Opinion

Editorial: Stop efforts to micro-manage voter turnout

Thursday, April 15, 2021 -- Democrats see an advantage to helping ALL voters participate more. From the voters' perspective there aren't any losers. Everyone gets more chances to participate - regardless of political affiliation, race, gender, geography or socio-political standing. Republicans see advantage to limiting participation - whether it is when polling places are open and voting closes, what it takes for voters to identify themselves or the ways voters can cast their ballots.

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Election Officials Nationwide Find No Evidence of Fraud
CBC Editorial: Thursday, April 15, 2021; Editorial #8659
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company.
There are at least 19 bills before the North Carolina General Assembly dealing with the conduct of statewide elections: who can be registered to vote; whom registered citizens can vote for; how they can vote; where they can vote; when they can vote; and how their votes can or cannot be counted.

What is curious is just who is sponsoring which legislation and the impact of the bills they’re pushing.

Democrats are pushing legislation that, generally, gives those who are qualified, more opportunities to become voters, cast their ballots in a timely manner, pick candidates that are more reflective of the communities they seek to represent and get those properly cast ballots counted.

Republicans are pushing legislation that generally sets narrower limits on when those who qualify can register, how and when those voters can cast ballots and get them counted.

There is a significant distinction between the two approaches.

Democrats see an advantage to helping ALL voters participate more. From the voters’ perspective there aren’t any losers.  Everyone gets more chances to participate – regardless of political affiliation, race, gender, geography or socio-political standing.

Republicans see advantage to limiting participation – whether it is when polling places are open and voting closes, what it takes for voters to identify themselves or the ways voters can cast their ballots.

They’ve even admitted it in court – including during arguments recently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Michael Carvin, a lawyer for the Arizona Republican Party, said the state’s voting restrictions were aimed at giving the GOP an advantage over Democrats. “Politics is a zero-sum game,” he said. Doing away with the state’s restrictive law – limiting out-of-precinct voting – “puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats,” he confessed.  “It’s the difference between winning an election 50-49 and losing an election 51 to 50.”

Let’s be clear, ALL politicians look for ways to give themselves all the opportunities they can find to win elections. “Duh?” you say.

But here’s the rub. There’s a difference between seeking advantage when EVERYONE gets in on it as opposed to manipulating the law so that the purpose is to disadvantage some voters.  We’ve already seen that done in North Carolina, targeting Black voters with “surgical precision,” as the U.S. Court of Appeals put it in a decision knocking down as a violation of the Constitution, a voter-ID law.

During a recent state Senate Elections Committee hearing on legislation to severely limit mail-in absentee voting, Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus County, suggested that the limits were needed to give citizens “confidence that whoever is elected deserves to be elected.”

The only lack of confidence has come from those, including the former president of the United States, who irresponsibly seek to cast doubt over the results of the last election with their false and baseless claims of massive election irregularities and fraud.

Thorough, transparent examinations of voting in North Carolina and elsewhere have shown just the opposite. The 2020 election, conducted under the most difficult of circumstances, offered more opportunities for people to vote and did it with only minor problems that were insignificant.  More qualified voters than ever cast legal ballots and they were counted properly.

Isn’t that what EVERYONE wants in an election? It should be.

Winning an election grants the privilege to honestly represent constituents. It does not bestow on an elected official – even those in the majority in the North Carolina legislature – the power manipulate facts and twist the truth.

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