The Republican state election laws and the Democratic federal
election proposals do not address our major electoral problems and are poor
laws intended to advantage their parties.
I support some of the Republican voting proposals, tolerate
others and disagree with the remainder (and can provide more detail to people
who are interested). My greatest concern
in the Georgia law, by far, is that it gives the State Election Board too much
power. I believe separation of powers is
critical.
Democrats have reason to oppose the Republican bills, at least
in part. Because details are subtle and
vary from state-to-state, it is understandable that Democrats would use a broad
label to describe them. “Partisan” would
be an appropriate label. Democrats
prefer “voter suppression”.
I paused this blog a long time because some people disagreed
with my concern about the use of “voter suppression”. They provided good reasons why they felt the
Republican laws would reduce votes, particularly from Democratic-leaning
voters. I needed to ponder their valid
feedback and modify or clarify my thoughts.
We greatly need respectful discussion of our differences. Concern regarding “voter suppression” would
be justifiable to express in such a discussion.
I’d prefer a term that does not evoke forcible restraint, but, in a
respectful discussion, all considerations could be aired. However, I continue to be concerned because
the term “voter suppression” is used to stifle debate and paint Republicans as immoral,
which is the opposite of what we need.
In many cases, the same laws exist in Democratic states and have
been supported by Democrats, but they are now called “voter suppression”
because they have been proposed by Republicans.
Some rational people defend this disparate usage because they believe Republicans
intend to suppress with these new laws, but that Democrats did not intend
existing laws to suppress. That’s an
interesting distinction, but seems inconsistent with the Democrats common claim
that any statistical difference is proof of bias, regardless of intent.
The pandemic triggered major election alterations, negotiated as
one-time changes. Now, when Republicans
replace them with laws more liberal than 2019 laws, Democrats renege on such
2020 agreements and call them “voter suppression”. In some cases, those one-time changes sunset,
so the new law makes voting easier than it otherwise would have been. Such considerations do not deter the
Democrats because their intent is to mislead rather than to have honest debate.
(Note: I also object to misinformation
from Republicans.)
President Biden leads the Democrats, calling the Republican
state laws “Jim Crow”, “unAmerican”, “pernicious”, “despicable” and “sick”. He falsely said Republican laws would “end
voting at 5 o’clock when working people are just getting off work” and that
“there will be no absentee ballots”. Sadly Democrats know they can rely
upon the mainstream media to parrot their distortions, instead of exposing
their false statements.
There was a huge clamor about Republican voter
suppression in Kentucky in the summer of
2020, until the Democratic governor (Andrew Beshear) refuted the claims,
acknowledging his responsibility for the reduced number of polling
locations. As soon as he took
responsibility, claims of “voter suppression” ceased. Why was something considered despicable if
done by a Republican, suddenly acceptable because it was done by a Democrat?
Democrats are (successfully) suppressing discussion apparently
because they fear losing the debate. For
example, they know 80%
support voter photo, which they
oppose. The Democratic federal voting
bill, H. R. 1, had wording that required states to allow people to vote without
photo ID for federal elections.
H. R. 1 (more detail available) also would require all states to
allow people to collect and submit an unlimited number of ballots. I think “ballot harvesting” is the worst
election idea being promoted by either party.
It reeks of Tammany Hall and other efforts to undermine fair
elections. No wonder the Democrats want
to distract attention from their bills by barraging the public with false
criticisms of Republican bills.
There is a huge shortfall of courage in the Republican party as
demonstrated by their support for Trump’s lies.
Whipping up a frenzy about Republican state election laws is a
successful strategy to divert attention from H. R. 1 partly because Republicans
have unreasonably challenged the 2020 election and misbehave in other ways.
However, there is also a huge shortfall of courage within the
Democratic party, as demonstrated by not challenging these election law lies
and distortions. President Biden’s divisive
election law lies are in stark contrast to his claims to want to bring us
together.
I opened this commentary by saying that the above election
proposals do not address our major electoral problems. So, what are the biggest problems of our
elections?
·
We have a woefully uninformed electorate.
·
Our political system encourages the election of
extremist candidates rather than centrist candidates.
Our citizenry is uninformed because both parties mislead
us. Politicians are the most dishonest
group of professionals in our country.
Because there are so many issues, it is difficult to determine why a
candidate got elected. Winners
continually claim to have a mandate where no mandate occurred. I don’t know how we solve such problems,
although I have some ideas. It would be
good if we, as a society, tried to find solutions.
a)
We need to encourage people to question what they
are told and to be open to contrary thoughts, giving such contrary thoughts
careful consideration. Instead, many of
us want to indoctrinate students and bombard voters with misleading sound bites.
Our public K-12 schools and our universities should teach
students to question statements.
However, school administrations at all levels have opted to
indoctrinate.
b)
For decades, I have found that most political ads in
contested elections encourage me to vote against the candidate sponsoring the
ad. Even if it is true that their
opponent voted against a particular bill, it is important to understand the
reason they did so.
Election advertising should be required to have a unique ID
which would facilitate fact-checking and seeing counter arguments.
c)
We should consider restoring ”equal
time” rules.
d)
Rather than not discussing politics within the
family, at work, etc., we should encourage respectful discussion. How can we learn without engaging in
respectful discussion with people who disagree with us? Doing so also allows us to teach.
Our political elections are often decided in primaries where the
most extreme candidate is elected. Then,
in the main election, we have a choice between two extremist candidates. How might we address that?
1.
The ACLU seems to have a good approach to testing
reapportionment proposals to see if they constitute gerrymandering. Reducing gerrymandering has been an elusive,
yet worthwhile, goal.
2.
I’m more receptive to a third party now than I have
been in the past.
3.
More importantly, I strongly favor Ranked Choice
voting. In 2018, I chose to register
Republican. In the primary, my favorite
candidate was Ken Selzer. However, I was
concerned that a vote for Ken Selzer would help Kris Kobach defeat Jeff
Colyer. So, I voted for Jeff
Colyer. With Ranked Choice voting, I
could have selected Selzer first and Colyer second. Then in the main election, Kobach ran against
Laura Kelly (Democrat) and Greg Orman (independent). I favored Orman but was concerned that a vote
for Orman would help Kobach win. So, I
voted for Kelly. With Ranked Choice voting, I could have selected Orman first
and Kelly second.
By making second choices very important, I think Ranked Choice
voting would encourage candidates to consider the attitudes of the mainstream.
4.
Many people would argue that it is important to
reduce the influence of money on elections.
That issue should be respectfully discussed. I haven’t rallied to that issue because I
don’t know of a good alternative. But,
as noted, it should be considered and perhaps could be tested at a state level.
5.
The Rules of Congress can give too much power to a
subset of the chamber. For example:
a.
Bills are voted on only if a majority of the
majority party favor voting on the bill.
In case this is confusing, there are 435 members in the House of
representatives. If the majority party
has 220 seats, a subgroup with 111 votes can thwart legislation coming to the
floor. I’d favor legislation requiring
that if a majority of the representatives want to vote on a bill, it should
come to the floor.
b.
Party leaders wield power such as committee
assignments to pressure members to toe the party line.
I’d be interested in your thoughts.
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