The questionable integrity of ‘election reform’

28th Mar 2021

“There are a lot of people out there who question the integrity of our elections.”

Translation: There are a lot of people out there who don’t like the result of the last election. And they certainly don’t like the trajectory of more ethnic minorities voting, as changing demographics continue to move us toward becoming a minority majority nation.

The aforementioned false argument for so-called “voter reform” is by any other name “voter suppression,” and it’s happening on a national scale. A Brennan Center For Justice report on state voting tallied 253 proposed bills in February that had provisions to restrict voting access in 43 states, including 22 in Arizona, 10 in Texas, three in Nevada, two in California and one in New Mexico.

Several such bills are still at play and stand a good chance of passing as legislatures move toward adjournment. Proponents know such legislation would disproportionately adversely affect black and brown voters. After all, the predictable result of fewer minority and low-income voters is not an unintended consequence of election reform but rather the intended result.

There is no need for voter reform because there is no evidence of voter fraud, as confirmed in the 2020 election by all counts, recounts and courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Let that fact marinate for a moment: No evidence of voter fraud.

So why are we trying to kick people off voter rolls and prevent more people from voting? Could it be voter fraud by mail? Arizona has allowed universal voting by mail since 1997, with great success (more than 8 in 10 voters use it with no problem regarding its utility or validity).

Nationally, there have been 143 cases of fraud via mail ballots, according to a MIT University study, but that’s over the last 20 years (or about seven or eight cases per year). That translates to 0.00006% of total votes cast. In other words, there is zero reason for fixing an election process that isn’t broken – unless, of course, fixing an election (in the nefarious sense) is the intention.

So, the next time a politician pushing “voter reform” says, “There are a lot of people out there who question the integrity of our elections,” the question must be asked: What about the whole lot of people out there who question the intention of “voter reform”?

Is it that they simply don’t matter? Or is it that they simply won’t matter if they can’t vote?

What is beyond question is this fact: The answer for more democracy is never less democracy.