Republicans across the country are making sure that 2020 never happens again, with an all new round of dozens of state legislature bills designed to eliminate tens of millions of Democratic votes in 2022 and beyond.
After an election filled with misinformation and lies about fraud, Republicans have doubled down with a surge of bills to further restrict voting access in recent months, according to a new analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice.
There are currently 106 pending bills across 28 states that would restrict access to voting, according to the data. That’s a sharp increase from nearly a year ago, when there were 35 restrictive bills pending across 15 states.
Among the Brennan Center’s findings:
- More than a third of the bills would place new restrictions on voting by mail
- Pennsylvania has 14 pending proposals for new voter restrictions, the most in the country. It’s followed by New Hampshire (11), Missouri (9), and Mississippi, New Jersey and Texas (8)
- There are seven bills across four states that would limit opportunities for election day registration
- There are also 406 bills that would expand voting access pending across 35 states, including in New York (56), Texas (53), New Jersey (37), Mississippi (39) and Missouri (21)
The restrictions come on the heels of an election in which there was record turnout and Democrat and Republican election officials alike said there was no evidence of widespread wrongdoing or fraud. There were recounts, audits and lawsuits across many states to back up those assurances. Federal and state officials called the election “the most secure in American history”.
Myrna Pérez, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center, said the surge in anti-voting legislation was “countersensical” given that there were Republican and Democratic wins in key races across the country.
“The volume of anti-voter legislation is certainly revealing that a nerve was struck,” she told me. “There are certainly people who are sensitive to the idea of more progress … It ultimately comes down to an anxiety over the browning of America and people in power are afraid of losing their position.”
Many of the restrictions have to do with placing new barriers around voting by mail, a process that a record number of Americans used in 2020 (46% of Americans cast a mail-in ballot in 2020, compared with just 19% four years ago). In Arizona, a state that Joe Biden flipped, Republicans are weighing measures that would make it easier to remove voters from a permanent mail-in voting list and to require voters to get their ballots notarized. In Pennsylvania, there are proposals in the GOP-controlled legislature to get rid of no-excuse absentee voting and to make it easier to reject a ballot based on a signature mismatch – an unreliable way to confirm a voter’s identity.
And in Georgia, a state where Democrats won stunning upsets in the presidential race and two US Senate runoffs, Republicans are exploring whether to eliminate no-excuse absentee voting and to require voters to submit a copy of their ID when they vote by mail. Again, this comes after an election in which there was record vote by mail turnout, and the state’s top election official, a Republican, loudly pushed back on accusations of fraud.
In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, could veto GOP-restrictions. But in Georgia and Arizona, Republicans control both the legislature and the governor’s mansion.
There are a host of other voting restrictions states are considering:
Ten states are considering new voter ID requirements, including six states that do not currently require voters to present ID at the polls, according to the Brennan Center.
Two states, Mississippi and New Hampshire, are considering placing new limits on the kinds of IDs that can be used.
Here in Kentucky, the photo-ID requirement and absentee ballot ban was lifted for COVID-19, but that will never happen again, and in 2022 by-mail voting will be gone.
Even though Republicans have no real evidence to restrict voting due to "fraud", what constitutes fraud to them is that Democrats are ever allowed to win elections, and they will put an end to that very quickly.
And if that doesn't work, they'll just throw out elections that Democrats win.
The Republican chair of Arizona's state House Ways and Means Committee introduced a bill Wednesday that would give the Legislature authority to override the secretary of state’s certification of its electoral votes.
GOP Rep. Shawnna Bolick introduced the bill, which rewrites parts of the state's election law, such as sections on election observers and securing and auditing ballots, among other measures.
One section grants the Legislature, which is currently under GOP control, the ability to revoke the secretary of state's certification "by majority vote at any time before the presidential inauguration."
"The legislature may take action pursuant to this subsection without regard to whether the legislature is in regular or special session or has held committee or other hearings on the matter."
A request for comment from Arizona's secretary of state was not immediately returned.
The move comes as the Arizona GOP has faced an intraparty fight after former President Donald Trump fueled baseless claims about the election after the state went to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election — the first time in 24 years a Democrat has won the state.
So that's just it. In Arizona, Republicans seriously want the power to simply throw out a presidential election with a simple majority of the vote of the state legislature. And why wouldn't they?
Why wouldn't any GOP gerrymandered state legislature simply do that, so that a Democrat can never again win a presidential election in that state, ever?
Why stop at presidential elections? Why not state elections too? Why not invalidate every Democratic victory in the state, from the local justice of the peace on up to Governor?
Democracy means nothing to these monsters.
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