Tag Archive for: voter ID

Supermajority of Americans Support Photo ID, Only U.S. Citizens Voting in Elections: Poll

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An overwhelming supermajority of Americans from all political parties and ethnic backgrounds believe that only Americans should vote in U.S. elections, and that voters should have to provide a photo ID before casting their ballot, a new survey has found.

In all, more than eight out of 10 Americans — including a majority of Democrats — support the provisions designed to enhance election integrity, which most Democratic elected officials oppose.

In all, 84% of Americans favor requiring voters to show a photo identification before being given a ballot, and 83% are in favor of “requiring people who are registering to vote for the first time to provide proof of citizenship.” Only 15% of Americans oppose each measure.

Support for the election integrity measures cuts deep across members of all political parties and ethnic identities, according to the Gallup poll, released last week. Republicans favored the measures by a near-unanimous margin: 98% of Republicans favor photo identification, and 96% support proof of citizenship for voters. But so did more than eight in 10 registered Independents (84% support both measures). Surprisingly, the vast majority of rank-and-file Democrats also say they would support laws “requiring all voters to provide photo identification at their voting place in order to vote” (67%) and limiting elections to those who can provide reliable proof of their U.S. citizenship (66%).

Although Democratic politicians have likened voter ID laws to Jim Crow — or, as President Joe Biden has said, “Jim Eagle” — the measure has intense support among minority voters. Laws stating that voters must show photo identification are favored by 86% of white voters and 80% of minority voters. (Minority voters are those who identify as Alaska Native, American Indian, Asian, black, Hispanic, or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.) Limiting the franchise to those who can prove their U.S. citizenship is backed by more than three-quarters (76%) of non-white voters, as well as 87% of white, non-Hispanic voters.

The question about restricting the vote to U.S. citizens is new; however, the numbers largely track with previous Gallup polls asking about photo identification. In October 2022, the polling organization found 79% of Americans favored such laws, and 21% opposed. Similarly, a Gallup poll conducted in August 2016 found that 80% of U.S. voters favored photo identification laws, and 19% opposed them.

Significantly, Democratic support for photo ID laws plummeted 10 points during the Trump and Biden years. While similar supermajorities of Republicans and Independents favored photo ID laws in 2016, so did nearly two-thirds (63%) of Democrats, compared to a bare majority (53%) of Democrats in 2022.

These widely-supported policies make up the core of the SAVE Act, sponsored by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and supported by former President Donald Trump and current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.).

The issue takes on added salience, as the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found that, if a fraction of illegal immigrants turned out to vote, they could, change the course of the election in swing states and well beyond. “Mathematically, there are 12 states, plus the Nebraska 2nd congressional district, where the voting-age non-citizen population is larger in 2024 than the state winner’s margin of victory in the last presidential election,” found a new CIS report.

A relatively small turnout of illegal immigrants could change election results from Donald Trump to Kamala Harris in Georgia (4.5%) and Arizona (5.1%), the group found. They could even impact a seeming impenetrable bastion of Republican electoral votes such as Texas. If 54% of illegal immigrant residents in Texas turned out to vote, and two-thirds voted for Harris-Walz, it could tip the nation’s largest Republican state in favor of the Democratic ticket for the first presidential election since 1976. Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) has led state efforts to remove non-citizens from the voting rolls.

Although audits have found thousands of non-citizens were registered to vote — and had, in fact, cast a vote — in swing states, the Biden-Harris administration’s Justice Department has sued to prevent states from removing non-citizens from the voting rolls. The DOJ alleges election integrity measures in Virginia and Alabama violate the National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day Quiet Period Provision, curtailing all such actions during the 90 days before an election.

Surging numbers of illegal border crossings have catapulted the issue of illegal immigration into the top three issues on voters’ minds ahead of the 2024 election. Before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office, the largest number of illegal border crossings in American history took place in 1986, the last year Congress gave amnesty to illegal immigrants: 1,692,544 illegal crossings took place that year. All four years of the Biden-Harris administration have broken that record.

There were 1,965,519 illegal crossings during FY 2021 — 1,577,840 since February 2021, when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris officially took office. However, many illegal immigrants began arriving before that date in anticipation of a Biden-Harris victory, some wearing campaign paraphernalia.

