Ross: The bill Republicans find even more terrifying than COVID relief
Mar 11, 2021, 6:33 AM | Updated: 10:23 am
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the Democratic Caucus gather to address reporters on H.R. 1. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
All the news this week has been about the COVID relief bill, but there’s another bill that some Republicans find even more terrifying: HR 1, the election reform bill Democrats pushed through the House, and which will soon be up for debate in the Senate.
And the part of HR 1 that seems to be particularly terrifying for Republicans is this one: automatic voter registration.
This would mean that if you’re a citizen age 18 or over, and there’s a record of your citizenship for purposes of getting an enhanced driver’s license, or attending a public university, or getting federal benefits of some kind, you would be automatically registered to vote, unless you opt out.
The idea is that since you’re alive, and you’re of age, and you’re a citizen, and we already have proof of that – why should you have to fill out more paperwork to exercise your right to mark a ballot?
To which the critics say: “How dare you register voters without their express consent?”
But … why not? It works! In states with automatic registration, the number of qualified registered voters took a big jump. In Georgia, the numbers almost doubled.
So, why the opposition? Privacy? The government already has the data, so it can’t be about that. In fact, in states that insist on voters showing ID, that’s the data they use to make sure you’re legit.
I would say there is no reason to oppose this … except to make it unnecessarily inconvenient to vote.
There is this idea going around that Republicans believe they can’t win if too many people are allowed to vote.
That’s a terrible slander. It would mean that today’s Republicans are trying to do what yesterday’s Democrats did back in bad old days – win elections by canceling certain groups of voters.
If we’re worried about fraud – people voting twice, or three times, or four times, that problem we can solve.
But this idea of trying to stop qualified citizens from voting even once? That was supposed to stop in 1965.
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