I’m glad to see the Chronicle continue to place Byron York in the opinion pages because he’s big on opinion and short on facts.
By the time this letter is released, Congress will have defeated the new suffrage bill introduced in the Senate. Not enough Republicans support the bill.
York lists several measures proposed by the Suffrage Bill that he thinks are wrong. That’s his opinion, and I don’t agree.
He says the bill will eliminate all voter ID laws in the state. He is wrong. According to the Brennan Center for Justice and FactCheck, there’s no blanket “ban” on voter ID laws in the bill, but there is an option for those who don’t have ID. identity to offer a signed declaration instead during federal elections.
York says “Democrats used the unsubstantiated notion of widespread voter suppression as the basis for two bills — the ‘For the People Act’ in the House and the later ‘Freedom to Vote Act’ in the Senate. But it’s not just Democrats who say laws recently passed by state lawmakers can suppress the vote. For example, in Florida, the League of Women Voters of Florida, the Black Voters Matter Fund and Florida voters have sued to stop Governor Ron DeSantis’ voter suppression laws. Nationally, the ACLU, JPMorgan Chase, AT&T, Coke and Delta Airlines have expressed concern about voter suppression laws in the states where they do business.
York finds it wrong that federal law can require same-day registration. Yet 15 states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) and the District of Columbia already have same-day registration. . If it is secure and facilitates voting, why not extend it to all states?
Universal postal ballots, secure, safe and accurate, are also another method that makes voting easier. Five states already have universal mail-in ballots, including California.
York says our democracy is not in crisis. He supports this statement by noting that the 2020 election saw the highest turnout in over 100 years. It appears the election numbers were so high they spooked Republicans in state houses across the country. Moreover, it seems that black and brown citizens drove these numbers. These are groups that are traditionally Democratic voters. It’s scary for Trump’s party. Hence the voter suppression laws.
Thomas Mitchell
Inverness