Republican States Secure Elections From Eligible Voters

Republican lawmakers have achieved a major breakthrough in election security by protecting ballots from the most persistent threat to representative government: eligible American voters attempting to cast them. More than three dozen new voting laws are taking effect across the country, many reflecting President Donald Trump’s longstanding belief that democracy works best when participation is treated as suspicious activity. New Hampshire students face tighter identification rules, Utah mail voters must supply additional envelope information, and some Mississippi voters may need passports or birth certificates, documents routinely carried by every elderly, rural, low-income and recently married citizen during ordinary errands.

The measures confront the grave possibility that elections could be decided by the people who live in the country, rather than by the smaller, more responsible group able to complete a bureaucratic obstacle course designed by partisan legislators. “We have made voting so secure that many people will never get close enough to a ballot to hurt it,” Trump said. “That is tremendous access, maybe the greatest access ever, because the right people can vote and everybody else can enjoy looking for a birth certificate.” Supporters said the restrictions remain necessary because Trump continues to allege widespread fraud in the 2020 election, a claim investigated so extensively that its complete lack of evidence now serves as the evidence no investigator was clever enough to find.

Election officials emphasized that voting remains simple. Citizens need only locate original documents, reconcile name changes, obtain approved identification, learn revised deadlines, complete additional forms without error, find the correct polling place and arrive during the authorized window while avoiding work, illness, transportation problems and other forms of electoral misconduct. Voters who fail any step may still participate in democracy by watching elected officials explain that their inability to vote proves the safeguards worked. Under the improved system, every eligible citizen retains the right to vote, provided that Republican lawmakers are unable to stop them.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.