Biden’s voting rights bill package rife with hypocrisy

Democrats are displaying stunning hypocrisy on election integrity, as their key voting rights package failed to pass the Senate late Wednesday night. In his press conference shortly after the vote, President Joe Biden suggested that the 2022 midterms might not be “legit” if Congress fails to enact the proposed reforms. While Democrats have spent the past year criticizing Republicans for their claims of voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election, their moves to delegitimize state election authority and cast preemptive doubts on the midterms are nothing short of political fearmongering.

President Biden is desperately trying to flip the script. Rather than tackling the myriad problems his floundering presidency is currently facing, from Ukraine to inflation to the slow death of the Build Back Better agenda, Democrats are going after what could fairly be described as a non-problem. But the rhetoric is next-to-none. Biden has explicitly tied the integrity of future American elections to the failed Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, which he claims would prevent Republicans from suppressing votes and stealing elections. Former President Obama also weighed in on the bill in an op-ed for USA Today, arguing that Republican state legislators “in 49 states have introduced more than 400 bills designed to suppress votes.”

But Vice-President Kamala Harris went on to make the most outrageous claim of all, stating that these laws “could make it more difficult for as many as 55 million Americans to vote.” This is patently false. For example, Democratic arguments that voter-ID laws suppress minority voter turnout have been thoroughly discredited. In 2005, Georgia first introduced a law requiring photo-ID for individuals to vote in-person, yet Latino and Black turnout actually increased from 2006 to 2010, “dramatically outpacing population growth for those groups over the same period.”

It is clear that Democratic objections to state election rights are more rhetorical than grounded in reality, as the John R. Lewis Act is littered with contradictions and progressive power-grabs. Rather than securing or making our elections more efficient, the bill would essentially centralize electoral decision-making power in Washington DC, denying the states their historical role of deciding on vote-counting procedures and how to run polling booths.

Amid a variety of provisions, there are some pretty egregious proposals. One would water down voter-ID laws, forcing states to accept a wide range of non-photographic documents. And even if an individual failed to produce any of those, they could simply sign a “sworn written statement” signed by an acquainted witness. Nothing remotely sketchy about that. The anti-democratic irony of this one is strong too: requiring a photo-ID in order to vote enjoys the support of 80% of Americans.

Another proposal seeks to change redistricting rules, claiming to prevent Republican gerrymandering. But redistricting in progressive states such as Illinois and Oregon has actually favored Democrats, to the extent that “more districts in 2022 will be to the left of Joe Biden’s 4.5-point national margin against Donald Trump than in 2020,” according to Data For Progress, a left-wing think tank.

The litany of ironies continues, what with the provision to mandate no-excuse early voting during elections. While this isn’t an outright bad idea, it makes you wonder why solidly blue states like Delaware, New York, and Massachusetts don’t have no-excuse early voting. The idea that President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would blow up the filibuster to help pass a law that their own states don’t even have is deeply troubling.

Similar hypocrisy marks the move to automatically restore the right to vote to a convicted felon, once they are released from prison. You guessed it: Biden’s home state of Delaware doesn’t currently allow this, nor did he ever display an ounce of concern during his 36 years representing the state in the Senate.

Even the American Civil Liberties Union, often criticized by conservatives for being too progressive, opposes key parts of the bill. For example, the DISCLOSE Act, which was smuggled into the larger package, would require political groups spending over $10,000 in an election cycle to disclose the identities of donors above $10,000. The ACLU argues the act would “limit” rather than promote freedom of expression.

Ultimately, it’s clear that the Democratic agenda under Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer has failed from the beginning. Now they’re trying to paper over the cracks, and preemptively casting doubt on the upcoming midterm elections later this year. Worse, they’re trying to nuke the filibuster to get their way, despite even lacking the necessary Democratic votes courtesy of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. But no amount of rhetoric can hide the hypocrisy and irony of Biden’s failed voting rights bill, and it will take a lot more than even that to turn this failed presidency around.

Christopher Barnard is a contributor to Young Voices and a regular political commentator. Previous bylines include USA Today, the Washington Examiner, the Daily Telegraph, National Review & more. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisBarnardDL.