The House of Representatives in the late hours of March 3 passed a sweeping election reform bill that, if signed into law, would affect multiple aspects of the electoral process and campaign financing.
As The Epoch Times’ Mimi Hguyen Ly notes, H.R. 1, also called the For the People Act, passed the Democrat-controlled House on a largely party-line vote of 220-210. All Republicans voted against the bill. They were joined by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the only House Democrat who voted against the bill.
The proposed legislation would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. Democrats currently hold the smallest possible majority in the Senate, with 48 Democrats and two independent senators who caucus with them. It is unclear whether there would be enough support, with the bill needing 10 Republicans to overcome the filibuster.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has said he would sign the bill into law if it reaches his desk.
“This is called the For The People bill. And in doing so, we combat big, dark, special-interest money in politics and amplify the voice of the American people,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday at an event prior to a vote on the bill.
However, as AmericanThinker’s Andrea Widburg warns, if you thought the election in 2020 was bad, you’d better reach out to your senator to fight H.R. 1, which passed the House last night. H.R. 1 takes every bad idea blue states adopted in 2020 — all with an eye to facilitating election fraud and increasing the number of otherwise ineligible Democrat voters — and nationalizes all of them. It isn’t just that this bill will mean that Republicans will have an even more uphill battle than usual in every election. It also means that no federal election will ever be trustworthy — and an untrustworthy system is one that will inevitably fail.
John Fund says H.R. 1 “is the worst piece of legislation I have ever seen in my 40 years reporting from Washington.” According to him, the bill, if it becomes law, “would cement all of the worst changes in election law made in blue states in 2020 and nationalize them.” He quotes Hans von Spakovsky, who summarized some of the worst aspects of the bill. (The link Fund gives for Spakovsky is here, but it goes to a dead page.)
- H.R. 1 would make fraud easier by forcing states to implement early voting, automatic voter registration, same-day registration, online voter registration and no-fault absentee balloting
- Degrade the accuracy of registration lists by requiring states to automatically register all individuals on state and federal databases. This would include many ineligible voters, including aliens
- It would require states to allow 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds to register. Combined with a ban on voter ID, this would allow underage individuals to vote
- Require states to count ballots cast by voters outside of their assigned precincts, a recipe for election fraud
- Mandate no-fault absentee ballots, which are the tool of choice for vote thieves, force states to accept absentee ballots received up to 10 days after Election Day and force states allow ‘ballot harvesting’
- Prevent election officials from checking the eligibility and qualifications of voters and removing ineligible voters
- Ban state-voter ID laws by forcing states to allow individuals to vote without an ID and merely signing a statement in which they claim they are who they say they are
- Create vague and broad language that could be used to criminally charge someone who questions the eligibility of a voter
- Destroy the bipartisan composition of the Federal Election Commission and places a partisan majority in control of every aspect of our federal elections
- Require states to restore the ability of felons to vote the moment they are out of prison
- Force disclosure of names of Americans who donate to nonprofit organizations — thus subjecting them to political harassment
- Declare statehood for Washington DC to be ‘constitutional’ despite evidence it is not
- And finally, HR 1 would effectively ban nonprofits from contacting a member of Congress or their staff about pending legislation — a direct assault on the right of Americans to petition their government.
House minority leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy put together a short video explaining some of the other problems with the bill:
Democrats did not design #HR1 to protect your vote. They designed it to put a thumb on the scale of every election in America and keep the Swamp swampy. pic.twitter.com/Csyu9AX6Ce
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) March 3, 2021
Because Republicans are honorable enough (or stupid enough) to believe that election fraud is wrong, the bill is an election boondoggle for Democrats. It is they who are constantly trying to register everyone, from the newborn babe to the murderer to the irresponsible teen to the granddad who died decades ago. Having all those names on the voter rolls, and making them impossible to purge, creates huge vistas for fraud — something we saw happen in blue states that have already implemented many of these changes.
And allowing the election to extend indefinitely ensures that Democrats will always win. They’ll just see how many votes they need after Election Day and keep submitting more ballots. Eventually, in self-defense, Republicans will do the same. At that point, citizens can just stop voting at all, because elections will have devolved into battles between crooks rather than the voice of the people.
Contact your senators and make let them know that, in the interests of American democracy, you are completely opposed to steps that will weaken Americans’ ability to trust the integrity of their elections. It’s not just Republicans who should care. Democrats should, too.
In D.C., the continued presence of the National Guard shows that the Democrats are frightened. They fear that people who feel that they don’t have a truly representative government will make themselves heard by other means. If the Democrats continue with this mad plan to destroy voter integrity, they will become increasingly fearful of the American people. It creates a volatile situation when the government fears the people because the government knows that it has done wrong.
Via Zero Hedge