Some pro-life advocates intend to help secure the vote on election day and beyond. Students for Life Action is recruiting election integrity volunteers for the states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Election year irregularities may be confounded by another factor: Illegal immigrants also favor Donald Trump at slightly higher rates after four years of the Biden-Harris administration than in 2016. “[T]here is some evidence naturalized citizens may prefer Harris over Trump by roughly a 60 percent to 40 percent margin,” reports CIS. “If non-citizens had this voting preference it would require 7.48 percent of non-citizens in Georgia and 8.55 percent of non-citizens in Arizona to vote in 2024 for the net gain in support for Harris to exceed the margin of victory in the last presidential election.” That margin would require more than 90% of illegal immigrants to vote in order to paint Texas blue.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Sorely Needed’: Speaker Johnson May Attach SAVE Act to Government Funding Bill

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Congressional Republicans say House leadership will likely attach a bill to prevent illegal immigrants from voting in U.S. elections — a bill Republicans say is necessary for the “protection of citizenship and our national sovereignty”— to a must-pass government funding bill as a precondition for avoiding a government shutdown.

Multiple sources indicate Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) will add the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to a continuing resolution, or CR, which Congress needs to pass before October 1 to avert a government shutdown.

“I suspect you’re going to see a CR with the SAVE Act coming up in the next two to three weeks,” predicted Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) on “Washington Watch” Wednesday. “What the Speaker has discussed with us is a six-month continuing resolution. You and I both don’t love that,” Perry told the program’s guest host, former Congressman Jody Hice, “but that gets us into the Trump administration, God willing, if he were to prevail. But included with that would be attaching to that the SAVE Act, which requires states then to verify citizenship of every one of their voters. And that’s something that is sorely needed.”

Congressional Republicans see the bill as necessary to fix a loophole in federal law that may incentivize illegal immigrants to vote in U.S. elections. The SAVE Act amends the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (sometimes called the “Motor-Voter Law”), which stipulates that anyone who applies for a driver’s license must be offered the opportunity to register to vote. The form asks applicants to certify they are U.S. citizens, but a court ruling prevents officials from taking any steps to verify the applicant’s citizenship. The SAVE Act would require officials to assure the would-be voter’s U.S. citizenship before an illegal ballot gets cast.

Democrats object to the law as unnecessary and redundant, saying existing laws already bar non-citizens from voting. But Republicans say the current landscape does nothing to prevent illegal immigrants from voting. “Of course, it’s already illegal for people that are here illegally to vote, but that’s not to say it doesn’t happen, because no one is enforcing it,” explained Perry. “This would require states to actually enforce the law.” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote in an op-ed for Breitbart that Congress finds itself “in the historically unique position” of being able to leverage government funding for election security.

“Asking for proof of citizenship should not bother anyone. That’s the only way that we can protect the integrity of citizenship and the integrity of our elections,” Ken Blackwell, senior fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at Family Research Council, told Hice later in the show. “This is a situation that cries out for more … protection of citizenship and our national sovereignty.”

With just two months before the 2024 presidential election, Republicans see the election integrity bill, which has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, as pivotal. Speaker Johnson called the bill “a generation-defining moment” in U.S. civic history. “We see it as a potential game changer,” said Perry. “We just want our elections to be fair, but determined by American citizens. And the fact that the Democrats oppose that should tell you everything you need to know.” The bill has the support of conservatives in both houses of Congress. “This is where the House Freedom Caucus and I stand: While we oppose passing any CR, if it’s forced upon us, we will fight to ensure the SAVE Act is part of the deal. It’s time to hold the line and demand accountability, because secure elections should be non-negotiable,” said Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand.

As concerns over illegal voting take center stage in Washington, the issue is winding its way through the nation’s courts, as well. On Wednesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sued Bexar County after its commissioners pressed forward with a plan to send mail-in ballots to all county residents, regardless of their eligibility or citizenship status. “This program is completely unlawful and potentially invites election fraud,” said Paxton. The move comes after Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) removed more than 1.1 million ineligible registrants — including 7,000 non-citizens — from the state’s voting rolls.

In neighboring Arizona, America First Legal sued all 15 county recorders for failing to remove illegal and ineligible voters from the system ahead of November’s election. The lawsuit contends that two provisions of federal law — 8 U.S.C. § 1373(c) and 8 U.S.C. § 1644 — allow state and local officials to obtain information about applicants’ citizenship, an authority which they have failed to use. “America First Legal will do everything in its power to fight mass illegal alien voting and foreign interference in our democracy,” said Stephen Miller, a former Trump aide.

The road ahead at the federal level is not without obstacles. Some in Washington oppose attaching the SAVE Act to the CR, and many House conservatives have expressed displeasure that the House must pass a CR rather than legislating discreet bills for each area of government. Two congressmen — Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) — have announced they will vote against the bill. Perry said the speaker’s solution is the most practical response. “We’re going to be left with a couple options: a continuing resolution, which keeps spending the same amount of money [and the] same policy until the deal is worked out, or an omnibus, which would be terribly written in Chuck Schumer’s office by his staff, spending wildly” and codifying “terrible policy,” said Perry.

Democrats in both chambers have gone all-out to oppose the measure. A meager five House Democrats voted for the SAVE Act in July, with 198 opposed. (The Democrats who voted in favor were Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez Jr. of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.)

Polls show the American people believe the Republicans have the better part of the argument. A whopping 87% of Americans support the bill’s goal of assuring only Americans vote in American elections. “I’m for those wanting a better life to get the opportunity to become a citizen the right way. But if you’re not American, you shouldn’t be voting. Simple as that,” said NFL great Brett Favre.

Despite overwhelming public support, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has pronounced any funding measure including the SAVE Act “dead on arrival.” And Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called the bill’s election integrity measures “outrageous partisan poison pills.”

“Chuck Schumer might say it’s dead on arrival,” but if the House passes the election integrity bill as part of the must-pass bill, the Democrat is “going to have no choice to either accept that, or he will be responsible for shutting down the government,” Perry told Hice. “If the government shuts down over the Democrats’ unholy obsession with noncitizen voting, that’s on Chuck Schumer,” said Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) in a social media post. Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) made similar comments Wednesday during comments to the Republican Jewish Coalition.

“Sure would be a strange reason to shut down the U.S. government,” noted Elon Musk, who became a legal immigrant to the United States in 2002.

But Blackwell does not believe the bill will cause a stand-off in Congress. “By actually shining some spotlight on this challenge, I think that we can we can pull the curtain down on this illegal action,” said Blackwell, who oversaw Ohio’s elections as Secretary of State (1999-2007).

Nothing is more important to American political life than safeguarding the integrity of the ballot, he said. “Every vote counts. And so protecting the integrity of the system by making sure that there’s no illegal vote that cancels out a legal ballot is prudent. We cannot sit on the sidelines. Each citizen of the United States has to demand this integrity, has to demand this sort of transparency, has to get involved. And we must continue to make sure that we have as many people as observers and workers at the polling places as possible at the precinct level.”

“We should not have a polling place in America that is not covered by two sets of eyes, bipartisan sets of eyes, so that we have transparency. So, make sure you go to your local party, go to your local county office, and ask how you can become involved as a worker or an observer,” he exhorted.

“We cannot let darkness prevail in this election,” Blackwell concluded.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: A ‘Conservative’ Case against Tennessee’s SAFE Act?

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Study: Up to 2.7 Million Non-Citizens Are Likely to Vote Illegally in November

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A new study has revealed that roughly 10 to 27% of non-citizens living in the U.S. are illicitly registered to vote, which could result in up to 2.7 million illegal votes being cast in the November election. Experts say the significant amount of potential illegal votes could be enough to alter election results.

The study, released last week by the research institute Just Facts, notes that the 2022 U.S. Census recorded approximately 19 million adult non-citizens living in the country. “Given their voter registration rates, this means that about two million to five million of them are illegally registered to vote,” the report observes. “These figures are potentially high enough to overturn the will of the American people in major elections, including congressional seats and the presidency.”

On Tuesday, James Agresti, president of Just Facts, joined “Washington Watch” to discuss the scope of non-citizens casting ballots and the implications of the study’s findings.

“[T]here are very broad openings for non-citizens to vote,” he explained. “In no state in the nation are they required to provide proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote. Now, a couple of states like Arizona tried to enact that requirement, but they were blocked by a court ruling supported by the Obama administration. And if you look at the federal voter registration form, it says you can submit all different forms of ID to register. That could be a Social Security number, it could be a driver’s license number, or it could just be a utility bill. I mean, these are things that anyone can get by living here. They do not prove you’re a U.S. citizen.”

