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As the national debate over voting rights intensifies, the Democratic Party’s plan to protect access to ballots proves to be more popular with the public than the type of restrictions imposed by Republicans in Texas, according to one. new Yahoo News / YouGov poll.
In fact, all of the recent GOP restrictions tested in the poll attract more opposition than support, while all of the reforms in a recent Democratic proposal attract more support than opposition.
For example, more than twice as many Americans are in favor (49%) than opposed (21%) of a Democratic plan to “require at least 15 consecutive days of advance voting in federal elections.” In contrast, only 31% of Americans support the Republican efforts underway in states to shorten the advance or postal voting period. Forty-six percent oppose such efforts.
Yet many Americans also remain uncertain whether they would ultimately support new federal voting rights legislation – underscoring the considerable challenges ahead for Democrats determined to tackle what President Biden described in a statement. fiery speech Tuesday as “the most important test for our democracy since the Civil War.” War.”
The survey of 1,715 U.S. adults, which was conducted July 13-15, overlapped with a dramatic split-screen show that saw Texas Democrats flee the state capital to delay a vote on Republican legislation designed to further restrict voting at the same time Biden was in Philadelphia denouncing such measures, which have already been passed in 17 GOP-controlled states so far this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
“There is an assault going on in America today, an attempt to suppress and overturn the right to vote in free and fair elections,” Biden said. “An attack on democracy, an attack on freedom, an attack on who we are as Americans.”
The new Yahoo News / YouGov poll found that more Americans share Biden’s priorities on electoral reform than those of his defeated 2020 rival Donald Trump, who continues to insist, without evidence, that he lost the election to fraud – and whose false claims continue to fuel Republican efforts to limit voting among majority Democratic constituencies.
Only 28% of Americans – the vast majority of them are Republicans – say that “the election was rigged and stolen from Trump,” and more Americans think that “the people who should be allowed to vote are not not allowed to vote “is a more serious problem (45 percent) than” people who vote who should not be allowed to vote “(39 percent).
Like all the rest of American politics, the question of the right to vote is now very polarized, with only 16% of Republicans saying that “Joe Biden won the elections fair and square” and only 11% saying that restrictions on legal voting are a bigger than a generalized problem. voter fraud (which extensive research has proven to be a “myth,” according to the Brennan Center).
Yet Independents are also siding with Biden – and against Republicans – on both issues (by almost identical margins as Americans overall).
In turn, that consensus shapes the public response to the competing visions of the vote currently being put forward by Congressional Democrats and Republican state legislatures.
On the one hand, there are bills like the one in Texas, which are popular with Republicans but not with the general public. None of the most common GOP restrictions attract the support of more than 36% of Americans, and the opposition exceeds support at all levels. By a 12 point margin, respondents said they were not in favor of “making postal voting more difficult”; by 8 points, they were against “the prohibition or reduction of mail-in ballot boxes”; by 15 points, they did not approve of the “shortening of the early or absent voting period”; by 8 points, they were not in favor of “giving more power to observers in favor of police polling stations”; and by 40 points, they rejected the idea of ”making it more difficult to vote early (in person)”. Once again, the independents oppose all these measures by margins similar to those of the Americans in general.
On the other hand, there is the federal voting rights compromise recently proposed by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat who is seen as the decisive vote on the issue, and endorsed by the former president. Barack Obama. Unlike the Texas bill and others like it, all of Manchin’s provisions attract more support than opposition, including:
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“Make election day a national holiday so that people have free time to vote” (63% support, while 19% oppose)
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“Ban partisan gerrymandering, the practice by which politicians redesign congressional constituencies to help their own party win” (50% to 24%)
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“Requiring at least 15 consecutive days of advance voting in federal elections” (49% to 21%)
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“Require voters to present some form of identification before voting, such as a utility bill with their name and address” (61% to 20%)
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“Block new electoral laws enacted by state or local governments with a history of racist electoral practices until such laws are approved by federal courts or the Department of Justice” (44% to 27%)
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and “allow states to purge ineligible voters from their lists using state and federal documents” (47% to 20%)
When asked if they would support or oppose a bill that includes all of these reforms, only 17% of Americans say they would oppose it. Others say they would either be in favor (40%) or they are not sure (42%). Strikingly, Democrats (33%) and Republicans (29%) say they would favor the package with similar margins, perhaps because the Manchin compromise includes some Republican priorities, such as voter identification. But the uncertainty remains high.
Beyond that uncertainty, the other problem for Democrats is that Senate Republicans have already vowed to oppose Manchin’s compromise, meaning the only way forward would be to bypass the required 60-vote threshold. to break an obstruction and pass the bill by a simple majority of 51 votes. Democrats – something Manchin refuses to do. And while 54% of Democratic voters say they would support the simple majority approach – compared with just 13% who would oppose it – it should be noted that most Americans are not convinced, with nearly two-thirds either against (24%) or uncertain (40 percent).
In other words, Democrats have a more popular voting plan than Republicans. But they don’t have the votes in the Senate to pass it – or the kind of decisive public support that might compel those votes.
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The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,715 American adults surveyed online from July 13 to 15, 2021. This sample was weighted by gender, age, race and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the United States Census Bureau, as well as the 2020 presidential vote (or non-vote) and registration status voters. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all American adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.7%.
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