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Tag: voter id laws
Rep. Liz Cheney, right, shaking hands with former President Trump.

Cheney Backs Voter Suppression Bills Based On Trump’s Big Lie

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump and her fellow Republican lawmakers who have lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election — so vocal, in fact, that she lost her position in House GOP leadership over it.

Yet in an interview with Axios that aired on Sunday, Cheney said she supports the voter suppression legislation Republicans have pushed across the country in 2021, even as the same lies of fraud are being used to justify those bills.

In the interview with Axios' Jonathan Swan, Cheney denied that the hundreds of voter suppression bills — some of which have already become law — were based on Trump's voter fraud lies.

"I will never understand the resistance, for example, to voter ID," Cheney told Axios' Jonathan Swan. "There's a big difference between that and a president of the United States who loses an election after he tried to steal the election and refuses to concede."

However, many of the more than 360 pieces of voter suppression legislation Republican state legislators have introduced this year attack the very same methods of voting Trump has falsely blamed for his loss.

For example, GOP-controlled state legislatures in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Iowa have all passed laws making it harder to vote by mail — a method of voting Trump falsely said is rife with fraud and demanded be scaled back in future elections.

Arizona's Republican governor recently signed into law a bill that purges the state's Permanent Early Voting List of voters who do not vote in two straight election cycles. The list allowed voters to opt to receive absentee ballots for every election, and the change could purge more than 125,000 voters from the list.

Georgia and Florida also now require ID to vote by mail, and both cut back on the use of ballot drop boxes — which Trump falsely said could lead to fraud.

Voting rights advocates say the changes are directly aimed at making it harder for voters of color to cast ballots. It's led voting rights experts to describe the GOP voter suppression effort as Jim Crow 2.0.

What's more, states like Georgia took away power from Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — who refused to follow Trump's demand to steal the 2020 — and instead gave it to GOP state lawmakers who could use it to overturn elections.

"Had their grand plan been law in 2020, the numerous attempts by state legislatures to overturn the will of the voters would have succeeded," Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia state representative who now runs a voting rights organization, told the New York Times in March.

Ultimately, Cheney's refusal to fight back against voter suppression efforts shows she is still a Republican, even though she's bucked her party on support for Trump.

And the Republican Party has been the party of voter fraud lies and voter suppression even before Trump's 2020 effort to steal the election.

For example in 2019, conservatives in Wisconsin sought to purge more than 230,000 people from the voter rolls ahead of the 2020 election. The effort failed; however, a report showed that the purge would have affected Black voters at higher rates — a group that backs Democrats by wide margins.

Meanwhile, in 2016, Republicans in North Carolina passed a voter ID law that was struck down by a federal court, which said the law targeted "African Americans with almost surgical precision," and that it would "impose cures for problems that did not exist."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham

Done With 2020, Lindsey Graham Is 'Moving On' To Voter Suppresion 2022

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Monday that he accepts the results of the 2020 election as well as President Joe Biden's win, but supports the myriad voter suppression efforts Republicans are undertaking across the country, ahead of the 2022 midterm contests.

Graham made the comments in response to a reporter's question about the controversial election audit in Arizona, which is based on voter fraud lies and conspiracy theories of a stolen victory, pushed by Donald Trump. That audit has sparked concern from the Justice Department that the audit is not adhering to election law.

Graham claimed to not know much about the audit, but said, "I accept the results of the election," adding that he is ready to "move on."

"2020 is over for me, I'm ready to march on and hopefully take back the House and the Senate in 2022," Graham told reporters in his home state of South Carolina.

The senator did not say whether he believes there was fraud in the November race, but advocated for voter suppression laws ahead of the next election, specifically singling out a desire to make it harder to vote absentee.

"I think it's smart to reform our laws to make sure you are who you are," Graham said, noting he supports voter ID laws. "I think there are a lot of people that feel like bad things happened in the election ... But I think President Trump and the Republican Party needs [sic] to focus on election reform and the upcoming election."

