Leahy introduces legislation that could stifle election security efforts in states

Senate.gov

VOTER ACCESS VS. ELECTION SECURITY: Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and 48 other senators are backing a bill that would increase voting access, but likely at the cost of election security.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., last Tuesday introduced legislation intended to prevent “the spread of voter suppression,” but it may also inhibit states from implementing election security measures.

Leahy, a former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, joined 48 other senators in calling for the legislation, called the “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act” (H.R. 4). The legislation is named after Civil Rights icon and late Congressman John Lewis.

“Congressman Lewis would want us to come together and find a path forward to addressing the many threats facing Americans’ foundational right to vote,” wrote Leahy in a statement. “But what he would not accept is inaction. Now is the time to restore the Voting Rights Act — a bedrock voting rights law — and ensure that every citizen is guaranteed their constitutionally protected right to vote.”

Leahy leads this effort while a majority of GOP voters believe the presidential election was “stolen” from Trump, according to polling. Another poll last week indicates that 59 percent of Republicans say that holding the belief that the 2020 election was stolen is “important” to being a Republican.

Leahy explained some of what this bill does, yet without offering specifics on which “discriminatory” voting laws he’s trying to prevent.

“This legislation addresses the Supreme Court’s Shelby County decision [2013] by restoring the Justice Department’s preclearance powers to prevent states from enacting discriminatory voting changes,” he said.

The press release from Leahy’s office references the case of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.

“The legislation limits the harms caused by the Supreme Court’s Brnovich decision earlier this year, by enshrining a private right of action and clear factors with which voters can bring lawsuits against attempts to disenfranchise them,” it states.

According to an NBC report in July, the Brnovich decision supported election security measures in Arizona, a state that saw much suspicious activity reported during the 2020 presidential election, resulting in an audit that has brought about more doubts.

The NBC report states that the decision “upheld Arizona’s policy disqualifying any ballot cast in the wrong precinct as well as a 2016 law that made it a felony for anyone but a family member, household member or caregiver to return another person’s mail ballot — a method known as ballot harvesting or collecting.”

According to Leahy, such measures intended to ensure election security amount to racism and voter suppression. He says the Brnovich decision has allowed states to enact “sweeping voter suppression efforts to make it more – not less – difficult for American citizens to participate in their own democracy.”

He also suggests minorities are suffering under such policies, even as polls show that minorities strongly favor basic election security protocols such as requiring an ID to vote.

“Today, tens of thousands of Americans are being disenfranchised, under the guise of state law. And it is no coincidence that certain communities consistently bear the brunt of these suppression schemes across the country,” Leahy said.

In a commentary titled How H.R. 4 Would Let Leftist Extremists At The DOJ Control The Entire Nation’s Elections, writers Hans von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams argue that Leahy’s proposed legislation will ultimately inhibit election integrity under the false guise of fighting voter suppression.

“That is nothing more than a political fabrication. Requiring voters to show ID to authenticate their identity, or trying to ensure voter registration rolls are accurate and up-to-date, are not ‘voter suppression and don’t prevent any eligible individual from registering and voting,” they wrote.

Their commentary further states that this bill will give the federal government strong powers over the states with regard to running elections.

“It’s a dangerous bill that would give the partisan bureaucrats of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department administrative veto powers over states’ changes to election procedures,” they wrote.

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.

Image courtesy of Senate.gov

10 thoughts on “Leahy introduces legislation that could stifle election security efforts in states

  1. What is the problem with asking for ID? How can they consider this voter suppression? They don’t seem to care about voter fraud.

  2. Leahy should be focussing on the many ways the Arizona 2020 Election was conducted in a most sloppy, fraudulent manner.

    Election Officials were so sloppy and incompetent, they even made glaring mistakes when carrying out various frauds!!

    The regular mistakes, plus the fraud mistakes, were revealed by the forensic audit, people were identified, and referred to the Democrat Secretary of State, who likely will do nothing.

    No wonder the Election Officials did everything to delay, obstruct, and sabotage the forensic audit, which by themselves are criminal offenses.

    EXCERPT from this article

    STATE SENATE HEARINGS OF FORENSIC AUDIT RESULTS OF ARIZONA 2020 ELECTION
    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/state-senate-hearings-of-forensic-audit-results-of-arizona-2020

    The main purpose of this article is to inform lay people regarding:

    1) Some of the sordid details of the Arizona 2020 Election as revealed by independent audits
    2) Some of the many ways corrupt state election officials have been manipulating the results of all elections over the decades, and likely will continue to do so, if not outlawed.
    3) Mail-in voting providing all sorts of fraud possibilities to election operatives
    4) The need for a Personal Identity Card, machine-readable, for each person 16 years and older, as are used in all EU nations, etc.
    See Appendix 3.

    Those issues are hardly mentioned/examined by the traditional Media.
    Reporters of the Media know of, and have access to, these details, just by googling, and by reading the Arizona forensic audit reports.

    Instead, these reporters write whatever wording, such as the frequently-used “no widespread voter fraud”, and “elections were fair and free”, and “baseless claims”, and “conspiracy theories”, would be approved by editors and publishers; a sad state of affairs.
    Another Media strategy is to “give it no ink”, i.e., not cover it at all, as if it does not exist.

    BTW, the audit proved, the voters had almost nothing to do with frauds; they were, in fact, the victims of fraud.

    Benefits of Forensic Audits

    Forensic audits have virtues, because:

    1) They hang out dirty linen, in public
    2) They show how that linen got dirty in the first place
    3) They provide education to voters regarding how their Constitutional Right to Vote can, and has been, corrupted by in-the-know, partisan Secretaries of State and Election Officials for decades.