“And more than that, a lot of non-citizens have faked Social Security numbers, especially illegal immigrants,” Agresti added. “That’s what they do to work. A recent estimate by the Social Security Administration tallied 2.5 million non-citizens who had Social Security numbers gained by using fake birth certificates or stealing those numbers from somebody else.”

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and board member of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, concurred.

“[T]he problem is, states aren’t doing very much to verify citizenship, so it’s extremely easy for someone who’s not a citizen to register to vote and to vote in elections,” he remarked during Monday’s edition of “Washington Watch.” “And when that is discovered, oftentimes nothing is done about it.”

Agresti went on to point out the effect that lax enforcement of citizen verification could have in November. “[B]ased on the latest available data, approximately one million to 2.7 million non-citizens are going to vote in the upcoming presidential election unless something changes. And that is more than enough to tip the results of congressional races, Senate races, and yes, the U.S. presidency.”

Von Spakovsky echoed Agresti’s concerns. “[I]t doesn’t matter whether they’re black or white, Asian or Hispanic. It doesn’t matter which political party they support. Every time an alien illegally votes, that alien is voiding, negating the vote of a citizen, no matter which political party they support,” he contended. “And the Democrats just don’t seem to want to understand that or to basically ignore it.”

Agresti further reflected on the motivations behind the Democrats’ opposition to efforts to improve election integrity.

“[I]t’s always hard to read people’s minds, but I can tell you this. The vast bulk of these non-citizens are voting for Democrats. According to the best data we have, about 80% of them will vote for Democrats when they vote illegally. And Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to prevent any kind of checking of people’s citizenship. It does benefit them. Is that their reasoning? It’s an obvious incentive, but I can’t read their minds.”

Earlier this month, House Republicans attempted to address the issue by introducing a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and would remove non-citizens from existing voter rolls. But Agresti expressed doubt about the bill’s chances of passage. “My guess is it will move in the House and die in the Senate, but that’s just an educated guess. And again, even if somehow it got through the Senate, there’s no way Joe Biden’s signing that bill.”

“However,” he added, “I do think in the aftermath of the election, and we hate to have a repeat of 2020, that there should be some accountability, some lawsuits that demand proof that people are who they say they are in tight races. None of that was secured in the last round of election lawsuits, and it needs to be there.”

Agresti concluded by urging candidates involved in tight elections to demand verification that only citizens voted. “A candidate has to make a plea and say, ‘Hey, I want this data to prove that these people who are registered and voted actually are citizens.’”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Senate Democrats UNANIMOUSLY VOTE AGAINST Proposal to Prohibit Illegals From Voting

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For those you still scratching your heads as to why the Democrats have blown up our borders and ushered in a foreign invasion.

Senate Democrats Block Bill That Would Ban Illegal Immigrants From Voting

Sarah Arnold | March 10, 2024 4:00 PM

With the 2024 presidential election coming up and millions of illegal aliens storming the southern border, Republicans are taking a stand from letting another 2020 election happen. 

However, Democrats are trying to squash the GOP’s efforts of upholding election integrity. 

This week, Senate Democrats shot down proposed legislation that would exclude illegal immigrants from being counted on the census for the purposes of apportionment for House seats and the Electoral College. 

Proposed by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) to add an amendment to the $460 billion spending package, the legislation would require the Census Bureau to include a U.S. citizenship question in any future census. It would ban any illegal immigrants and non- U.S. Citizens from being counted for congressional district and Electoral College apportionment.

However, 51 Democrats and Independents voted against the bill. 

45 Republicans voted in favor of the legislation with the exception of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). 

“Today I forced Chuck Schumer to hold a vote on whether illegal aliens should be counted for determining the number of congressional seats and electoral votes each state gets. Democrats’ unanimous opposition to this commonsense measure confirms that they’re using illegal aliens and sanctuary cities to increase their political power,” Hagerty said in a statement. “With this vote, Senate Democrats chose to trample on the rights of each American’s voice. I will continue to fight and press this issue in the Senate.”

The bill would be similar to a Trump-era legislation that would also have had a citizenship question on the 2020 census. 

