American Thinker
March 20, 2019
By Dennis Sevakis
The November 2018 election brought sweeping changes to Michigan election law.
Proposal_2, establishing a non-partisan ‘independent’ redistricting commission, and Proposal_3, mandating several registration/voting policy changes, passed with better than 60% of the vote and were incorporated into the Michigan constitution. Apparently, the constitutional amendment path was used to block a possible future Republican legislature and governor from rescinding these provisions. However, at this time there is little chance there will be any attempt at that, because Michigan voters also enthusiastically swept three Democrat females into the offices of governor, attorney general and secretary of state.
The Republicans may hold a majority in both the House and Senate, but they aren’t in much of a position to force any changes, constitutionally or otherwise. And besides, how long will that majority last with H.R. 1, Pelosi’s get-out-the-progressive-vote plan, now firmly incorporated into Michigan’s voting law?
Even more troubling is the evidence that the process of converting the U.S. into a permanently Democrat majority is further along than one might imagine. An article in the Washington Examiner by J. Christian Adams describing the provisions of H.R. 1 led to a closer examination of the Proposal 3 features which include:
- Same-day voter registration
- Straight-ticket voting
- Automatic voter registration
- No-excuse absentee ballots
The links given above are to the Ballotpedia pages describing these registration/voting policies and include a listing of states that as of August of 2018 had adopted these policies. The number of electoral votes subject to the impact of these policies in the 2020 election is summarized here:
Number of electoral votes up for grabs in voting subject to the following policies –
- Same-day registration: 204
- Straight-ticket voting: 86
- Automatic registration: 201
- No-excuse absentee: 298
The fifty-state electoral vote total is 538. These figures do not include any states that may, through legislation or administrative procedure, adopt any of the H.R. 1 policies prior to the 2020 election.
The spreadsheet used to construct this summary is available for examination here. Sheet 2 provides a summary of election policy issues on the ballot in 2018 in various states. Note that the sort order is by decreasing number of electoral votes for a given state. This explains the ongoing effort by the Democrats to bring the Texas 38 electoral votes under the aegis of H.R. 1.
Way back when Eric Holder was Attorney General, he vowed to aggressively challenge voter ID laws, in Texas, of all places:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday vowed to be “aggressive” in challenging voting laws that restrict minority rights, using a speech in Texas to make his case on the same day a federal court was considering the legality of the state’s new voter ID legislation.
“Let me be clear: We will not allow political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious rights,” Holder said in the speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “I can assure you that the Justice Department’s efforts to uphold and enforce voting rights will remain aggressive.”
When the Supreme Court upheld the Texas Voter ID law in 2013, Town Hall reported the following:
The Justice Department said Thursday that it will file a new lawsuit against Texas to try to block the state’s voter ID law.
“Today’s action marks another step forward in the Justice Department’s continuing effort to protect the voting rights of all eligible Americans,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement accompanying the announcement of the lawsuit.
“We will not allow the Supreme Court’s recent decision to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights.”
SCOTUS be damned! Fast forward to 2018.
H.R. 1 was rolled out in late November as reported by the Washington Post:
House Democratic leaders on Friday unveiled the outline of a broad political overhaul bill that will include provisions for public financing of elections, voting rights reforms and new ethics strictures for federal officials.
The bill has been in the works for months as part of Democrats’ “For the People” campaign platform, a framework that helped them win the House majority in this month’s midterm elections. [snip]
“It’s folks from across the political spectrum that are demanding this,” said Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), the principal author of the plan, who stood alongside Pelosi and several members of the incoming freshman class at a news conference.
But that was just the start. In early March, Speaker Pelosi went back to Texas to renew the fight to turn Texas blue because the state’s voter investigation purportedly shows the need for the Democrats’ new federal voting rights law:
An investigation by Texas officials into potential voter fraud that critics said threatened to jeopardize voting rights of naturalized citizens illustrates how important ballot box protections are, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in Austin on Tuesday.
The activity in Texas “shows only more importantly the need” for voting rights legislation the House will take up this week, Pelosi, D-Calif., said at an event in East Austin.
H.R. 1, the “For the People Act,” is designed to make voting easier, reduce partisan redistricting and limit what Pelosi called “the influence of big, dark money” in campaigns.
Critical of moves in Washington and Texas revolving around voting, Pelosi said the state investigation was “part of a whole picture of undermining the Constitution.”
She was joined by Julieta Garibay, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit accusing Texas officials of illegally targeting her and others because they are foreign-born.
Posted once upon a time on an Austin news site was an interesting video [1st video shown below] of Ms. Pelosi and others speaking about the need to welcome “newcomers” through inclusion in the political process. Newcomers? Would that be illegal aliens? Is this a suggestion to register and have non-citizens vote? Sounds like it to me. Why wait for H.R. 1 to become law? This isn’t going to happen before 2020 and the Dems have an election to win.
The House passed H.R. 1 on March 7 on a party-line vote of 234 to 193.
But the tale doesn’t end there. I doubt that you have heard very much about H.R. 1 or Michigan Proposal 3. And the media, MSM or otherwise, hasn’t devoted much time to the subject. My interest was piqued only because I live in Michigan and was appalled when Prop 2 and Prop 3 were adopted, and by large margins at that. In my very humble opinion, all the media hoopla on a plethora of other issues is a smokescreen for voting fraud. I see no reason why voter photo ID based on citizenship and registration at least 30 days prior to the election is a suppression of “voter rights.” Strict rules for absentee voting and vote counting deadlines should not be an issue. So, what’s the deal?
Think of H.R. 1 as “Motor Voter” on steroids.
President Clinton signed the original Motor Voter bill into law in May of 1993, just four months after assuming office. There is a video in the Clinton Library archive of the signing ceremony [2nd video shown below]. If you watch it, you can harbor little doubt that this was a major legislative milestone for the Democrats. The opening scene presents Clinton as a larger-than-life, almost heroic figure. Even the formulators of the Cloward-Piven Strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis are present. One even speaks to congratulate the President for his accomplishment.
Watching this now and considering where we are politically and culturally, and all the crises that have come and gone over the intervening years or are still with us, there is little question that the Democrats knew exactly what they were going to do with Motor Voter. And they managed it in spades.
Paraphrasing Bette Davis: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy couple years.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi & friends in Austin, Texas, March 5, 2019 [50:48]
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President Clinton Motor Voter Bill Signing Celebration on the South Lawn May 20, 1993 [53:48]