Source: The Wall Street Journal (behind paywall).
WSJ’s editors comment on the For the People Act:
These columns have reported some of H.R.1’s flaws already, but Ms. Huseman points out two hilarious provisions we hadn’t explored. The bill requires states to offer voter registration via “an automated telephone-based system.” She calls this “a wild, almost certainly nonsecure idea that no state currently uses and that election officials are baffled by.” Some of her sources suggest it was added to the bill at the demand of disability advocates.
H.R.1 also tells states to accompany mail ballots and applications with “a self-sealing return envelope.” Ms. Huseman: “These envelopes are about 30 percent more expensive than the envelopes currently in use for ballots, and their glue gums up the USPS’s machines—making voting more expensive and less efficient. It’s not clear what would justify such a change, as even the most disadvantaged voters have access to their own spit.”
The same question holds for the rest of H.R.1. What justifies ordering states to count mail ballots that show up 10 days after the election? Or letting paid operatives go door to door collecting unlimited absentee votes, as long as they aren’t working on commission? Or forcing local election staff to juggle two sets of rules, with some voters eligible for federal elections only?
Fifty states have their own voting laws, and it makes no sense to micromanage them all from Congress, down to the glue on the envelopes. Democrats have dumped H.R.1 on the public as a half-baked brainstorm because they’re in a rush to rig the rules to their advantage.
I don’t wish to be overly dramatic, but frivolities such as this probably signal the coming end of our Republic.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
“I don’t wish to be overly dramatic. . .”
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This is all gerrymandering on an epic scale, including DC, to gain advantage before 2022. Of course our resident lefties try to call it making things “competitive” until someone like Len lets the cat out of the bag that DC statehood is really only intended to gain Democrat seats in Congress.
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…”only intended to gain Democrat seats in Congress.”
If Republicans had some policies instead of being the Party of NO, maybe those newly enfranchised voters would vote for them
You also ignore the fact that the voting percentages in communities similar to DC and PR went UP for the GOP, including for the former president.
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I’m guessing you think Democrat Senate majority leaders don’t sit on all bills from a Republican house (Party of NO)? Harry Reid sitting on bills ring a bell? Nope, it’s trying to add Democrat seats by shiftless Democrats otherwise you would agree to these people going back to Maryland where they would be “enfranchised”.
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Never said Reid didn’t. McConnel turned it into an art form.
You calling Democrats shiftless would be funny if I didn’t think you actually believed that Republicans are as shifty.
Get outta your bubble, Mr. Smith. You might be surprised how refreshing the air is. (But I doubt it.)
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The uproar from the GOP and the right wing media gadflies proves that Republicans believe the only way to win elections is to suppress votes and gerrymander districts to dilute votes of left leaning voters. Win ALL eligible people exercise their Constitutionally guaranteed right to vote, the GOP no longer has policies to vote for. The party of NO wages the culture wars that they accuse Democrats of doing.
The 2020 GOP platform was basically a repeat of 2016, with the caveat “whatever T**** says is fine by us”.
And Mr. Smith, it isn’t about being competitive; it is about ensuring citizens rights are not violated. Which is something another poster mentioned on a different thread the other day accusing Democrats of doing. Funny how some people are more concerned about a little inconvenience in gun ownership than in then ensuring rights that more people would like to have protected.
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Aside from being an invitation tp, and cover for, cheating, it is unconstitutional.
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Aside from the fact you think it is an invitation and cover for cheating which gerrymandering and voter suppression REALLY IS, I think you are correct on the constitutionality point.
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I will leave the Constitutionality of HR1 question to the experts of which you are not one, but will only note that certain states – such as Georgia – invite a greater degree of federal intervention in their elections when they enact racist laws such as Georgia did the other day. Maybe it is a matter for the courts kind of like NC’s racist Gerrymandering, but there is no non-racist reason to end “souls to the polls” which is the intended effect of removing Sundays from the days on which ballots can be cast.
And just how does making it a crime to provide drinking water to people stuck in long lines make our elections more secure? Has there ever been a more petty and vindictive act by a political party?
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“Has there ever been a more petty and vindictive act by a political party?”
Not yet. But the GOP controlled legislatures aren’t done yet.
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The method of conducting their elections in Georgia is left to the Georgians by the Constitution, limited only by actual discrimination, not by imagined disparate impact of simple requirements like ID
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Like I said, it may well be a matter for the courts. But there is an enormous hole in your categorical opinion about what is “Constitutional” with regard to federal laws about election practices. Here is the full text of the 15th Amendment . . .
“Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
What you call the “imagined disparate impacts of simple requirements” have been deliberately and systematically chosen for their REAL disparate impacts by the racists running the government in Georgia. You can check your common sense at the door, if you must, but it is very clear what these laws are about. The legislation to end “souls to the polls” could not be more clear in its racist intent.
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At least with regard to the Presidential election, it is entirely up to the states, within the limits of the 14th and 15th amendments.
“Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors,”
They don’t even have to hold an election at all. They could appoint them by the legislature or flip a coin.
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You are very quick to throw out cries of “Unconstitutional!” and are unmoved by the very simple. very clear language of the Fifteenth Amendment. And, laughably, you claim to be some sort of “originalist.” Here, read this sentence again and try a little harder to understand it . . .
“The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
If, as a matter of fact, the Georgia legislature were to “abridge” the votes of its African-American citizens by overturning the results of an election, they would face a very well founded Constitutional challenge and in such a challenge – as we saw in the NC Gerrymandering case – the racist wink, wink, nudge, nudge bullshit about “election integrity” would not fly.
We are a Constitutional Republic AND a Representative Democracy. You people need stop your wink, wink, nudge, nudge voter suppression and get used to it. Maybe, try to come up with things that you can sell in that “marketplace of ideas” you are always going on about?
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If it were inly ID requirements, you would have a point. But the GA law signed by the governor, in a room full of white only legislators, not in a public ceremony, under a picture of a plantation is quite telling. A representative was arrested for knocking on the door to ask Kemp why he wouldn’t sign it in public.
The whole scenario drips of discrimination
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Like all bills from the House, the Senate needs to put in their changes. This means that Republicans can sit down and get serious about negotiating.
Make voting easy and universal. Get rid of gerrymandering. Simple.
Preventing water to people in line, closing polls early in the faces of working Americans…I mean WTF!
As noted, if the GOP has the good ideas, why restrict voters.
We know that fraud by voters was virtually non-existent. Why punish them because the GOP can’t sell their product?
Shameful.
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RE: “Make voting easy and universal. Get rid of gerrymandering. Simple.”
Not really. We could, for example, allow people in China to vote in U.S. federal elections. Why not? They are stakeholders in the outcome.
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Your asinine comment is noted with the unspoken mockery it deserves.
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