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A U.S. Senate hearing in Atlanta on Monday highlighted that Democrats’ concerns about new election laws are quickly turning into possible post-election interference by state legislatures.
Senator Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Was the first speaker to address the Senate Rules and Administration Committee at a rare hearing outside of Washington, DC. lawmakers to dismiss members of local electoral councils. It’s a way for many Republican-controlled state legislatures to make it easier for them to overturn election results they don’t like.
A law passed in Georgia earlier this year, Senate Bill 202, has gained national attention and much criticism because of provisions that make postal voting more difficult, among other restrictions. But it also allows “partisan officials in the state legislature to control our state electoral council and take charge of local elections.” And it allows them to engage in these takeovers even while the votes are still being cast, ”Warnock said.
“This is a recipe not only for the suppression of voters but for chaos in our democracy,” he told the committee, chaired by Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
Warnock’s legislation would eliminate a provision in Georgian law that allows an individual to challenge an unlimited number of voter registrations without “knowing personally” whether those voters are eligible. A conservative group challenged the eligibility of 364,000 Georgian voters last December, ahead of the January runoff election for the two seats in the US state Senate.
Warnock’s bill would also add harassment protections for election workers and limit the dismissal of local election officials.
Georgia State Representative Billy Mitchell, Chairman of the State House Democratic Caucus, was even sharper than Warnock. He expressed support for the For the People Act, the main voting rights legislation led by Democrats in recent months, which aims to make voting more accessible and political spending more transparent. But Mitchell reserved his real concern for laws that could allow post-election shenanigans – an issue that has not received the same attention from the press or Democrats in Congress as laws affecting access to the vote.
“I think ‘black money’, unlimited campaign spending, is wrong, and I hope you can do something about it. … I further believe that removing voters is unfair and wrong, and I hope you will do something about it. But our grandparents and great-grandparents have endured much worse, and we will use that to motivate our constituents, ”Mitchell said.
“But what concerns me the most, and I hope you find a solution, is the cheating of arbitrators that these laws create.
“They are replacing elected officials in states and counties – who need to be concerned with the will of voters – with political appointees, whose only concern is the will of the person who appointed them,” Mitchell said. “If they don’t like the outcome of an election, they can simply and immediately take over the election office. These political appointees could overturn the elections without fear of being held accountable by the voters. “
Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights group, said she was removed from the board of elections in rural Morgan County, about an hour east of ‘Atlanta, after the state legislature changed the way the county chooses council members.
Georgia State Senator Sally Harrell, Democrat, told the committee that the Republican-controlled legislature made these changes in Howard and other counties in little-noticed parts of the “local consent calendar.” that the state legislature uses to consolidate different small laws that are hyperlocal. “It took us a long time to figure out,” she said.
No Republican senator from the Senate Rules Committee attended the hearing, nor did the GOP call witnesses.
In early June, Protect Democracy, which touts itself as a non-partisan anti-authoritarian organization, released a report noting that 21 measures had been enacted this year that give state lawmakers greater control over elections and the ability to punish election officials. , and that there are 216 provisions in 41 States that had been proposed and are under consideration.
Many of these provisions are being pushed by Republican lawmakers who claim to believe former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about the stealing of the 2020 election.
Two democracy scholars, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, wrote this month in The Atlantic that the legislation “would allow Republicans in Arizona, Georgia and elsewhere to do something that Trump has tried and failed to do.” failed to do in 2020: toss ballots in rival strongholds in order to overturn a statewide result, ”and that“ the new laws impose criminal penalties on local election officials who violate the electoral procedure ”.
“This will allow Republican officials statewide to force local officials, through threats of criminal prosecution, to engage in a tough election campaign.” Throwing thousands of ballots into rival strongholds can be deeply undemocratic, but it is technically legal, and Republicans in several states now have a powerful stick to enforce such practices, ”Levitsky and Ziblatt wrote, co-authors of the 2018 book How Democracies Die.
The two academics were among more than 100 democracy experts who signed a letter in June urging Congress to “do whatever is necessary – including suspending filibuster – to pass national voting standards. and Election Administration, both of which guarantee the vote for all Americans. also, and prevent state legislatures from manipulating the rules in order to fabricate the outcome they want. “
In addition to the Warnock Bill, it also discusses the adoption by Congress of national standards for the administration of elections – some of which are contained in the For the People Act – and the reform of the Electoral Count Act of 1887.
This law, which is ridiculed by some academics as confusing and unclear, stipulates how Congress should argue a contested election. It has never been invoked, but the vagueness of the law is an invitation to chaos or abuse, experts say.
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