Every single Democrat in Congress has voted against three simple, common-sense, effective reforms that are supported by more than 80 percent of voters.
Require ID, update voter rolls, and count only votes received by Election Day.
C ontrary to the dominant media narrative, election reform is shaping up to be a winning issue for Republicans in 2022. That’s because every single Democrat in Congress has voted against three simple, commonsense, effective reforms that are supported by more than 80 percent of voters.
The most talked-about reform is a requirement for all voters to show photo ID before casting a ballot. In my October 25–27 survey, 85 percent of all voters favored that reform. Strong support was found among all measured demographic groups. Yet all the congressional Democrats supported the so-called For the People Act, which would have effectively banned photo-ID requirements.
Advocates of the legislation denied that reality and claimed that the bill would not technically ban photo-ID requirements because it provided a workaround for people without photo IDs. The workaround would allow people without a photo ID to vote by providing a sworn, written statement to an election official stating that they are eligible to vote. Voters aren’t buying it. Only 19 percent consider that an acceptable substitute, while 73 percent disagree.
Another winner for the GOP: Eighty-eight percent of voters support a requirement for states to remove from voter-registration lists people who have died or moved. But the For the People Act would prevent states from cleaning the voter lists in the six months prior to any election. To most voters, cleaning the lists is another commonsense reform that shouldn’t be all that difficult in the 21st century.
One strongly supported reform that has received little attention is requiring all ballots to be received by Election Day. It’s hard to know how much of this was influenced by the ongoing and messy long counts in 2020, but 82 percent of voters favor this requirement. Many voters have likely heard coaches and athletes saying they didn’t really lose a game; they simply ran out of time. That may be a good rationalization for a sports star, but it’s not the way voters think elections should be conducted. In fact, voters inherently feel that it’s not Election Month or Election Week but Election Day, and they believe the election should end when that day arrives.
Once again, this extraordinarily popular and reasonable reform would be outlawed by the legislation promoted by Democrats in Congress. The For the People Act would force states to accept ballots up to 15 days after the election had ended.
Again, every Democrat in Congress is on record voting against these effective and extremely popular forms of voter protection — requiring photo ID to vote, cleaning up voter rolls, and making sure ballots are returned to election officials by Election Day.
A possible reason for this is because Democrats may be misunderstanding the desire for and importance of electoral reform. It’s not just about what happened in 2020; it’s a discontent and distrust that has been brewing for decades.
During the 1990s, roughly half of voters believed that elections were fair to voters. With Bill Clinton in the White House, Democrats overwhelmingly believed that elections were fair, while other voters weren’t so sure. When George W. Bush moved into the White House, the partisan perceptions flipped: GOP voters thought elections were fair while Democrats had their doubts. The top-line number remained unchanged, with roughly half of all voters perceiving the process as fair to voters.
Since then, of course, the skepticism and tension have risen dramatically. Five years after the 2016 election, most Democratic voters still believe that Hillary Clinton was the legitimate winner that year. That belief was fueled by a “dossier” funded by the Clinton campaign alleging collusion between President Trump and the Russian government.
In 2020, of course, President Trump actively disputed the election results, and most Republicans continue to believe he was the legitimate winner rather than Joe Biden. The overwhelming majority of these voters do not approve of the January 6 assault on the Capitol, but they do want to restore confidence in the election process.
I recognize that most GOP voters will roll their eyes in disbelief at the voters who still believe Clinton really won in 2016. And I also recognize that most Democratic voters will roll their eyes in disbelief at the voters who still believe that Trump really won in 2020. For both sides, the suggestion that they are like the other is offensive.
But the fact remains that only about one out of four voters believes that the proper winner was declared president in both 2016 and 2020. That reality — the lack of confidence in elections — represents a serious threat to democracy.
Overall, just 58 percent of voters today are confident that American elections are conducted in a manner that ensures that all votes are counted and the proper winners are declared. Just 31 percent are very confident.
Photo-ID requirements, an Election Day deadline for ballots, and cleaning the voter rolls before each election will go a long way toward restoring confidence in the electoral process. Heading into the midterms, Republicans can claim these reforms as their own, since Democrats are on record voting against all of them.