Dems’ ‘Election Reforms’ Would End American Democracy As We Know It

I&I Editorial

HR. 1, the Democrats’ just-passed “election reform” bill, laughably dubbed by supporters the “For The People Act,” is so bad you might be tempted to ignore it. After all, legislation this awful can’t get passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law, right? But all Americans should take it seriously. It’s an attempt to take away your right to vote and create permanent Democratic control of the federal government.

Yes, elections have consequences, and terrible bills like this certainly prove that. Anyone who voted for the Democrats in 2020 hoping for a “turn to the center” should by now be feeling mighty foolish. H.R. 1 is but one example.

So far, Democrats have passed a near $2 trillion spending splurge that has next to nothing to do with COVID-19, created a new crisis on our border, alienated our strongest ally in the Mideast, convinced a bullying China that we’re weak and vulnerable, and, instead of doing the people’s business as they’re supposed to, are now “investigating” the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, D.C.

Some 5,000 National Guard troops, totally unnecessary right now, remain camped in the nation’s barbed-wire encased capital, despite the fact that the FBI testified last week that no arms were seized by them nor were any shots fired by demonstrators during the supposed “insurrection.”

Democrats hope to use the distraction of troops in D.C. and a probe of the events of Jan. 6 to pursue the most radical congressional agenda in history. The showpiece of this effort is H.R. 1, which passed the House by a sliver and now goes to the Senate. If they fail in the Senate, don’t worry: They’ll try again soon.

If H.R. 1 passes, America’s democratic republic as we know it, which once stood as the envy of the world, will end. In its place will be a single-party nanny state backed by force that will rule in perpetuity. Guess which party is the “one” in this “one-party state?”

Now for specifics. The list below from the Conservative Action Project shows H.R. 1 in all its radical ugliness. It:

• Forces states to implement mandatory voter registration, removing civic participation as a voluntary choice, and increasing chances for error.
• Mandates that states allow all felons to vote.
• Forces states to extend periods of early voting, which has shown to have no effect on turnout.
• Mandates same-day voter registration, which encourages voter fraud.
• Limits the ability of states to cooperate to see who is registered in multiple states at the same time.
• Prohibits election observers from cooperating with election officials to file formal challenges to suspicious voter registrations.
• Criminalizes protected political speech by making it a crime to “discourage” someone from voting.
• Bars states from making their own laws about voting by mail.
• Prohibits chief election officials in each state from participating in federal election campaigns.
• Mandates free mailing of absentee ballots.
• Mandates that states adopt new redistricting commissions.

More to the point, it federalizes elections, putting our voting system in the hands of Deep State bureaucrats and political insiders. Not local, accountable officials and politicians. It’s the electoral equivalent, as the old saying goes, of putting the foxes in charge of the hen house.

Meanwhile, it also requires states to allow the odious and entirely dishonest practice of “ballot harvesting,” which lets third parties collect ballots on behalf of groups of voters, such as those in nursing homes.

The American Greatness web site put it succinctly, calling H.R. 1 a “monster” that “would ensure a Republican never again wins the White House, not to mention many other federal and state offices. H.R. 1 is the biggest attempted electoral power grab in history, a flagrant and unconstitutional usurpation of the authority individual states have to write election law.”

Americans should know: All your rights are in serious danger. This bill, should it become law, would end our political system, with all its checks and balances, and eventually replace it with a Democratic Party dictatorship. That’s no exaggeration.

Rank-and-file Democrats should also be alarmed by this. Because once entrenched in Washington, the Democratic ruling elite will have no need to listen to their own voters. They will have what they wanted all along: an end to opposition and unparalleled power. Democratic voters won’t tell them what to do; they’ll tell the voters what to do. And the leftist media will back them up.

Those who think that “woke” and “cancel” cultures and demonizing Trump supporters as “domestic terrorists” aren’t preludes to something awful are blind to the historical truth.

This is how it worked in the old Soviet Union, and how it works today in places such as Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba and across much of the Middle East. They all have “elections,” but there’s never any doubt who’ll win. And they all have “rights,” but they’re revocable by the state. Any slip of the tongue can get you fired, imprisoned or killed, and your property has no protections from the government.

One other thing they all share in common: Their people get poorer and sicker, their economies slowly collapse, and their miserable citizens seek desperately to leave, all because they can’t change things through the ballot box. Short of violence, they can do nothing about it. Sadly, the “For The People Act” is a step in that direction.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board