Election Integrity
This is good. It shows us how easy it is for Democrats to be
hypocrites right up to when they have to back all their critical
criticism, then they are unable to do what they whine about.
Kay C. James, President of the Heritage Foundation
It's not racist to Support Election Integrity Laws
Earlier this month, when I heard that the Supreme Court had
struck down a lawsuit claiming that Arizona’s election laws were
a form of racist voter suppression, I happened to be standing where
civil rights leaders long ago gathered to talk about the very issue
of fighting for the right to cast their vote without fear or
intimidation.
These were the black leaders who envisioned an America where
people of all colors could live together as equals, in peace, and
with mutual respect. They weren’t politicians who tried to foment
racial discord to advance a political agenda, something we see all
too often today.
In 2005 I worked with Democrats and Republicans on the bipartisan
Commission on Federal Election Reform, also known as the Carter-Baker
Commission, which examined all the ways we could strengthen the
integrity of American elections. Reforms such as requiring voter ID,
verifying that only citizens voted, and sharing voter lists among the
states to prevent people from voting twice were agreed to by both
sides as good policy.
Yet today, the left is reneging on that agreement. Somehow, those
were commonsense reforms in 2005. Now, the left calls many of them
racist.
The left has tried to portray any legitimate attempt to pass
election integrity reforms as the disenfranchisement of African
Americans. They talk about black folks as if we are incapable of
obtaining a state ID, getting to the polls on our own, or following
simple election rules.
Now, as states try to pass laws to prevent fraud, increase the
transparency of our elections, and ensure that every legitimate vote
gets counted, the left once again is opposing many of these measures.
It’s literally trying to stop states from removing dead people
from the voter rolls, from preventing noncitizens from registering to
vote, and from requiring people to prove they are who they say they
are to vote (i.e., showing an ID)—which polling shows most Americans,
including black Americans, agree with.
In the end, the left is attempting to make it easier for people to
cheat, increasing the likelihood that more and more fraudulent votes
will cancel out legitimate ones.
The left claims that it’s opposing these reforms because it wants
to help African Americans. But in reality, it’s creating a situation
that dilutes their—and everyone else’s—legitimate vote.
The fact is, the left’s real agenda isn’t about helping minority
voters; it’s about helping themselves: They believe voter fraud favors
their candidates, plain and simple.
Ultimately, the left wants to federalize elections, turning over
the rulemaking from accountable state legislators to unelected federal
bureaucrats. They are trying to pass bills such as HR 1 and S1 (the
so-called For the People Act) and HR 4 (the John Lewis Voting Rights
Advancement Act) and put the federal government in charge of state
elections so that many reforms become impossible.
It’s a recipe for corruption.
Certainly, there was a time in America when some states had laws
that deliberately discriminated against minorities (and I know first-
hand because I lived in one of those states during segregation).
There was a need for the federal government to intervene. But that’s
not what’s happening today. The left would have us believe that we
are still living in the segregated South of the 1960s.
Many politicians and many in the media continue to spread the lie
that racism keeps people from voting, even though election results
and census numbers clearly show that blacks and other minorities are
showing up to vote in increasingly record numbers.
It would be a great irony and a great tragedy if the promise of
the civil rights movement and the sacrifice of all those who fought
and even died to protect our right to vote were undone because the
left successfully cloaked its efforts in the name of civil rights.
Our sacred right to vote and the very future of our free republic
depend on us making sure they fail.
Originally published by The Washington Times by Kay C. James
It is time for ALL Americans to wake up and see what the corrupt
liberal is actually trying to do.
Pray that God will continue to protect us from these people and
and their evil plan to destroy a beacon on a hill that the world is
watching.
Conservatively,
John
Conservativelyjohn.com 