In Colorado, the results of Democrats valuing election “turnout” over electoral honesty — or even common sense — are becoming clear.
Among the many mindless laws passed on party-line votes during Colorado’s recent hyper-partisan legislative session — both chambers of the legislature being controlled by Democrats — is HB-1303, the “Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act.” The Act is a poorly considered measure designed to maximize Democrats’ advantage in elections, not least by maximizing the potential for voter fraud — which Democrats have proven far more adept at than Republicans for at least two generations.
HB-1303 was passed not only without a single Republican vote (on an issue that one would not assume should necessarily be partisan) but also without input from Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, whose office is responsible for ensuring an honest and efficient election process. Supporters of the bill claim that county election clerks widely supported the bill, but Wayne Williams, the Clerk and Recorder of El Paso County (the state’s most populous county) voiced a strong objection, later adding that “there is no way to run a check through federal immigration or a felon database on election day.”
Judge Robert McGahey, in his ruling in favor of a Libertarian Party challenge to part of the ongoing recalls of two state senators (one of whom was the senate sponsor of the election “reform” bill), used the politest term possible in describing HB-1303 as “flawed.” But that doesn’t begin to describe the horror that passes for election “reform” where Democrats are concerned — and not only in the Centennial State.
It’s not just about confused thinking, such as requiring mail-in voting in recall elections despite a state constitutional right to candidate ballot access up to 15 days before the election — which makes mail-in ballot delivery somewhere between impractical and impossible, especially for overseas absentee and military voters.
Instead, the law seems aimed at enabling manipulation and fraud.
The worst provision in HB-1303 allows for same-day voter registration, an open invitation for multiple-voting and non-citizen (whether of the state or of the country) voting, as well as voting by felons — an effect that, whether intentional or not, must trump any potential increase in election participation. Furthermore, the perception of unfair voting is nearly as damaging to the electoral system as its reality; politicians and bureaucrats alike should emphasize election propriety above participation as the former will inevitably encourage the latter.
Republican State Senator Greg Brophy described the measure as turning us “into a banana republic” while Senator Kevin Lundberg said, “The proper title for this bill is ‘Same-Day Voters’ Fraud Act.’” These are especially true given that Colorado’s legal definition of “identification” when it comes to voting includes “a copy of a current utility bill (or) bank statement…”
The law requires mail-in voting, a system that itself is ripe for fraud because of the impossibility of having adequately accurate voting rolls. It will encourage the selling of ballots or the use of multiple ballots by a single voter whose other household members are apathetic or absent.
In a related vein, the law makes it more difficult to remove “inactive” voters from the rolls, increasing the chance that a ballot will be cast by someone other than the intended Coloradoan. If you are skeptical at the chances of this happening, note that many states, including Colorado, Utah, Illinois, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Ohio, have counties with more registered voters than residents. Yet in every case Democrats oppose scrubbing the rolls of ineligible (including dead and otherwise non-existent) voters because every extra ballot is an opportunity to steal an election.
The law allows the registration of 16-year-old children by high schools’ deputy registrars (though the kids still cannot vote until the age of 18). Democrats realize that mushy-headed high school students, desperately seeking acceptance by their peers and teachers alike, a disproportionate share of whom will be outspoken liberals due to the naivety of youth and the self-serving nature of those receiving government paychecks, will likely register as Democrats. Given that people tend in adulthood to remain supporters of the teams of their youth, whether in politics or in sports, roping in children is clever Democrat strategery but at least it is not an open invitation to fraud.
Much the same way that Obamacare destroys the health insurance system for the vast majority of Americans in order to address an overstated problem for some, Colorado Democrats’ election “reform” law was a solution in search of a problem.
At 70.3 percent, Colorado had the third-highest voter turnout rate in the 2012 elections, far above the national average of 58.2 percent. It strains belief that far more than 70 percent of voters actually want to participate; it does not strain belief that Democrat-supporting unions, lackeys, and other economic parasites will use every tactic, regardless of legality, to try to hijack elections. The combination of mail-in elections and same-day registration (though a same-day voter will obviously not vote by mail) poses unnecessary and large risks to elections with little value added to our democratic process.
Again showing the sad partisanship of voting law, the state of North Carolina, now controlled by Republicans, just passed its own election reforms that include ending same-day registration and limiting early voting (while expanding the hours and locations where early voting is accommodated).
But where North Carolina has Democrats in a full froth is their new, and utterly sensible, requirement to present a state-issued photo ID in order to vote. Voter ID is an issue that Democrats have somehow been able to oppose, without a shred of evidence, as a racist attempt at suppressing minority votes, without being laughed out of town halls across the country. As the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky noted regarding a challenge to Georgia’s Voter ID law, the trial judge concluded that “the fact that Plaintiffs, in spite of their efforts, have failed to uncover anyone ‘who can attest to the fact that he/she will be prevented from voting’ provides significant support for a conclusion that the photo ID requirement does not unduly burden the right to vote.”
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