The false narrative regarding our election laws...

Lovely rhetoric, but what are the laws actually doing?

Republicans have introduced and advanced hundreds of restrictive election bills this year in the wake of former President Donald Trump's stolen election lie. At least 22 bills with restrictive voting provisions had been enacted as of mid-May, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, and at least 61 others were still advancing through state legislatures.

Journalism has reach a level where reporters don't even actually report anymore. An actual reporter would not simply lump over 80 different bills into a single talking point that does little more than provide a personal opinion. Historically our news reporters would report on the bills as they are written. Those that didn't, would have been put on the editorial or opinion pages. Today there is very little difference between reporting and editorializing. 

Georgia passed a new voting law. One that is no doubt considered "restrictive" by a reporter who obviously isn't reporting. The law expanded early voting, it codified drop boxes, and it vastly expanded (not restricted) opportunity to vote in Georgia in comparison to the law it replaced. The main critic (Stacey Abrams) admits that her criticism has nothing to do with the bill as written. The major talking point from this law was the law that prevents political groups from handing out food or drink within 150 feet (approximately a half a block) of the polling place. 

In Texas, the new law expands early voting hours by an average of two hours a day.  While it fails to codify much of the emergency measures put in place in 2020, like the Georgia situation, the Texas law is an improvement (by any objective standards) from the current law that is in place.  The major talking point from this law was that Sunday hours were basically "moved" from a typical 9-5 day to a 1-9 day. While 99% of Texans would probably be more willing to go vote early on a Sunday evening than on a Sunday morning (when people are in church, etc) - this change in hours was claimed to be racist and specific to one particular program where organizers took people "from" church directly to early voting.

So far I have seen very little in any of these bills that are actually more "restrictive" than the bills that they are replacing.  But the left (Journalists, Democrats, Social Media) are not comparing the new bills to the bills they replaced. Rather they are comparing them with the emergency measures put in place because of Covid. Emergency measures that in many different cases across the country were deemed unconstitutional by the courts. These emergency measures were put in place because of an emergency. They were never intended to be permanent and could legally never remain permanent. 

Now what some of these bills "are" doing is also putting laws and regulations in place on things that have just sort of been "done" even though there were no laws that allowed for it. Some are placing regulations regarding certain emergency measures that were questionable at best. One of those issues that caused problems in the last election was the mass mail out of mail in ballots to people who did not request them. Some went to the wrong addresses, some people got confused about why they got them and whether they could still vote in person, and a slew of other things. Texas and other states are making this practice illegal (as it has technically always been since there was no law that allowed it). But these are the things that parents need to do when children take it upon themselves to make up their own rules.

At the end of the day, I would be very curious as to how many of these "restrictive" laws (if any) are actually more restrictive than the laws that they replace? But much like Democrats demand that an increase in spending that doesn't meet their expectations is a spending cut, the "restrictions" here are simply that the law will not codify into existence the sort of "expansion" of election chaos that the left would really like to see. 

A well organized, highly monitored, and fairly counted election is what every conservative wants. Should be what every AMERICAN wants. Every legal voter should be provided a chance to vote and every voter should know that every vote is being counted and monitored. That is a basic concept that seems more reasonable than restrictive to me.