The Democrats in Congress have spent months and months now trying to pass huge spending bills: the so-called COVID Relief Bill (of which only 9% was actually COVID relief), the Infrastructure Bill (filled with gobs of Green New Deal stuff, and some actual infrastructure stuff), and Build Back Better (some of us refer to it as the Build Back Bankrupt Bill.) BBB is currently being held up in the Senate by Joe Manchin, so the “never let a crisis go to waste” Democrats have decided that now is the time to jam through so-called election reform, which is really just a way to stack the election deck even more in favor of Democrats.
We know the scheme has always been a priority for the Democrats because Nancy Pelosi gave it the number 1 priority position on Congress’ docket – H.R. 1. The pole position, the front seat, the most important thing Congress would do. The bill as written by the Democrats was totally partisan – unfairly advantaging Democrats over Republicans, and that’s why all Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans voted against it.
In order for Democrats to get this monstrosity across the finish line, they’ll have to get around the Senate filibuster rule. And that’s where Joe Manchin, and to a lesser degree Kyrsten Sinema, come in. The bottom line is, Democrats need both of them, and thus far, both are playing hard to get.
So what type of things are in the Democrats’ so-called “election reform” bill?
Things like outlawing voter IDs across the country, even though many states (like Ohio) require them, for obvious election security reasons. By the way, nearly 75% of Americans, when polled, say they favor requiring voter IDs.
Things like requiring states to adopt same-day voter registration. If you want more fraud, enacting this is what you do.
Things like requiring, not allowing, mass mail-in balloting. COVID of course led many states to loosen their policies on mail-in balloting, but Democrats in Congress want to dramatically expand it, and make it mandatory, and federalize it. This is a terrible idea.
There are other voting changes Democrats would like to muscle through that would advantage them, but these are some of the more egregious. Republicans take a very different point of view on election reform. We favor making it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.
The jury is still out on which point of view will prevail. To a considerable degree, it’s up to two Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.