The so-called “For the People Act” was compiled after the 2018 elections to call into question the legitimacy of democratic elections for partisan political purposes.
If it had been a serious attempt at legislating, there would have been some outreach to some Republicans.
There would have been consultation with local election officials to make sure it was workable.
There would have been more hearings and revisions.
The fact that it was intended as political propaganda is betrayed by the absurd title – the “For the People Act”?
Also, despite Senator Schumer using Senate Rule 14 in the last Congress to bypass the committee and put the bill directly on the Senate calendar, Senator Schumer never used his right to force a vote on moving to the bill.
At that time, the Democrat narrative was that Republicans were not doing enough to secure the election so the results might be in doubt.
That’s out the window now of course.
Since they got the result they wanted, they endlessly quote the Trump administration’s top cybersecurity official declaring the 2020 election the most secure in history.
I assumed last Congress that Senator Schumer would wait until right before the 2020 election to force a vote so he could accuse Republicans of blocking an election bill for their campaign narrative questioning election security.
Instead, they repeatedly, dishonestly blamed the Republican leader for “blocking” the bill, ignoring the fact that the Democrat leader had reserved the possibility of forcing a vote.
This messaging bill has now been reintroduced and recast as a response to a few state election security laws.
A handful of relatively modest reforms have been shamelessly and falsely caricatured as “voter suppression”.
As I’ve mentioned before, the claim by some Trump supporters that a certain brand of voting machine switched votes was lifted entirely from the Democrats’ 2004 playbook.
And, President Trump’s questioning of his loss in Georgia was simply following in the footsteps of the losing candidate for Governor two years before.
She lost by over 50,000 votes and has never even bothered to try to prove voting irregularities on that scale.
Foreign adversaries like Russia and China cast doubt on the soundness of our democratic system, both to weaken us from within and to justify their own repressive regimes.
American politicians should not do their jobs for them.
This bill is being called “democracy reform.”
I support our American democratic system. All Americans should be proud of it.
We can and should have confidence in our elections.
Our democracy does not need a fundamental rewrite. It works.
Let’s stop casting doubt on American elections.
Stop casting aspersions on common-sense election security measures supported by Americans of all backgrounds.
Let’s work together to boost the confidence of all Americans in our elections.
