Commentary: Stop Calling It a ‘Voting Rights’ Bill

by Adam Mill

One-party rule and the destruction of an effective opposition might seem like a counterintuitive goal for “democracy journalists” pushing the “voting rights” legislation. But democracy journalists have been refreshingly candid in their goal to destroy competitive opposition in order to “save democracy.” Don’t believe me? Read below how these self-appointed heroes of democracy explain that nullifying their political opponents will preserve democracy from election results that contradict their political views.

This campaign has gone on for a long time in one form or another. But the New Republic offered this opinion piece early in the 2020 election season, “End the GOP—In order to save our democracy, we must not merely defeat the Republican Party.” Osita Nwanevu wrote:

We cannot afford to wait the GOP out; its power is not a problem to be worked around. The only way to take on the problems posed by the Republican Party is to take on the Republican Party itself. The forces of demographic change and structural reforms must be joined with direct action. . . . We must wrest that choice back and set the country forward. We must end the GOP.

In December, the New York Times treated us to an opinion column disguised as a news story headlined, “Voting Rights and the Battle Over Elections: What To Know.” In it the author pooh-poohed Republican efforts to improve election integrity writing, “Republicans have often sought to limit absentee-ballot drop boxes by claiming without evidence that they are susceptible to fraud.” Without evidence? The author failed to acknowledge that Project Veritas filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times after the Times falsely accused Project Veritas of faking the video footage of an operative bragging about stealing and forging absentee ballots.

The Times story goes on, “Other new laws tighten identification requirements for voting by mail, bar election officials from proactively sending out ballot applications or shorten the time frame during which absentee ballots can be requested,” adding (without evidence), “Some are also likely to affect voters of color disproportionately, echoing the country’s long history of racial discrimination at the polls, where Black citizens once faced barriers to voting including poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation and impossible hurdles, like guessing the number of butter beans in a jar.”

Wait, are Republicans passing laws to require a poll tax, literacy test, and a requirement to count butter beans? No, the author doesn’t say that. He simply argued that asking for an ID to confirm voter identity is exactly the same as a poll tax and not at all like the very acceptable requirement of showing a COVID card to enter government buildings. Oh, and also, “You’ll need to show a photo ID that matches your vaccine record.”

After baselessly speculating that legitimate voters are prevented from voting because of voter ID laws, the Times story then lets slip what this is all really about. “The stakes are enormous: In battleground states like Georgia and Arizona, where the 2020 presidential margins were less than 13,000 votes, even a slight curtailment of turnout could tilt the outcome.”

This is about engineering Democratic victories. Everyone knows that.

The Washington Post recently added its contribution to the, “save democracy by destroying political opposition,” campaign. In the ironically titled piece, “The rise of a pro-democracy media,” columnist Perry Bacon, Jr. wrote approvingly of the coordination of legacy media to a single “Republicans are bad for democracy” message. But, “the story of GOP . . . democracy erosion isn’t being covered extensively or aggressively by a big, important chunk of the media—the morning and nightly news shows of the big broadcast channels (NBC, CBS, ABC) and in local television news.”

The coordinated media messaging (and I can’t believe the media is actually admitting to this) is missing sectors of our society. But, in Bacon’s estimation, the rich liberal class will drink the Kool Aid and help end Republican competitiveness.

“Rich people, corporations, foundations, politicians and other elite individuals and organizations have outsize power,” Bacon writes. “The media that those people consume is telling them clearly that the current Republican Party is a threat to the nation’s future. Let’s hope they listen—and do something about it.”

What does “do something about it” mean? The New Republic piece from 2020 makes the answer clear. True “democracy” can never be achieved so long as Republicans can compete effectively in elections.

The legislation pending in Congress has little or nothing to do with “voting rights.” It’s all about facilitating a preferred election outcome. “Voting rights,” legislation doesn’t protect democracy; it protects Democrats. The Democrats selling the plan expressly equate permanently defeating Republicans with “saving” democracy. This is the outcome achieved in China that, no joke, argues that its one-party state is closer to a true democracy than the American two-party system. The Peoples’ Democratic Republic of North Korea has also “saved” its democracy from opposition parties.

In fairness, it’s not just the Democrats attempting to end Republican opposition. Republicans like Representatives Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) have also warned darkly of offending the consensus uniparty. Sometimes it feels like the leadership of the Republican Party yearns for the golden age of permanent irrelevance in federal elections.

International election standards call for neutral election rules that do not favor one party over the other. These standards provide that, “Election administration must be non-partisan and neutral.” And legitimate anti-fraud measures must be employed that, “ensure that voters are adequately identified and that other mechanisms are in place to prevent fraudulent or double voting.” The push to facilitate voting without confirming the identity of the eligible voter undermines the integrity of elections and has nothing to do with “voting rights.”

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Adam Mill reports for American Greatness.
Photo “Drop Box Banner” by League of Women Voters of California LWVC. CC BY 2.0.
 

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