The For The People Act (H.R.1/S.1) is all about making elections safe and accessible for all. Voting should be a transparent process that we can all trust.
Just using common sense, you would think that such legislation would be a good thing; isn’t the freedom to vote the bedrock of our democracy? Well, to look at what some states are doing with election laws, you would draw the conclusion that either voting is not the bedrock of our democracy or some politicians don’t like the entire concept of democracy.
Illegal to give food or water to people waiting in line to vote? Really? Yes, in Georgia, which also sets new voter ID requirements for absentee ballots and limits ballot drop boxes, leading to longer lines for people waiting to vote in the hot sun … with no water unless they bring it themselves.
And, sadly, Georgia is not the only state moving in this direction: Iowa, Arizona, Florida and Texas are also enacting laws that make voting harder, especially for people of color and poor people, aka people who tend to not vote for Republicans. Putting up deliberate barriers to voting and denying our freedom to vote flies in the face of equal and fair representation for all of us.
And all this allegedly in the interest of preventing ‘voter fraud’. Note however that voter fraud, defined expansively by the conservative Heritage Foundation, represented 1,296 votes out of hundreds of millions since 1992. (Source: voanews.com.) Let’s call it 100,000,000; 100,000,000 divided by 1,296 = .000013%. Sounds somewhat insignificant to me. There is general agreement among people who study this that voter fraud is not rampant. According to the VOAnews article cited above, and referring to the 2020 presidential election, “Multiple independent studies by academic researchers and news outlets similarly found no proof of rampant fraud in the election.” So, the logic appears to be that if you can’t win in a fair election, make sure that the people who would probably not vote for you can’t vote at all. Yes, that should do it.
The For The People Act is proposed federal legislation that expands protection to voters throughout the country. Some of the key components as of this writing include: giving voters at least seven days notice about polling place changes; providing the opportunity, in all states, to vote early in person for at least 15 consecutive days; requiring states to send absentee by mail ballots to eligible voters before an election if the voter is not able to vote in person during early voting or on election day due to an eligible circumstance; prohibiting providing false information about elections to hinder or discourage voting and increasing penalties for voter intimidation; making election day a public holiday; establishing standards for election vendors based on cybersecurity concerns so that Americans can trust the results are accurate; and, banning partisan gerrymandering by using computer models to define districts.
The For The People Act is legislation that we can all support. It is sensible legislation that is non-partisan in nature. Our two senators and all nine of our representatives are supportive of this legislation. However, Republicans in the Senate will not even allow it be debated, much less passed. They are currently using the filibuster to block debate. But there is something that you can do that will help get this legislation passed and make more people aware of the importance of passing this legislation. Call Senator Markey’s office at (413) 785-4610, thank him for his endorsement and encourage him to be more outspoken in his support of this Act. And ask your friends and family to call also.
David Greenberg is a resident of Colrain.