Securing our elections shouldn't be a partisan issue. Without a doubt, it should be something everyone can get behind, regardless of party.
Republicans have two bills out right now—the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act and the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act—both proposals that include commonsense reforms to strengthen our elections and restore confidence in the results, no matter who wins. But instead of working together on these popular measures, Democrats are resorting to tired, cynical attacks.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blocked a Republican effort this week to attach the SAVE Act to the government spending package under debate in Congress. The SAVE Act merely requires states to obtain in-person proof of citizenship when people register to vote and to remove non-citizens from voter rolls—pretty straightforward stuff. But Schumer couldn't help himself—he played the Jim Crow card, a telltale sign that Democrats are never going to support these reforms.
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"I have said it before and I'll say it again, the SAVE Act would impose Jim Crow-type laws to the entire country and is dead on arrival in the Senate," Schumer said Monday. He doubled down, calling the SAVE Act "a poison pill that will kill any legislation that it is attached to… The SAVE Act is reminiscent of Jim Crow era laws and would expand them to the whole of America."
He added, "Republicans want to restore Jim Crow and apply it from one end of this country to the other. It will not happen."
This is hardly the first time Democrats have played the “Jim Crow” card. Prominent Democrats, including Schumer, Joe Biden, and Stacey Abrams, had warned that Georgia's election law amounted to "Jim Crow 2.0," and Major League Baseball even moved its 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta after the backlash. Georgia's secretary of state later reported that the law did not suppress turnout but instead coincided with increased participation, especially among minority voters.
So much for that narrative.
While Democrats in Congress are vehemently opposed to commonsense election reforms, like Voter ID, CNN's Harry Enten just reported how polls have consistently shown overwhelming bipartisan support for Voter ID, a key component of both the SAVE Act and MEGA Act. According to Enten, 95% of Republicans support voter ID requirements—totally expected—and 71% of Democrats favor it too. "I think a lot of people make the argument that people of color, non-white Americans, have a harder time procuring a photo ID to vote," he acknowledged. But the polling data doesn't back up that talking point. Eighty-five percent of white Americans support voter ID requirements, as do 82% of Latino Americans and 76% of black Americans.
Making our elections more secure with commonsense reforms doesn’t have to be a partisan issue. Americans overwhelmingly support these reforms, but Democrats fight against these reforms as if it were a matter of life or death for them, as if they desperately want fraudulent elections.