However, Democrats were critical of Trump’s plan, claiming that questioning a person’s citizenship was wrong and intended to benefit Republicans in future elections.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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‘Our Elections Are Not for Sale’: Texas Lawmaker Pushes for Nationwide Election Reform

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In the wake of an astonishing poll released last week revealing that roughly 20% percent of mail-in voters admitted to committing fraud in the 2020 election, deep concerns over election integrity continue to ripple across the country as the 2024 election approaches. Experts say that the passage of state legislation aimed at upholding the integrity of elections in Georgia and Texas in recent years should be replicated in other states.

In 2021, Georgia enacted legislation that, among other provisions, required government-issued ID to vote and tightened restrictions on mail-in ballots. The bill received immense pushback from the Left and the mainstream media, who slammed it as “Jim Crow 2.0” due to the view that it would discourage minorities from voting. However, election turnout in Georgia in the 2022 midterms proved to be an all-time record, and 0% of polled black voters reported a “poor” experience.

That same year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) signed into law legislation that created uniform statewide voting hours, prohibited drive-through voting, authorized poll watchers, and tightened mail-in ballot regulations, among other provisions.

On Monday, Texas State Senator Bryan Hughes (R) joined “Washington Watch” to discuss how his state’s election integrity bill can be a model for other states to follow.

“We have to have elections where people can know the results and accept the results and move forward if our system is going to work,” he emphasized. “… [O]ur mantra is, ‘Easy to vote, hard to cheat.’ … We found that mail-in ballots can [have] the greatest potential for fraud — that was the case in Georgia and many states. And so we’ve cracked down on these ballot harvesters who are paid by political campaigns, and they go to the homes of vulnerable voters, mislead them, get their signatures, sometimes forge their signatures, and [are] paid by a campaign under the guise of helping the voters. … Now in Texas, we [also] have [a] 24-hour live stream of whenever those ballots are being counted, wherever they are.”

Hughes continued, “[In] many states … signature verification processes … were being shortcutted. … We also implemented voter ID for those mail-in ballots … [so] we can verify to make sure it was you, the voter, who requested that ballot and make sure you, the voter, are the one who cast that ballot — simple commonsense reforms like that. [F]or in-person voting, [we also] expanded the hours [to make] it easier for folks to vote. And one more thing we found was happening [at] polling places, we had these vote harvesters being paid by campaigns [to] come up alongside vulnerable voters — maybe first-time voters [or those] with limited English proficiency … They [would] come alongside these voters and say, ‘Oh, let me help you.’ … But then it’s a voter assistant who’s doing the voting and not the voter. We’re cracking down on that. If folks need help, they’re going to get help. But we cannot have paid political operatives in the voting booth influencing voters.”

Hughes concluded by encouraging voters across the nation to push their state lawmakers to enact laws that streamline in-person voting and to put proper safeguards in place to govern mail-in ballots.

“Mail-in ballots [are] an important tool for folks who are disabled [or] who are going to be out of the country,” he noted. “But as you know, states are pushing for universal mail-in ballots. … That is a recipe for fraud [and] for elections that we cannot trust. So we want to make the in-person voting process as smooth and easy and secure as we can. And for those folks who need to vote by mail, that’s important. Make sure we have those checks in place [by] making sure it’s the voter requesting the ballot, the voter casting the ballot, [and] mak[ing] sure we’re matching up those signatures and keep[ing] those paid political operatives out of the process. Our elections are not for sale. [We] want to keep it that way.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Georgia Bill Restricting Absentee Voting, Strengthening ID Requirements Passes State Senate

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  • Georgia’s Republican state Senate passed an election bill late Monday that would restrict absentee voting and implement other expansive changes to its elections.
  • The bill now heads back to the state House, where it is expected to pass before heading to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk. Its passage follows record turnout across the state, resulting in President Joe Biden’s narrow victory and Democrats flipping both of the state’s Senate seats in the Jan. 5 runoff.
  • To vote absentee under the new bill, Georgians would need to be at least 65, away from their home precinct, observing a religious holiday or a permanent caregiver. It also enforces strict voter ID measures, with identification required to both obtain an absentee ballot and return it.

Georgia’s Republican state Senate passed an election bill late Monday that would restrict absentee voting and implement other expansive changes to its elections.

