Despite establishment media handwringing over Republicans in state legislatures menacing democracy with an onslaught of “voter suppression” laws, more bills that expand access to the ballot box were adopted in the nation’s statehouses in 2021 than those that restrict it.
That pattern continues in 2022 as the 46 legislatures that convene this year—41 are in session right now—have more bills identified as expansive than those defined as restrictive on tap.
According to Voting Rights Lab, a left-leaning nonprofit that lobbies for voter rights at the state level, lawmakers in 17 states are now considering bills to broaden ballot access while counterparts in nine states are pondering restrictive measures. If adopted, most of the new laws would be in place for November’s mid-term elections.
These determinations reflect definitions established by the also left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University which, in a December analysis, said in 2021 there were 440 bills “with provisions that restrict voting” introduced in 49 states with 34 bills adopted in 19 states.
Also in 2021, Brennan Center reports, more than 1,000 bills with “expansive provisions” were introduced in 49 states with at least 62 bills adopted in 25 states.
The lack of this context is a frustrating disconnect for Republican lawmakers canvassed by The Epoch Times who are sponsoring 2022 bills classified as restrictive by Brennan Center and then echoed in mainstream media. This partisan fear-mongering, they maintain, is obscuring goodwill reviews of data gleaned from post-2020 analyses that identified flaws in state election laws.
“‘Voter suppression’ is a really dangerous catch-all claim that is code for ‘A bill I don’t like,’” Nebraska state Sen. Julie Slama (R) said. “I do believe that it is an awful narrative that will drive down turnout and confidence in elections” and is distracting lawmakers in many states from a sober review of state election laws.
Slama has filed at least two 2022 bills defined as restrictive. One would do away with Nebraska’s split Electoral College vote and make it “winner-take-all” like 48 other states; the other is a proposed constitutional amendment which lawmakers must approve and place on November’s ballot to ask voters if they want to end Nebraska’s status as the nation’s only one-chamber nonpartisan legislature.
“Ensuring all Nebraska voters have an equal say in who is going to represent their state” and asking voters to determine if they want to know party affiliations of legislative candidates is not voter suppression, she said.
Wisconsin state Sen. Duey Stroebel (R) is among sponsors of a package of bills that propose election law changes recommended to lawmakers by their Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB).
Wisconsin’s LAB is “a non-partisan entity, the gold standard in fair and non-partial analysis. They did their work” and identified “flaws in the system, ways election integrity was compromised in 2020 and needs some improvements. That is what this new slate of bills is about,” he said, noting every bill can be “traced back” to that analysis.
There is legitimate debate about the proposals, but noise over voter suppression and election sabotage won’t allow nonpartisan recognition of LAB’s findings, Stroebel said.
“I can’t comment about the national level. I can tell you in Wisconsin, when you raise elections integrity issues, the first thing that comes out of (Democrats’) mouths is ‘voter suppression’ and that becomes the narrative,” he said. “This is not some right-wing conspiracy.”
Among 2020 bills filed by Arizona Sen. Kelly Townsend (R) is a proposal to make Election Day a state holiday. “Here you have them saying we are trying to suppress the vote. How is making Election Day a holiday suppression?” she asked.
New Hampshire state Rep. Mark Alliegro (R) has filed a bill to require all ballots be hand-counted rather than by machine. The bill is opposed by the state’s municipalities that argue it would be costly and make election counts longer.
Alliegro has data-based rebuttals to those arguments but none to claims his measure is among a “tidal wave” of voter suppression bills sweeping the land.
“Here’s the thing: Whether you hand count or machine count originally, there is usually an undercount of a couple of tenths of a percent. In machine counts, the undercount is twice that amount. By definition, that means we are losing votes in machine-counted towns,” he said. “Where are all the people who are always screaming that every legal vote should count? This bill can be considered an anti-voter suppression bill.”
In the wake of the November 2020 election, there was, indeed, a massive 2021 slate of elections-related bills filed in state legislatures.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), more than 3,670 bills related to elections were filed during 2021 session in state legislatures, the District of Columbia and in three U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico.
But in the end, according to NCSL, only a fraction—285 bills in 42 states, and two territories—became law, with most regarded as procedural.
“On the heels of an election year unlike any other, it’s no surprise interest in elections peaked during the 2021 legislative session,” NCSL said in its analysis, noting while the number of introduced elections-related bills was “the highest number recorded since NCSL began tracking in 2001,” the number ultimately adopted is not unusual.
“Despite this groundswell of activity, the number of election enactments was consistent with other odd-numbered years,” NCSL said.
Voting Rights Lab tracked 2,776 elections-related 2021 bills through early December, noting 275 are now law in 45 states. Of those bills enacted, “109 are pro-voter, 47 are anti-voter, 27 are neutral and 92 are mixed or unclear,” it said.
Voting Rights Lab, which maintains a voting rights tracker, said 27 states enacted 2021 legislation expanding vote-by-mail access while 13 adopted legislation restricting it.
More than 96 million voters—40 percent of the nation’s electorate—live in states that expanded voting access in 2021, while about 55 million, 23 percent of the electorate, live in states that enacted restrictive legislation, it calculates.
Brennan Center identified 152 “restriction bills” filed in 2021 that will roll over to 2022 sessions in 18 of the 25 states that allow legislation to span both the first year of a biennium session (2021-22) and the second. By early December, it had charted 13 restrictive bills of 74 pre-filed bills addressing voting access and elections, with the remainder either expanding access or neutral.
“Most of the states where restrictive laws are likely this year also passed or attempted to pass similarly restrictive laws last year,” it forecast, noting 11 states enacted only restrictive laws while 17 states enacted only expansive laws.
That forecast appears accurate. In 2022, according to Voting Rights Lab, lawmakers in nine states are only deliberating restrictive bills while those in 17 only have expansive measures on their dockets.
“As a result, there is a stark and growing divide in the nation, where access to the right to vote increasingly depends on the state in which a voter happens to reside,” Brennan Center states.
Contrary to the voter impression mantra by the Democrats, election laws in blue states make it harder to vote than deep-red states, according to Jason Snead, the executive director of True, Honest Elections Project.
“Red states offer more early voting, more ‘no excuse’ absentee voting. When you look at the laws (blue states) have on the books, it is immediately apparent that deep red states make it easier to vote than deep blue bastions like New York and Joe Biden’s home state, Delaware,” said Snead, whose group works with Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in crafting model elections integrity bills carried by state lawmakers nationwide.
“The narrative that these (red) states are trying to suppress the vote is off the mark; the facts say otherwise,” he said. “I think the narrative has become deliberately misleading” and could backfire when voters see Democrats resisting efforts to shore-up issues in elections laws that polls show a vast majority nationwide support.
“Maybe we need to change the narrative,” Arizona’s Townsend said. “The Left calls it ‘voter suppression.’ We call it ‘cheater suppression.’”
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