by Hayden Ludwig
Last month, House Democrats reintroduced the “Freedom to Vote Act,” signaling the Left’s latest assault on American elections with activist support. Far from restoring their integrity, the bill – like the “For the People Act” and “John Lewis Voting Rights Act” before it – is a cynical measure designed to federalize elections and cement Democrat power for generations.
It’s raw, naked tyranny – and Republicans must defeat it.
Restoration News is the first conservative outlet to report on the 600-page legislation, which we’ve detailed below. This is the Left’s blueprint for destroying free elections. Will patriots let them?
Voter Registration
“Voter registration modernization” sounds both peachy and cutting-edge, and that’s the point. It’s a euphemism for the Left’s 13-year crusade to use mass voter registration to swamp Republican turnout in every election ‘til Doomsday, something we’ve documented here.
The bill proposes same-day voter registration nationwide, allowing individuals to register to vote all the way up to and on Election Day. In states without photo ID, such as New York, that’s a gap for non-citizens to register under a false name and address and cast a ballot – before officials ever have time to verify their registration. Would Democrats even care?
Also on the docket is automatic voter registration (AVR), effectively adding everyone with a heartbeat to state voter rolls. “Progressives” have lusted after AVR for years, and we know why: Left-wing nonprofits spent $434 million in 2020 alone registering new Democratic voters, something the Right gave up doing in the Bush era. AVR would use states to do that for them so activists could spend that fortune on get-out-the-vote instead.
In April, Restoration News reported on the Democrats’ stealth campaign to woo their newest constituency: felons. Now that effort has made it into the “Freedom to Vote Act” in a big way, with the word “felon” appearing 26 times across its pages.
In half the states, felons automatically lose their voting rights and, in some states, must apply to have them restored after serving out their sentence. It’s a tricky policy that conservatives have yet to fully weigh, but the Left is all-in for it – and even extending polling places to jails as well.
Then there are the 9.3 million Americans on federal housing assistance and a whopping 31 million Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgage holders; the bill would include voter registration as part of their application process. Why not? Biden already weaponized federal agencies to conduct – not merely offer – voter registration as part of their normal services in 2021, a grim first in our nation’s history.
Democrats are also eager to snatch up newly naturalized Americans by offering voter registration services as part of their naturalization ceremonies. They’re also coming for the kids – the bill would allow pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-olds, the first salvo in a bid to lower the voting age to 16. Don’t believe me? There are entire activist groups dedicated to this new “civil rights” issue, such as FairVote, the main group behind the ranked-choice voting scam. And in January, Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) introduced a bill to do exactly that.
Here’s the bottom line: It’s not our voter registration systems that are a mess, but our state voter rolls. The Left manufactured a “crisis” to support its long campaign for mass registration beginning in 2010.
The dead giveaway is in the bill’s opening lines: one in 10 black voters is supposedly “disenfranchised” in eight states (all Republican-run), and these racist “disparities” are “linked to the history of voter suppression … and ongoing effects of historical discrimination” in our country.
Naturally, solving this relic of Jim Crow requires adopting Soviet-style elections in which the winner is a foregone conclusion before the first ballot is cast.
Earlier Voting and Vote-by-Mail
Democrats want states to uniformly offer early voting at least 15 days before every election. Consider that many states offer shorter windows: Florida’s is 10 days, as is New York’s. Is a one-size-fits-all approach good for the democracy “progressives” say is under assault?
Early in-person voting is only meant to get the country closer to all-mail elections, as have been enacted in California, Vermont, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, D.C., Nevada, Hawaii and Utah. No wonder the bill mandates the purchase of drop boxes meant to hoover up mail-in ballots – effectively codifying their use after Mark Zuckerberg’s “Zuck bucks” purchased so many in the 2020 election via the Center for Tech and Civic Life.
The bill stipulates that election officials must begin tabulating mail-in ballots during the early voting period. Why? Because it also forces states to adopt no-excuse absentee balloting.
Many states (correctly) require first-time voters who register by mail to provide an ID, a reasonable measure meant to curb abuse and fraud. Democrats’ “Freedom to Vote Act” prohibits this measure – allowing individuals to register for an absentee ballot without first showing a photo ID or valid Social Security Number – while barring states from requiring a signature witness to cast an absentee ballot.
Ditto signature verification, the barest minimum for ensuring the verity of mail-in ballots – that’s illegal under the proposed legislation. But voters would be given ample opportunity to “cure” defects in their ballots, such as a missing signature. Does that make any sense?
It doesn’t have to. The objective is to generate as many mail-in ballots as possible, confusing voters and masking any mischief the Left deems necessary to defeat Republicans – even if that means counting for weeks after polls close. Why else require states to accept mail-in ballots postmarked on Election Day?
The Antidote
If this bill sounds like a reboot of the Democrats’ “For the People Act,” it essentially is. It even has many of the same endorsers, including the Brennan Center, Common Cause, Sentencing Project and the Center for American Progress. Go figure; these are the groups largely responsible for inventing the Left’s worst election “reforms.”
No one expects the “Freedom to Vote Act” to pass the Republican-controlled House. But it’s a declaration of just how radical the Democratic Party has become. If enacted, these policies would guarantee rigged elections forever. So kill the bill and make our position clear: Conservatives will tolerate no expanded mail-in ballots, no federal voter registration drives and no centralization of America’s elections.
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Hayden Ludwig is a contributor to American Greatness.
Photo “People Voting” by GPA Photo Archive. CC BY-NC 2.0.