Experts have said repeatedly that voter ID laws are often discriminatory and target low income and minority communities, as well as those with disabilities. Further, those experts say ID laws are largely useless, considering that the kinds of fraud those laws claim to target are rare.

Despite this, a number of states have attempted to make it harder for people to vote in the months since Biden's win, many citing baseless claims fraud in the November election while introducing legislation limiting ballot drop-boxes, shortening early voting, and enacting other strict policies that frequently target minority and low-income communities.

Graham, for his part, initially backed Trump's effort to steal the 2020 election, even suggesting in a November 2020 call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that mail-in ballots in certain counties in the state be tossed.

"During our discussion, he asked if ballots could be matched back to the envelope. I explained our process, after it went through two sets of signature match, at that point they were separated," Raffensperger said after the call.

He continued, "But then Senator Graham implied for us to audit the envelopes and then throw out the ballots for counties who have the highest frequency error of signatures. I tried to help explain that because we did signature match, you couldn't tie the signatures back anymore to those ballots."

Graham's conversation with Raffensperger was later included as part of a criminal investigation into Trump's effort to steal the state, according to the Washington Post. The investigation stemmed from Trump's demand that Raffensperger "find" 11,780 ballots — the exact number needed for Trump to be declared winner of the state.

Graham himself also made allegations of fraud in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election.

"We'll see what that comes up with. So I think you're going to see some major irregularities," Graham said on Nov. 6, 2020, a day before the media called the race for Biden. "Democracy depends upon fair elections. President Trump's team is going to have the chance to make a case, regarding voting irregularities. ... I'm going to stand with President Trump."

After no voter fraud evidence surfaced, and after Trump incited the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Graham said that Trump needed to stop pushing voter fraud lies and move forward, voting to certify Biden's win along with the overwhelming majority of the Senate.

Trump, for his part, has not listened.

Since May 12, Trump has published seven posts on his new blog saying there was fraud in the 2020 election and that the election was stolen. One blog post was so full with lies that a Republican election official in Arizona called it "unhinged."

Still, Graham has said he has no intention of ditching Trump, despite the voter fraud lies.

"Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no," Graham said earlier in May, when Republicans were waging their effort to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from leadership. "I've always liked Liz Cheney, but she's made a determination that the Republican Party can't grow with President Trump. I've determined we can't grow without him."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Georgia Republicans Vote To Eliminate No-Excuse Absentee Voting

Georgia Republicans Vote To Eliminate No-Excuse Absentee Voting

ATLANTA — The Georgia Senate passed a bill Monday to roll back no-excuse absentee voting and require more voter ID, which would create new obstacles for voters after Republicans lost elections for president and the U.S. Senate. The legislation would reduce the availability of absentee voting, restricting it to those who are at least 65 years old, have a physical disability or are out of town. In addition, Georgians would need to provide a driver’s license number, state ID number or other identification. The Senate approved the bill on a party-line 29-20 vote, a one-vote majority of the chamber...

Justice Department Changes Position On Texas’ Discriminatory Voter ID Law

Justice Department Changes Position On Texas’ Discriminatory Voter ID Law

Reprinted with permission fromProPublica.

After arguing for nearly six years that Texas’ voter ID law intentionally discriminated against minorities, the U.S. Department of Justice has informed the other plaintiffs in the case it has abandoned that position. The decision comes one day before the DOJ and the other plaintiffs were scheduled to make their latest arguments against the ID law.

“I think it is clearly a retreat from voting rights,” said Danielle Lang, deputy director of voting rights for The Campaign Legal Center, which represents plaintiffs in the case. She said her organization has been “raising alarm bells” about new Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ willingness to protect voting rights since he was nominated. Still, today’s decision disturbed her.

“The DOJ reviewed the evidence and found that Texas [passed this law] on purpose to harm minority voters,” she said. “To turn their back on that is something I’m going to reserve my ability to be outraged about.”

The DOJ declined comment. There is no indication that the DOJ plans to withdraw its argument that the Texas law was discriminatory in its effects.

Texas’ voter ID law was passed in 2011, but put on hold after the Justice Department intervened. When the Supreme Court limited the scope of the Voting Rights Act in a 2013 decision, Texas put the law into immediate effect. Texans were required to show one of seven forms of government-issued photo ID at the polls in local, statewide, and federal elections.

