During his speech on voting rights on Tuesday, President Joe Biden argued that the country faced its most significant challenge since the Civil War. And what is that challenge?
States, red states in particular, who pass Voter ID and other voter integrity bills.
“There’s an assault taking place in America today, an attempt to suppress and subvert right to vote and fair and free elections, the assault on democracy, an assault on liberty and assault on who we are, who we are as Americans,” Biden said.
“We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole since the Civil War. The Confederates back then never breached the Capitol, as insurrection stood on January the Sixth,” he added.
Mr. President, your statement is the very definition of hyperbole, and the ‘sky is falling’ rhetoric from both Democrats and Republicans needs to stop. Yes, what happened on January 6 was awful. Still, calling it an insurrection is, arguably, a stretch. Making it sound worse than the Civil War is even more of a stretch.
Linking the behavior of Q’Anon conspiracy theorists and the alt-right who made an unlawful entry into the Capitol with Republicans passing voter ID bills and placing some restrictions on absentee voting is nothing but hyperpartisanship that our country needs less of.
President Biden doesn’t have to agree with Republican legislation, but he needs to stop the ‘sky is falling’ rhetoric.
What’s more, a clear majority of Americans do not agree with President Biden’s assessment of these election integrity bills.
A Rasmussen Poll in April found that 62 percent of Americans do not believe Voter ID bills discriminate. Sixty percent of Americans said it was more important to prevent cheating than to make voting easier. In fact, only 22 percent of Americans say it is too hard to vote.
I would like to know where those Americans live with early voting, absentee voting, and election day voting. How anyone can believe it is too hard to vote is beyond me.
What’s more, according to Rasmussen, within every single racial group, a majority said that it was more important to prevent cheating and that voter ID laws do not discriminate.
Majorities of all racial groups – 59% of whites, 56% of Blacks and 63% of other minority voters – say it is more important to make sure there is no cheating in elections than to make it easier to vote.
Likewise, majorities of all racial groups – 64% of whites, 59% of Blacks and 58% of other minority voters – reject the claim that voter ID laws discriminate against some voters.
Even Democrats have many people who do not believe voter ID laws discriminate – 43 percent. Of course, it’s a minority, but that is not an insignificant number.
What these laws don’t represent is an assault on voting rights. Those who can vote today can still vote tomorrow. Constitutionally, election laws are reserved for the states. President Biden and Congressional Democrats shouldn’t federalize election law because they don’t like the laws Red states pass.
And the President shouldn’t make Republican-majority states passing election integrity bills sound like it is some existential crisis because it is not.
