\/07\/demagoguing-the-voting-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Demagoguing the Voting Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

President Biden has called<\/a> state efforts to reform voting procedures a \u201c21st century Jim Crow assault\u201d and \u201cthe most serious test of our democracy since the Civil War.\u201d \u00a0And the media obediently report on the \u201crestrictive\u201d voting laws some of the states are passing.<\/p>\n

But are those characterizations remotely true?<\/p>\n

The Georgia law tightens up procedures after a chaotic election day whose outcome wasn\u2019t figured out for weeks. \u00a0But the new law, contrary to the Jim Crow slur, does not<\/em>\u00a0prevent black Americans from voting. \u00a0Nor would its measures result in a smaller turnout, as evidenced by states that already follow these procedures. \u00a0Georgia will still allow for extensive early voting, no-excuse absentee ballots, and online registration. \u00a0(Read this<\/a> for what the provisions of the George law actually are.)<\/p>\n

\n

As for the Texas law<\/a>, which that state\u2019s Democratic congressmen are trying to block by fleeing to Washington to prevent a quorum, it mostly reverses the extraordinary changes put into place because of the COVID epidemic, such as drive-in voting, sending out unsolicited mail-in ballots, and 24-hour voting. \u00a0Other measures, such as longer polling hours and making it easier to fix errors, are designed to increase<\/em> turnout.<\/p>\n

What the Democrats seem to object to the most are the ID requirements in both state laws, which they would eliminate nationwide if they pass their voting reform bill, H.R. 1. \u00a0What I can\u2019t understand is the resistance to requiring that voters are who they say they are. \u00a0Black people are not unable to show identification, which does not have to be with a driver\u2019s license, as the Democrats are condescendingly implying. \u00a0They do it all the time. \u00a0And showing ID in order to be checked off the registration list before getting a ballot does not<\/em> cut down voter turnout, including among minority voters, as research has shown<\/a>. \u00a0(Follow the science!)<\/p>\n

Virtually all other democratic nations<\/a> require voters to show IDs. \u00a0Liberals praise the Scandinavian countries as paragons of social democracy, but they require voter IDs. \u00a0And countries that don\u2019t, like Japan, use other measures to make sure the voter has not stolen someone else\u2019s identity. \u00a0(Japan issues bar-coded tickets to eligible voters.)<\/p>\n

The purpose of voter ID is to protect<\/em> the individual\u2019s right to vote, by ensuring that no one else usurps that right by voting in his or her place. \u00a0In this age of identity theft, how is that an assault on democracy?<\/p>\n

The new state laws also forbid ballot harvesting, which Democrats want to legalize. \u00a0That is the practice of third parties, including partisan campaign workers, being able to distribute absentee ballots, then collect them<\/em> and take them to be counted. \u00a0Isn\u2019t it evident that this opens the door for all kinds of abuses? \u00a0How is the principle of the secret ballot being protected? \u00a0What is to prevent the campaigners from taking the ballots to their smoke-filled room and just marking them themselves? \u00a0Wouldn\u2019t that<\/em> be an assault on democracy?<\/p>\n

Democrats also want voters to be able to cast their ballots in any precinct. \u00a0That makes it possible\u2013especially if no ID is required\u2013 for someone to vote in multiple times. \u00a0Would that<\/em> be an assault on democracy?<\/p>\n

Such practices were staples of the machine politics of Boss Tweed and Richard Dailey. \u00a0Is the goal of their fellow Democrats to impose a similar political machine across the entire country?<\/p>\n

Yes, Donald Trump and lots of his supporters believe the 2020 election was rigged. \u00a0But some Democrats believe that Trump stole the election in 2016, with Russians hacking voting machines. \u00a0You don\u2019t have to believe those things in order to recognize that election reform is needed. \u00a0If voters, rightly or wrongly, are afraid that highjacking an election is possible, it\u2019s reasonable to address weak spots in the election process that have the remotest possibility that they might be exploited. \u00a0Then there are the manifest screwups of election officials\u2013whether in Georgia or in the recent New York mayoral primary\u2013that must be addressed if voters are to have confidence that their votes are being counted correctly.<\/p>\n

Elections used to be decisive. \u00a0We found out the results on election night, and that was that, with typically all sides agreeing on the outcome. \u00a0Now, with the plethora of absentee ballots, extended deadlines past election day, off-site voting, and convoluted processes, we don\u2019t know the results for weeks or months. \u00a0This extends the time for things to go wrong or for suspicions to arise.<\/p>\n

As a result, many Americans have lost confidence in their elections, wondering whether their votes are being counted or watered down by unlawful voting. \u00a0 That loss of confidence, justified or not, does<\/em> weaken our democracy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Illustration: \u00a0Boss Tweed and the Ballot Box by Thomas Nast, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats’ claims that state attempts at election reform are a return to “Jim Crow” and are a threat to democracy are demonstrably untrue. But their own advocacy of ballot harvesting, voting without IDs, voting in any precinct, and non-secure ballots harken back to the corrupt political machines of Boss Tweed and Richard Dailey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":56137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,19,36],"tags":[655,10972,10975,1747,10969],"class_list":["post-56018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","category-government","category-politics","tag-democracy","tag-election-reform","tag-political-machines","tag-political-rhetoric","tag-voting-laws"],"yoast_head":"\nDemagoguing the Voting Laws<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Democrats' claims that state attempts at election reform are a return to "Jim Crow" and are a threat to democracy are demonstrably untrue. 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