The bill passed 29-20 after its introduction last week and now returns to the state House, where it is expected to pass before heading to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk. Its passage follows record turnout across the state, resulting in President Joe Biden’s narrow victory and Democrats flipping both of the state’s Senate seats in the Jan. 5 runoff.

To vote absentee under the new bill, Georgians would either need to be at 65 or older, away from their home precinct, or observing a religious holiday. Residents could also get an absentee ballot if they are working in an essential role “the entire time polls are open” or if they are overseas or in the military.

It also enforces strict voter ID measures, with identification required to both obtain an absentee ballot and return it.

If signed, the bill would reverse Georgia’s no-excuse absentee voting policies, which were adopted in 2005 with widespread GOP support.

Republicans have said that the bill was aimed at restoring voter confidence in elections, following the 2020 election that was met with constant, baseless allegations of widespread fraud.

“I want every legal vote counted, timely and accurately, and I want better access for all voters,” Georgia Senate President Butch Miller told CNN. “Even those of us who never claimed that the election was stolen recognize that the electorate has lost confidence in the legitimacy of the system. We must work to restore that.”

The bill would also limit the use of mobile voting locations, require court approval to extend polling hours and grant the state legislature power to block emergency voting changes.

Democrats have claimed that the law is plainly unconstitutional, and have vowed to contest it if enacted.

“This blatantly unconstitutional legislation will not go unchallenged,” Lauren Groh-Wargo, the CEO of the voting rights group Fair Fight Action, said Monday. “It’s time for leaders across Georgia to step up and oppose this dangerous bill before it goes any further. We will continue to fight in Georgia, in the courts, and in Congress to make sure that Georgians’ voting rights are not infringed.”

The bill is one of many that would overhaul states’ election laws that have been introduced across the country. Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law Monday that required voters to request an absentee ballot application instead of automatically receiving one from the state, shortened early voting from 29 to 20 days and closed polls 8 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. on Election Day.

In Arizona, a bill introduced by Republican state Rep. Shawnna Bolick would give the legislature the power to put aside the will of voters and overturn the state’s election results, even if they have been certified by the governor and counted by Congress.

In Congress, Democrats passed H.R. 1, a sweeping election bill meant to combat voting restrictions and increase voting access. If passed, it would outlaw partisan gerrymandering and adopt multiple ethics reforms, but would also completely federalize the electoral process, legalize controversial measures like ballot harvesting and lower the voting age to 16.

RELATED ARTICLE: RNC To Create Election Integrity Committee

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VON SPAKOVSKY: How To Make Sure The 2020 Election Never Happens Again

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To see what’s wrong with our election system, just look at all the claims and allegations being made in the litigation filed by the Trump campaign and other organizations contesting the outcome of the presidential election. Regardless of what happens with that challenge, state legislatures should take note of the underlying problems, which have existed for years, and finally do something about them — before we have our next set of state and federal elections.

The Heritage Foundation has an Election Fraud Database that provides a sampling of proven fraud cases from across the country. It highlights the many vulnerabilities in the election process that can be — and are — exploited by those willing to game the system. It is everything from non-citizens registering and voting, to vote-buying and submission of fraudulent absentee ballots, to individuals voting more than once because they are registered multiple times in the same state or are registered and voting in two different states (like former Democratic congressional candidate Wendy Rosen was caught doing in Maryland and Florida).

Anyone who doubts this type of activity can make a difference in an election should look at what happened this past summer in Patterson, N.J., where a new municipal election was ordered and four locals were charged with absentee ballot fraud. Or the 9th District congressional race in North Carolina that was overturned in 2018 due to absentee ballot fraud and illegal vote harvesting by a political consultant and six of his staffers, all of whom were criminally charged.

But it is not just intentional misconduct. It’s also the errors, mistakes, and incompetence of sloppy, inefficient systems that exacerbate all of these problems. Like state election officials not doing something as basic as checking the addresses of newly registered voters with county tax records to ensure they are really residential addresses where someone lives, as opposed to a vacant lot or a mall or a UPS store. Or modifying their registration software to detect multiple registrations by the same individual with only slight variations in his or her name, such as using a full middle name in one registration but only the first initial of that person’s middle name in a second registration. In many states, that will get you registered twice without election officials noticing, which will then allow you to vote twice with little chance of detection.

