House passes Democrat-supported package of election reform overhauls
The House passed a massive package of overhauls to campaign finance, ethics and voting rights on a party line vote; chief congressional correspondent Mike Emanuel reports from Capitol Hill.
Since the beginning of the Obama presidency, the increasingly powerful far left has set out to follow his call to “remake America.”
This ambitious effort goes far beyond ObamaCare. The far left is seeking expansion of the administrative state, higher taxes, increases in regulations and more social programs funded with more taxpayer dollars.
The transformation indisputably starts at the ballot box. Americans would do well to realize that significant changes to the way we vote are the lynchpin of a larger strategy to elect more Democrats who will push America further leftward.
HOUSE APPROVES SWEEPING DEM ELECTION REFORM BILL, AMID FIRST AMENDMENT CONCERNS
This is a four-alarm freedom emergency. The agenda to remake our elections includes:
Same-Day Registration – Perhaps one of the biggest threats to the integrity of the election system is liberals’ aggressive push for registration at the polls on Election Day. Eighteen states, including most recently New York, currently have same-day registration.
These states do not require proof of citizenship to allow voters to go to a polling place, register and vote in one fell swoop. Issues regarding citizenship, duplicate registrations or other eligibility requirements will then need to be litigated after elections campaigns. This is great for trial lawyers but bad for ballot integrity.
Efforts like ballot harvesting, same-day registration and non-citizen voting need to be recognized, vehemently opposed and defeated at the local and state level to protect the integrity of our most precious right – the right to vote.
Ballot Harvesting – This policy is now legal in California and is part of the recent North Carolina voter fraud scandal. It enables campaign workers to collect absentee ballots and then mail them in for voters.
Ordinarily, only relatives, those with a custodial relationship or those living in the same household are allowed to turn in an absentee ballot for another person.
With ballot harvesting, any third party can turn in ballots – including activist groups, campaign staff and Democratic Party operatives. The tactic is often used to target the sick, poor and minority groups.
Non-Citizen Voting – With the recent House resolution supporting non-citizen voting, the Democratic Party has embraced what a few years ago would have been viewed as a radical policy.
The Constitution only speaks to citizenship being a qualification for voting in federal elections. It is silent on whether states and localities can allow non-American citizens to vote.
This movement is gaining steam. The Democratic Party’s indifference to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants flowing across the southern border makes a lot of sense when viewed in the context of this policy.
While Democrats push these changes to supposedly “protect democracy,” the changes are really designed to do one thing: make it easier for leftists to tighten their grip on government at every level.
These election “reforms” are intended to help the left better control redistricting that takes place every 10 years after the census to ensure more wins for Democrats in elections at all levels of government for the next decade.
Efforts like ballot harvesting, same-day registration and non-citizen voting need to be recognized, vehemently opposed and defeated at the local and state level to protect the integrity of our most precious right – the right to vote.
Each of these actions is meant to capitalize on Democrats’ superior grassroots and campaign infrastructure to drive new voting blocs to the polls.
No credible evidence suggests that the majority of Americans truly desire a larger, more expensive, more intrusive government. With socialists gaining influence in the Democratic Party, the party risks losing even more support from moderate voters outside large urban area.
The baby boomer generation that came of age during the Vietnam War is growing more conservative and it is shrinking every year due to deaths.
To combat this loss of support, Democrats need to build support among voters who will respond to a more socialist philosophy. That means increasing access to the polls and reforms that help mobilize those voters.
Many Democrats believe that younger, lower-income and immigrant Latino communities – like the black community before them – can be organized, manipulated and taken for granted. It’s a bigoted strategy, but it’s worked in the past.
Policies like same-day registration, non-citizen voting and ballot harvesting would create a condition I call “Clean Slate Voting.” As a result, voter rolls change dramatically cycle after cycle, with thousands of new, transient or illegitimate voters flooding the registration rolls and making voter targeting and turnout uncertain.
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When you consider the left’s superior voter turnout operation you have a politically lethal combination of bloc voting, an unknown number of voters in a district, high potential for fraud, and laws that enhance a political campaign’s ability to unfairly influence voters.
Sure, the GOP needs to augment its turnout operations. But seeing these reforms for what they are – and defeating them in state legislatures across the country – must be a priority to avoid the hijacking of our republic by the far left.
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