    Perpetrators of fraud ALWAYS are vehemently opposed to such audits, and do their best to obstruct and sabotage them, as in Maricopa County.
    BTW, the scandalous VT-EB-5 fraud, largest such fraud in the US, should have had such an audit.

    Appendix 1, Major Ballot Fraud in Pennsylvania

    Fraud, on a massive scale, was perpetrated by Dem/Progs, several months BEFORE the 2020 Election. It involved completing up to 288,000 mail-in ballots in Bethpage, Long Island, New York, using USPS mail-in boxes, and shipping the completed ballots, with a trailer truck, from the USPS Center in Bethpage, NY, across state lines, to the USPS Center in Harrisburg, PA, and then to the USPS Center in Lancaster, PA, where the trailer, after being parked in the usual bay, mysteriously disappeared, overnight. When the truck driver, who lives in Lancaster, arrived the next morning to hook-up his trailer, as he had done for 18 months, to his surprise found his trailer gone!
    https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/preperation-of-288-000-mail-in-ballots-in-bethpage-ny-for-use-in

    Appendix 2, German Elections

    Germany, population 84 million, efficiently conducts its elections, in a near-fraud-free manner, without ANY ELECTION MACHINES, AND WITHOUT ANY COMPUTERS, as required by law.

    All is done, by many hands, in a few days. After the polls close. The Germans learned all that from the US during the Occupation, as part of “democratic nation building”.

    Appendix 3, German Identity Card

    The photo ID card can be used for many purposes, including to: 1) register to vote and 2) show to election workers prior to voting.
    No other documents are required.
    Germany does not allow mail-in ballots, by law, except in rare circumstances.

    According to German law of obligation of identification, it is compulsory for everyone in Germany, age 16 or older, to possess, either an identity card, or a passport.

    SUMMARY OF MARICOPA COUNTY FORENSIC AUDIT

    Maricopa County had thousands of people complaining about voting irregularities during the 2020 Election.
    However, those complaints were not just in Maricopa.

    Puma County is the second most populous county in the state of Arizona. An insider whistleblower sent an email to the US DOJ, and to every Arizona Legislator, that stated about 34,000 to 35,000 fictitious names had been added to registered voter lists, which would be very difficult to find, except by a forensic audit.
    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/az-state-rep-mark-finchem-speaks-trump-rally-des-moines-34000-35000-fictitious-voters-believe-found/

    Major Issues Identified by the Audit:

    The forensic audit showed issues with:

    1) Signature verification on mail-in ballots
    2) Accuracy of registered voter rolls
    3) Security of election systems
    4) Record-keeping of election activities
    5) Preserving of those records, in case they were needed as evidence in court cases.

    Summary of URLs of Forensic Audit Reports

    This URL has an image with 6 buttons, which represent the audit reports and Power Point presentations, for your convenience.
    Just click on a button to download.

    https://www.azsenaterepublicans.com/audit
    https://www.azsenaterepublicans.com/cyber-ninjas-report

    Ballots with Issues, as Revealed by Forensic Audit

    Many ballots with issues were identified by the forensic audit.
    Some ballots have multiple issues, which likely are listed on more than one line in the table, i.e., the total of each line and the final total likely are slightly overstated.

  3. Pat has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. If you look at the oldest, longest serving members of Congress – they all appear to have signed a death agreement contract. Their only purpose now is to serve the CCP and hopefully the public will never find out what they have done until they are laid to rest. John McCain – exhibit 1

  4. Has anybody seen the VERMONT PROPOSITION that is featured on the cover of Vt Digger?

    I have have to hand it to them, they are very, very clever with words. A group of unelected people are working on transforming VERMONT, conveniently in the next three years from a Republic to a NWO colony of the United nations, implementing the plan of taking all your money and property in the name of saving the planet.

    Course you can’t comment on vt digger.

    The VERMONT pROPOSITION

    • It’s good that Neil pointed out the Vermont Proposition so we all can see the latest effort to save Vermont from itself…..Here’s the story:

      https://vtdigger.org/2021/10/11/vermont-proposition-action-team-aims-to-improve-the-states-future/

      This effort will be lead by the Vermont Action Team, a group of eight regular and presumedly good and well intended people. They are committed to fix most, but not all problems, the broken Vermont health care system and the common cold are not included on the agenda.

      These are all problems that the Vermont Legislature, the most ambitious governors and countless commissions have failed to correct over the past 100 years even with all available state federal resources plus the highest paid consultants tax payer money can buy…….Good luck and good fixing.

      • They’ve got some really feel good titles, bait and switch, their plan is a fundamental transformation of our state, the follows marxist subversion tactics.

        This is not a convenient coincidence.

        It’s Agenda 21, who wrote Agenda 21? Who’s pushing Agenda 21?

        It’s Agenda 2030, who wrote Agenda 2030? Who’s pushing Agenda 2030?

        Who’s pushing all our medical treatments/
        Who’s pushing all our zoning?
        Who’s screwing with all our supply chains?
        Who’s directing all this chaos, disfunction and money drain?

        Are we a free and self determining country under the natural laws and supernatural laws of this world? Are we a colony?

        By their fruit we shall know their hearts……Lord, please help us.

  5. This man is 81 years old.. What on earth does he know about the life of young people in Vermont?
    We’ve got a real problem with career politicians in this country, especially once they turn into elderly patients with dementia.

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