There are a whole series of steps that need to be taken by state legislators to fix these problems, and they should act in the upcoming legislative sessions that will start in many states in January 2021. It should be the states, not Congress, that address these issues, since the states are primarily responsible under our Constitution for administering elections.

There is no doubt they will run into opposition, and left-wing advocacy groups will sue to try to stop any reforms that would fix these problems and make it harder to cheat. States just need to be prepared to defend their reforms in court, the way states that have implemented voter ID laws have, usually successfully.

In fact, that is the first reform states need: requiring a government-issued photo ID to vote not just in-person as in Georgia and Indiana, but also for absentee ballots, as is the law in Kansas and Alabama. That includes providing an ID at no charge for the tiny percentage of the residents of their states who don’t already have one. And states need to modify their driver’s licenses, which are the default national ID card used by the average American every day for many different purposes besides voting, to conspicuously note whether the individual is a citizen or not.

Unfortunately, it is easy for a non-citizen, legal or illegal, to register and vote with little chance of being caught, because states don’t verify citizenship. That needs to change. States should require proof of citizenship to register to vote. They should also use available Department of Homeland Security records to check the citizenship of registered voters.

For those of us who’ve been called for jury duty, you may recall that you had to swear under oath that you are a U.S. citizen. Yet very few states require state courts to notify election and law enforcement officials when individuals called for jury duty using voter registration lists are excused because they are not U.S. citizens. Furthermore, federal courts also use state voter registration lists to find jurors for federal cases. Yet they also don’t notify states when those called for jury duty are excused for not being U.S. citizens. This should have been changed years ago.

Absentee ballots are the only ballots voted outside the supervision of election officials and outside the observation of poll watchers, making them particularly susceptible to fraud, forgery, theft, and numerous other problems we’ve seen surface in this year’s election. For that reason, the use of absentee ballots should be limited to individuals who have a valid reason, such as being disabled or out of town on Election Day, to vote absentee. They should require witness signatures or notarization and the signatures of voters on both absentee ballot request forms, and the absentee ballots themselves should be compared to the signature of the voter on file before they are accepted.

With all of the disputes over absentee ballots received after Election Day, the deadline in every state for receipt of a completed absentee ballot should be Election Day itself. Voters have many weeks prior to Election Day to obtain and vote via absentee ballot. There is simply no reason to have a deadline past that day. Additionally, vote-harvesting should be banned in every state. You are just asking for trouble if you give candidates, campaign staffers, party activists, and political consultants the ability to pick up and handle the ballots of voters – including subjecting voters to coercion and intimidation.

Absentee ballots should only go to voters who request them — there should be no automatic mailing of such ballots to all registered voters. Why? Because as this and past elections have shown, state voter registration lists are in terrible shape, filled with voters who have moved, died, or otherwise become ineligible. That is because many states are not taking the most basic steps to keep their lists accurate and up-to-date. They need to be comparing their voter-registration lists with other states; using available state, federal, and commercial databases such as credit agencies, tax records, driver’s licenses, and public assistance filings; Department of Homeland Security alien records, and deaths listed by the Social Security Administration and other government agencies.

These fixes are just a start. There are many others to add to this list, including more vigorous investigations and prosecutions of fraud by election and law enforcement officials who all too often don’t want to know about these problems or don’t take them seriously.

We have razor-thin elections all the time in this country at the federal, state and local levels. As the Supreme Court and many others have pointed out, including the bipartisan Carter/Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, fraud can make the difference in a close election. And so can errors and slip-ups by election officials. That is why state officials all over the country need to concentrate on addressing all of these vulnerabilities and problems and finally do something about them.

COLUMN BY

HANS VON SPAKOVSKY

Hans A. von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow and Manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation and a former election official. He is the co-author of “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk” and “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department.”

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Senator Rand Paul: With Utmost Respect, You’re Wrong About This

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Perhaps it is due to me being a PK (preacher’s kid) with fond childhood memories of adoringly watching my dad preach well prepared sermons at the Holy Temple Church of Truth storefront in a Baltimore ghetto, the Bible remains my ultimate reference source for wisdom and leadership.

Moses who led the Israelite people out of slavery is an excellent example of what to do and what not to do as a leader. His decisions were rooted in obedience to God’s instructions which proved to be most beneficial to his flock. Moses ignored vehement critics and even them threatening to stone him to death. He did the right thing even when it did not jive with popular opinion. That is leadership folks.

