Readers of my daily posts know that I've heavily sampled Southern historian Brion McClanahan's content. McClanahan is not a libertarian (he and I have some differences of opinion); I would call him more of s traditional Southern Democrat in the Jeffersonian tradition. His podcast's underlying theme is: "think locally, act locally". He and I have an overriding principle of decentralization, something I reference to the old Catholic principle of subsidiarity He is particularly focused on individual state authority to the point he opposes SCOTUS' incorporation doctrine via the due process clause of the 14th Amendment whereby states, regardless of their own constitutions, must uphold basic federal constitutional rights, i.e., a subset of the Bill of Rights.
A related, relevant discussion is the constitutionally shared responsibility for elections. Federal officeholders are included on state/local ballots. In essence, the federal government is vested to ensure, e.g., states don't meddle with eligibility standards for federal office candidates, hold timely elections consistent with federal terms of office, etc. Clearly states cannot discriminate among prospective eligible voters.
Now as to the timing of the various red states' recent voting reform laws relative to Trump's reelection campaign loss, I can't discuss, but I do know election reform has been sought in prior state legislature sessions. I do think last year's elections took place in a pandemic, when especially Democrats were in a state of panic, regarding polling places as COVID-19 super-spreader events. I knew and printed at the time that polling places were certainly no more dangerous than, say, visiting a supermarket, which almost everyone was doing. There were some concerns about potential chain of custody issues (e.g., ballot harvesting), not to mention mailed ballot verification procedures getting short-shrifted, adequate staffing for expanded polling hours, including early voting, being able to monitor and secure ballot boxes, as an alternative to potential USPS delivery bottlenecks. Given the nature and extent of largely untested election accommodations last fall, I think it's only natural there would be an election security pushback; whether or not Trump's frivolous election challenges also served to motivate red state legislatures, I can't say. It may have been a factor, given Trump's continuing high approval among GOP voters.
It is very clear that Democrats have a vested interest in locking in liberalized voting procedures, which they think had a net positive effect on their support in last November's election results and are popular with their base. They want to play the game on their rules and try to turn the tables on the GOP opposition, daring them to prove fraud linked to liberalized election practices. First of all, just because fraud has been difficult to document/prove doesn't imply it didn't happen. Second, there are legitimate chain of custody and ballot validation issues that can and likely be exploited without improved security.
I have to admit I myself participated in Maryland's mail ballot alternative last fall; I think over my adult life I've only cast one or 2 absentee ballots and not for a Presidential election. Sure, convenience last fall was a factor, but part of it was a way of publicly rebuking Trump's utter opposition to it. I had already revealed I was supporting Jorgensen for POTUS, so I didn't have a dog in the Dem/Trump standoff. I am also sympathetic to Don Boudreaux's opposition to voting as an implicit acceptance of Big Government. Trump and the GOP Congress under him were just as Big Government as the Dems. He piled up almost $7T of debt, nearly a third over the accumulated debt through Obama.
The oxymoron "For the People Act" is a self-serving, unconstitutional Dem power grab. I'm not going to simply regurgitate George Will's relevant essay here. Will points out the POTUS tax-reporting requirement would constitute an expansion of constitutional POTUS eligibility criteria (requiring an amendment). The bill's regulations on dark money violate the First Amendment. Given the default responsibility of the state in setting time, places and manners of election, to what extent can the feds intervene to overrule say fraud prevention tactics like voter ID, mandate early voting days/hours, /dictate extended mailed ballot collection periods? I'm not a lawyer by training, but it seems to me that it's difficult to argue it's a shared responsibility if Congress dictates election policy. I could understand if Congress required a minimal baseline election fraud policy, but not to dictate state/local specifics, which would violate the overriding principle of .federalism. I would argue election policy is generally exercised historically by the state by the Tenth Amendment and short of explicit discrimination by the state, they have the right to make policy.
The "jump the shark" moment for me on the issue was a trend yesterday on Twitter, when VP Kamala Harris started a trend on Kinko's. What the hell was that about? Long story short, apparently one or more states requires mail ballot voters to submit a copy of their voter card as a security measure. So Ms. Harris was arguing that it was an unjustifiable burden on rural voters, who may not have access to a local Kinko's to get a copy made.
Seriously, dude? I quickly published a mocking tweet, pointing out that technology had changed since I last taught college over 2 decades past and required students to pick up assigned readings at Kinko's. You can make simple copies from flatbed scanner printers that cost under $100 from Walmart or Amazon. I noted I could use one from my small WV town back in 2014. Even if you didn't want to buy a computer printer, as others pointed out, there are libraries, and I know some USPS branches have coin-operated copiers. Here are some other ideas. I also would be willing to bet you could go to your local election office and provide your ID in person, and they could make a copy if needed. But keep in mind none of this prevents you from voting in person. But are you really going to justify nationalizing the American election system over photocopies?
Don't get me wrong. Dealing with petty paperwork can be annoying. I think I had to make a copy of my passport photo page at the facility library for some post paperwork a few years back. In WV, when I tried to register my car in the state, they rejected the copy of my local apartment lease for some petty missing detail from the lease (I don't recall if it was something like apartment office hours, the landlady's contact number or other trivial detail.) So I had to drive 52 or so miles roundtrip to get the landlady to annotate the lease. The point was the DMV made my life miserable over something nitpicky that had nothing to do with establishing state residency. The point is that I complied even at the expense of my personal convenience.
The charges of "voter suppression" though are histrionic rubbish. The election policies apply the same uniformly, e.g., I am subjected to the same policies as a person of color. Maybe I have a car to drive me to the polling place and others might need a ride or take a bus or whatever. But once we're in the same line, we are treated the same.
