Peach Tree Times

Critics charge that provisions of a recently enacted election law in Georgia, including the acceptance of no absentee ballots after Election Day, would be unenforceable under a sweeping election law approved along partisan lines in the U.S. House in March.

The bill (H.R.1), currently awaiting action in the Senate, could strip the states of their constitutional right to set the rules for their own elections, a move that conservative elections analyst Hans von Spakovsky characterized as “changing the rules nationally to ensure that they [Democrats] remain in office.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, called H.R. 1 “an unconstitutional power grab” in a recent appearance on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.”

“It leads to the question of this is all just a distraction for them to make a case to do an unconstitutional power grab with H.R. 1 and also to distract from the crisis of people flowing across the southern border,” Kemp said. “Perhaps they should pay more attention to that than to our [the rules] that we have in Georgia especially compared to [President Biden’s] own state of Delaware.”

H.R. 1 requires states to accept mail-in ballots up to 10 days after Election Day.

Other federal mandates include: Requiring the state to allow at least two weeks of early voting; requiring the state to allow ballot harvesting, which permits political operatives and others to collect voters' ballots and turn them in en masse to polling stations; and require the state to provide voters with same-day registration and allow them to change their names and addresses on the rolls at the polling place on Election Day.

Sections 1621-1624 of H.R. 1 would give states the option not to verify signatures on absentee or mail-in ballots. It also makes it more difficult to dismiss a questionable voter signature, requiring that no fewer than two election judges be present and agree to do so.

Some polls show that most voters oppose many of the federal directives under H.R. 1.

A March 2021 survey by conservative pollster Rasmussen Reports, for example, found that 75% of likely U.S. voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote, and 21% oppose such a requirement. That's up from 67% in favor, per a Rasmussen poll in October 2018.

Absentee ballots, moreover, remain “the largest source of potential voter fraud,” according to the 2005 bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and Republican James Baker III, a top official under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, ProPublica reported.

Congress is back in session for two weeks and then returns in May for the two weeks leading up to a Memorial Day break. Deadlocked at 50-50, the Senate almost certainly needs to revoke the filibuster (the 60-vote requirement to end debate on legislation), at least temporarily, to send H.R. 1 to President Joe Biden.