On one occasion, due to pressure from his people, Moses disobeyed God and took matters into his own hands. God’s punishment was harsh. God told Moses he would not be permitted to bring his people into the Promised Land. Leaders do not surrender, making decisions which they know to be wrong to appease bullies, manipulators and the ignorant.

A case in point is Senator Rand Paul. Sen. Paul is out there saying that the GOP should back away from requiring a photo ID to vote.

Common sense tells us that requiring a photo ID to vote is a reasonable logical way to prevent voter fraud. Since a photo ID is required to complete a plethora of transactions, what is the big deal? Thus, it is absurd to call the photo ID requirement to vote racist.

In essence, Sen Paul is surrendering to the mainstream media supported Democrat absurd lie that requiring a photo ID to vote is racist. During a radio interview Senator Paul said that the GOP should not push something that is “offensive” to a group of people.

Senator Paul with all due respect, and I truly do respect and like you, I find your pandering to my fellow blacks disappointing.

Since Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 War on Poverty, the Democratic party has implemented programs and lowered standards which have wrecked havoc on black families; treating us as inferiors in need of special concessions and endless government handouts to survive. Sen Paul, the last thing we Americans who happen to be black need is for the GOP to embrace the Left’s paradigm that we are lesser Americans. Do not expect too much of us poor black folks because we “be” special.

Okay, I get it and wholeheartedly agree that the GOP should reach-out to black America. Frankly, the GOP is a little late to the dance. For years, I have been pestering the GOP to reach-out to the black community with “Reach Your Dreams” tours.

My concept is simple. The tour would feature great music. I know awesome conservative rappers and dancers who could capture the ears of the young and hip seniors. Imagine successful minority speakers like Herman Cain, Katrina Pierson and others on stage sharing how they achieved their American Dreams via education, hard work and right choices (conservative principles). The GOP defeatist response has been, “Why bother? The Democrats will get 95% of the black vote no matter what we do.”

Apparently, that opinion has changed and the GOP is wisely pursuing black voters. But for crying out loud, offering a liberal Democrat-Lite agenda and treating blacks like inferiors too stupid to find their way to the DMV is not the way.

Sen Paul rather than surrendering to the Democrats’ and MSM’s spin that requiring a photo ID to vote is racist, show real “presidential candidate” leadership. Turn the table on the Dems. Tell black voters that the Democrats are insulting their intelligence. The Democrats talk down, expect less and treat them like lesser Americans.

When these supposed advocates of black empowerment (NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, Obama Administration and the MSM), say requiring a photo ID to vote disenfranchises blacks, it is a major “dis”. Black America should be outraged. With friends who think so little of us blacks, we do not need enemies.

I am not just picking on Senator Paul. I am simply saying voters are discouraged and frustrated with soulless politicians/candidates whose every decision is a political calculation and an attempt to win votes at any and all cost. It is not unreasonable for voters to expect political leaders with character and backbone who simply desire to serve and do the right thing for their constituents and America.

Steve Lonegan running for U.S. Congress in New Jersey and South Carolina U.S. Congressman Trey Gowdy are two guys that fit the bill. I love these guys. Neither give a hoot about being politically correct. Both are fearless fighters for truth, justice and defending our liberty and freedom. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

I have not selected my preferred 2016 GOP presidential nominee. I want someone trustworthy who will always do what is honorable, righteous and best for my country; no divisive pandering or special concessions to groups to win votes. Please, we have had enough of that low rent politicking in government.

Nor, will I support a GOP candidate who sticks their finger in the air to see which direction the MSM endorsed and consultant’s political wind is blowing and designs their platform accordingly. Stop insulting our intelligence and morality by continuously advocating lowered intellectual and moral standards and calling it outreach and creating a “big tent”.

We are Americans, products of a remarkably successful unique experiment. GOP, deal with us accordingly with respect; not like the Democrats who treat Americans, particularly minorities, like incapable inferior entitlement junkies in need of government managing every aspect of our lives.

We need a conservative leader who will grab the steering wheel and reverse the direction of our country away from Obama’s Government Controlled Welfareville. A true conservative will drive us back toward our Founding Fathers’ Promised Land of liberty and freedom where Americans are encouraged to be all they can be.

Sen Paul, America needs leadership, not surrender and pandering.