If You Thought the 2020 Elections Were Chaotic, Just Wait
by J. Christian Adams • February 8, 2021 at 5:00 am
H.R.1 packs into one 791-page bill every bad idea about how to run elections and mandates that the states must adopt the very things that made the election of 2020 such a mess. It includes all of the greatest hits of 2020: Mandatory mail ballots, ballots without postmarks, late ballots, voting in precincts where you do not live.... The Senate companion bill, S.1, might be even worse.
In 2020, states such as Nevada and New Jersey sent ballots through the mail to anyone on their registration lists despite having voter rolls full of errors. The Public Interest Legal Foundation documented thousands of ineligible registrations in Nevada alone that received mail ballots. Some were sent to vacant lots, abandoned mines, casinos and even liquor stores.
States also would be blocked by H.R.1 from signature verification procedures.
H.R.1 rigs the system for any lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the law. All lawsuits can only be filed in one court -- federal court in the District of Columbia. And all opposition must be consolidated into one brief with only one attorney being able to argue the merits.
There is a federal mandate, passed in the 19th Century, to have one single election day.... Like Obamacare earlier, H.R.1 transitions our federalist Republic to some other brave new system that purports to right generations of structural wrongs, while at the same time entrenching other wrongs.
H.R.1 packs into one 791-page bill every bad idea about how to run elections and mandates that the states must adopt -- the very things that made the election of 2020 such a mess. It includes all of the greatest hits of 2020: Mandatory mail ballots, ballots without postmarks, late ballots and voting in precincts where you don't live. It includes so many bad ideas that no publication has satisfactory space to cover all of them. The Senate companion bill, S.1, might be even worse.
