I was thinking of the 2020 elections when I wrote that. I’m more than willing to accede to evidence that’s it’s not generally true.
I think that what I wrote is the Republican argument, though. And going the other way, if Republican “ballot security” measures actually target methods preferred by Republican-leaning groups, how is that voter suppression by Republicans?
Going back to another point upthread, I also think the idea that a political party wouldn’t have a vested interest in free and fair elections, and that they can’t demonstrate harm from ballot fraud and election-rigging because they could just counter-cheat is not really a reasonable counter-argument.
And just to re-emphasize, I personally don’t buy the Republican arguments. I think they’re bad. I just don’t think they’re public admissions of voter suppression.
Hey- I’m not arguing about whether it makes sense, I’m just paraphrasing what they’re trying to say in order to show they have standing to bring the case.
Of course a political party would have an interest in free and fair elections - every political party should. And I guess if the limited argument made by the GOP is something like: “these laws prevent possible fraud, and that fraud could impact our party because any ineligible vote dilutes the power of all other votes”, I would probably buy it.
Ultimately I agree that the OP’s quote is a bit of a misdirection, since it just speaks to why the GOP has an interest in the outcome of the law. Since really the only purpose of a party is to win elections its only possible interest as a party is if the laws impact their ability to win elections.
The merits of the case itself are more interesting, since it will give us some idea how far laws being proposed in other states (GA in particular) can go without running afoul of the VRA. Also the fact that some justices (including the conservative ones) seemed to express the opinion that the history of the state in question with respect to voting rights is relevant. So a state like Georgia could be held to a different standard than Arizona.
I’m not sure why some of the justices seemed to focus on how long the rules had been in place. I find the “must vote in your own precinct” rule the more objectionable one since it’s purpose has been completely overcome by technology. I no longer have to vote in my own precinct since the registration rolls are all connected and my ballot is printed when I show up. It’s now just a pointless barrier, particularly to voters who may work near a more convenient precinct than the one they live in.
“Ballot harvesting” laws are more defensible, IMO, since they are more obviously ripe for larger-scale fraud.
The “ballot harvesting” provisions are more interesting, If only because there is a recent concrete example, which is sort of inconvenient for both sides.
A tight race in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District in 2018 was overturned due to actual, real life, proved-in-court election fraud through a ballot harvesting operation. But it was a Republican operative who cheated. Neither Republican ballot security advocates nor Democratic voter-suppression opponents really seem keen to discuss the case. For Republicans, it doesn’t exactly support their narrative that Democrats are exploiting ballot harvesting schemes to rig elections. For Democrats, it kind of counters arguments that “ballot harvesting” operations aren’t a significant risk for election fraud and laws against them must therefore be voter-suppression measures and not genuine election security measures.
I don’t know that that is an unfair assumption on one of those sides.
We do have proof that the motive of the Republicans is to decrease the number of voters, specifically Democratic voters, and often along racial lines in order to achieve that effect.
On the other side, there is no proof or evidence of any sort that the Democrats want ineligible people to vote, or that they want people to vote more than once or out of their precinct. The only proof we have of Democrat’s motives is that they want more eligible people to vote.
I think you need to add the word “some” to this sentence. Some Republicans want to do that. But I’m not sure it’s fair to conclude that all do. Particularly when you add the racial component to it.
I’m not saying that stricter voter laws are good; in fact I strongly oppose almost all of them. I’m just saying it’s very hard to convince someone that a law banning ballot harvesting is bad policy if you start from the position of “any attempt to validate voter identity is racist”.
Interesting tactic that they have taken. “Of course voter fraud is a problem, look at how much we engage in it!”
I feel that that is an unnecessary qualifier when the Republicans who are in power have succeeded in doing so. It is the actual policy and effect that they have implemented. I’m not interested in playing a game of “Not all Republicans.”
But that’s not the position that I started from, and it’s not even close to anything that I have said.
OK. I’m just reporting on conversations I’ve had. They are largely with Democrats, actually, many of whom find the idea that a voter ID law or requiring notarization of absentee ballots is racist or even racially biased crazy. It takes some doing to get into the background of how these laws have disparate impacts, etc.
Correct. I did not mean to attribute that quote to you. My apologies.
Yep: Arizona’s Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, meanwhile, suggested in his brief that states that wish to disenfranchise voters of color may take advantage of existing demographic disparities to target racial minorities, so long as the state does not create those disparities. As Brnovich argued, the restriction on out-of-precinct voting should be upheld because “the fact that a ballot cast by a voter outside of his or her assigned precinct is discarded does not cause minorities to vote out-of-precinct disproportionately.”
Taken to its logical extreme, this proposed rule could permit truly outlandish attempts to restrict voting. Suppose that Arizona had passed a law limiting the franchise to country music fans, on the theory that white voters are more likely to listen to country music than voters of color. Under Brnovich’s standard, that law might not violate the Voting Rights Act’s protections against race discrimination because the state did not cause non-white voters to prefer other genres of music.