But the law, known as SB 14, was rolled back for the November 2016 election, largely because of the DOJ’s success in arguing the law was discriminatory in intent and effect.

In a scathing 147-page ruling in October 2014, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi wrote, “The Court holds that SB 14 creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose.” Her ruling was stayed, pending appeal.

In July 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans — widely considered the most conservative appeals court in the country — upheld Ramos’ ruling that the law had a discriminatory impact on minorities. Minorities and the poor, the appeals court said, were less likely to possess the type of ID required by the law, and the state’s “lackluster” education campaign did little to prepare voters for the changes.

But the Fifth Circuit declined to rule on whether the law had been intentionally written to discriminate against minorities, asking Ramos to reconsider this issue. This is at issue in tomorrow’s hearing. The Fifth Circuit also asked Ramos to create a temporary solution to the law’s discriminatory effect, to be in place by the November election.

Shortly before the November election, Texas and the plaintiffs reached an agreement to allow voters to fill out a waiver if they did not possess one of the seven forms of government-issued photo IDs required by the law. More than 164,000 Texans signed this affidavit during the November election, though an analysis by the Associated Press found that at least 500 Texans voted through an affidavit even though they possessed one of the necessary forms of ID.

This compromise will stay in place until a permanent solution is reached, which the Texas legislature hopes will be during this legislative session. It is now considering a bill that would essentially lock the compromise in place, and impose high criminal penalties of between two and 10 years in prison for lying on the affidavit. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has made the legislation a “priority,” which allows it a faster track.

Speculation began that DOJ might reverse its long-held position in the case only hours after President Donald Trump was inaugurated. On Jan. 20, lawyers for the DOJ requested that oral arguments regarding the law’s intent be postponed in order to “brief the new leadership of the Department on this case and the issues to be addressed at that hearing before making any representations to the Court.” Ramos granted that postponement, scheduling the arguments for Feb. 28.

Then, shortly after Trump was inaugurated, Thomas Wheeler was appointed acting head of the DOJ’s civil-rights division. The division oversees the DOJ’s implementation of federal law on voting, and Wheeler’s appointment was another sign of the Trump administration’s intention to switch sides. Wheeler is a strong proponent of voter ID laws and served as counsel to Vice President Mike Pence when Pence was the governor of Indiana. He served as the chairman of the Indiana Election Commission from 2005 to 2010, during which time the state instituted its own voter ID law. The Huffington Post reported Wheeler personally offered advice to Texas lawmakers while Texas’ law was being crafted.

Last week, the DOJ again requested a postponement, jointly filing a request with the state of Texas arguing the hearing be delayed until after the legislature had a chance to consider the bill updating the voter ID law.

“If new Texas state voter identification legislation is enacted into law, it will significantly affect the remainder of this litigation,” the DOJ and Texas jointly argued.

Ramos denied this request.

“The question at hand is whether or not the law that was passed in 2011 was racially discriminatory, and anything done in 2017 cannot change the facts from 2011,” said Lang.

The DOJ had previously argued exactly that. In August, when the state originally sought to postpone arguments regarding intent until the legislature had time to come up with a solution, Lang said the DOJ fought back, arguing it was in the interest of justice to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

Tomorrow’s hearing will still go forward as planned, as the DOJ was not the only plaintiff in the case. Lawyers for the remaining plaintiffs, which include U.S. Rep. Mark Veasey and several voters negatively impacted by the law, will continue to argue that the state intentionally discriminated against minorities.

“We’re disappointed to see that DOJ is abandoning its intent claim after years of building a case that Texas passed its law intending to discriminate against minority voters,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program in a statement. “But this type of discrimination is unacceptable in our democracy, and the other voting-rights advocates on the case will continue to press the issue in court.”

IMAGE: An election worker checks a voter’s drivers license as North Carolina’s controversial “Voter ID” law goes into effect for the state’s presidential primary election at a polling place in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. on March 15, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Keane/File Photo