Let me run that by you all again "…that states that wish to disenfranchise voters of color may take advantage of existing demographic disparities to target racial minorities,…"
Democrats don’t think it’s “self-evident” that no widespread ballot fraud is taking place. We base that belief on the unanimous consensus of election officials and observers across America. In other words, we are basing our beliefs on EVIDENCE.
This is not equivalent to what Republicans are doing, which is basically claiming without evidence that fraud exists, and pointing to the failure of any such fraud to be discovered as evidence that a conspiracy is covering it up.
Well, gdave posted one above. Every significant case I’m aware of in the last few years has been related to individuals transporting or possessing ballots that weren’t theirs. As far as I know individuals posing as other individuals or showing up in multiple precincts just doesn’t happen in numbers sufficient to change a result.
But I’m also working at it logically. If you want to produce fraud significant enough to change an election result, particularly a state-wide one, you need lots of ballots. In theory I guess you could do that by printing out mail-in ballots and filling them in, but there’s pretty high risk there because those voters may also send in ballots or vote in-person. Which pretty much leaves you with collecting the ballots and either changing them or encouraging voters to fill in a ballot in a particular way.
I seem to recall there have a been a few cases where family members filled out ballots for others without their knowledge and sent them in. But that’s pretty small potatoes, and would likely ensnare many valid ballots to be worth making illegal.
I can dig up cites if you’d like, but here are the two I’m aware of:
But ballot harvesting was already illegal in North Carolina, so it seems questionable to assert that this fraud demonstrates a need for laws against ballot harvesting. Rather, it seems to demonstrate that Republicans will break the law in order to steal elections.
I don’t quite follow. It is an actual case of election fraud through ballot harvesting that threw an actual election. How is that not evidence for the need for laws to forbid ballot harvesting? Again, I’m not defending the Arizona laws in question, but the Republican argument is that ballot harvesting is ripe for fraud and abuse, and that’s an actual, proved-in-a-court-of-law case of fraud and abuse through ballot harvesting.
Here’s the thing: I pretty much agree with that. (Pretty much - no evidence of widespread fraud - but again, take a look at that 2018 NC District 9 race - election fraud does occasionally happen, even if it’s not nearly as ubiquitous as many Republicans seem to think).
But, I honestly think that a lot of Republicans, including a lot of the legislators who are voting for “ballot security” measures, honestly think that widespread fraud is taking place. Or at least that the potential is so great that it’s only common sense to act as if it’s a near-certainty.
And I think a lot of Democrats (witness this thread) find it just as self-evident that supposed concerns over election security are transparent excuses for disenfranchising legitimate voters.
Look, the primary use of it is for things like old folks homes, where people take the ballots in. In most cases a receipt must be given and a third party witness.
Legal ballot harvesting has not been a issue. It allows those who are simply unable to go to the polls a chance to vote.
Unless you think that the elderly and disabled should be allowed to vote?
Yeah, I’m still not following. That seems like saying if someone is arrested for murder, that shows that laws against murder aren’t necessary, because murder is already illegal. Also, that seems like saying that because someone was arrested for murder in North Carolina, where it’s already illegal, it’s not necessary for Arizona to pass laws against murder.
Again, I’m NOT arguing in favor of the Arizona provisions in question. I think you actually understate the case there. A specific issue brought up by the DNC is that many residents of Indian Reservations (of which there a significant number in Arizona) don’t have mailboxes, and the nearest mail drop location is an hour or more away by car, which many of those Reservation residents don’t own, so even voting by mail, much less in-person voting at a polling site, can pose nearly insurmountable obstacles without volunteers who distribute blank ballots and collect filled ballots in remote areas. I think that’s an excellent argument that a blanket ban on “ballot harvesting” violates Section 2 of the VRA.
I just don’t see the “public admission” of deliberate, intentional “voter suppression…just to win elections” in Mr. Carvin’s arguments before the Supreme Court that you do.
That’s the Vox writer’s statement, not something that AG Brnovich actually argued. The Vox writer, Ian Millhiser, is saying that’s the logical extension of AG Brnovich’s arguments.
If you actually read the brief linked in that article, what AG Brnovich is actually arguing is that the out-of-precinct provision in AZ law that the DNC is challenging 1) doesn’t actually disproportionately harm minority voters, and 2) even if it did, a disproportionate impact in and of itself shouldn’t be considered a disqualifying factor under Section 2 of the VRA because state action isn’t creating the underlying factors which result in a disproportionate impact.
Nowhere in his brief does AG Brnovich claim that states should be able to disenfranchise voters of color by taking advantage of existing demographic disparities. Again, that’s Ian Millhiser’s conclusion of what could happen if the Supreme Court accepts AG Brnovich’s arguments.
Voting restrictions are very classist. They will always disproportionately affect those of more marginalized populations. In many areas, those marginalized populations are also minorities. They very frequently line up along party lines as well, which is the whole point.
I don’t think that Republicans create voting restrictions with the intent of making them racially biased. They make them with the intent of making them politically biased, and that tends to also come out in a racially biased way.
To my knowledge there is pretty much widespread agreement about this in the specific case of the 2020 presidential election. I’m not aware of “the unanimous consensus of election officials and observers across America” that there is no widespread ballot fraud taking place in any elections anywhere.