The Partisan Obsession with Elections
Behind Closed Doors in the Lab of Democracy
This is one of several essays from Civic Way on state and local elections. In this essay, we take a look at this year’s flood of state election legislation and discuss the potential implications for our democracy. In our last essay, we introduced the election issue. The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving governmental agencies across the US.
Highlights:
The headlines notwithstanding, the controversy about this years’ wave of state election laws is not just about voting rights and fraud
The real issue is partisan control of elections, the degree to which we are willing as American citizens to tolerate the continued manipulation of our elections by self-serving politicians
Instead of letting politicians exert even more control over elections than they already have, we should make election institutions and processes nonpartisan and professional
Only with nonpartisan, professional election management can we strike the right balance between voter rights and election integrity and thereby preserve our democracy
The Election Law Controversy
The media is fragmented, but virtually all media outlets report news in a similar way. Every issue is framed as an epic struggle between two factions. This approach draws our attention, but it also can distract us.
The recent clamor about state election laws is instructive. The media’s coverage of 2021 state election legislation portrays the issue in stark binary terms—election integrity versus voter rights. To a degree, the coverage gets it right. Election integrity and voter rights are vital issues. Striking the optimal balance between them is one of the greatest challenges of our democracy.
Many Democrats argue that the GOP-inspired election laws of 2021 are nothing less than a full-scale assault on voter rights. They characterize GOP bills as “voter suppression” and “anti-democratic.” They dismiss GOP claims of election mismanagement and fraud. Considering the evidence-free claims made by some GOP leaders about the 2020 presidential contest, such arguments can be persuasive.
The Republican campaign to change state election laws is stunning, in its scale and reach. It began with a nationally-financed campaign to convince citizens that US election systems are corrupt or fundamentally flawed. In the name of electoral integrity, GOP lawmakers quickly proposed bills to curtail voting options and undermine local election administration in nearly every state. Many such bills bear remarkable similarities.
The Underlying Threats to Democracy
The media aren’t entirely wrong about the election issue. We are watching an epoch fight over voter rights and electoral integrity. However, there are other threats to consider. We are watching a story as old as democracy itself, an amorality tale of politicians trying to influence elections and solidify their power.
Our politics have become more nationalized and large donors more influential. Politicians, under enormous pressure to win, are driven to look beyond improving campaigns to manipulating elections. Democrats striving to expand turnout in the name of voting rights. Republicans laboring to shrink the electorate in the name of integrity. Their rhetoric can be persuasive, but their actions may also be self-serving.
It’s not that voter rights and election integrity aren’t vital or at risk. They are and they probably always will be. But the two-dimensional media coverage obscures other serious threats to our democracy.
One threat is that both sides will win (in states they control). That, in the absence of national standards, we will end up with a bipolar election system—with one approach too cumbersome and the other too open. In either case, we will have left the politicians in charge. And, if that occurs, voter rights and election integrity will only be addressed to the extent they serve the interests of those politicians.
A more ominous threat is that some politicians will take the one step that no democracy can long survive. That is, they will discredit or overturn any election their side loses. In 2021, we are seeing far too many politicians take this step. Not only do they smear a valid election that occurred nearly one year ago, they recklessly push legislation that will empower them to overturn future elections. For such opportunists, election integrity is a mere pretense for accumulating power.
Easy Voting Initiatives
With the focus on GOP-controlled states, it is easy to overlook what is happening in Democratic-leaning states. In 2021, several states have enacted legislation to make voting easier. Whether motivated by a desire to increase potential Democratic voters or nobler aspirations, at least 14 states have enacted stronger voter rights laws. In total, up to 25 state legislatures have seriously considered bills to ease voting.
Easy voting legislation (bills expanding voting rights) tend to share certain features. First, they make voter registration more convenient. For instance, by codifying automatic voter registration (AVR) and same-day registration, extending registration deadlines and allowing online registration. Second, they improve voter access (e.g., via expanded early voting). Third, they ease voting by mail (VBM) through online application portals, longer processing times, no-excuse voting and convenient ballot drop boxes.
At least one state with a Republican legislature—Kentucky—has expanded voting rights. Working with their Democratic governor, the GOP-controlled legislature enacted a bipartisan measure to establish a three-day early voting period (Kentucky lacked early voting before 2020) and facilitate absentee voting (e.g., online request portal, more drop boxes and a curing process for good faith errors).
Some GOP leaders have bragged about expanding voter rights. Typically, they are referring to early voting provisions tucked into broader voter suppression bills. States with such provisions include Georgia and Louisiana. What such politicians fail to mention is their political calculation that expanding early voting will disproportionately benefit GOP-leaning rural areas.
The Iowa omnibus election bill, while primarily restrictive, includes a provision to increase the application period for absentee ballots from 10 days to 15 days before the election. At first glance, this seems incompatible with the legislation’s goal. It’s not. Until GOP leaders made mail fraud a talking point in 2020, most absentee voters were Republicans. Give Iowa politicians credit for pragmaticism.
Hard Voting Initiatives
Several GOP-controlled states have enacted bills that make voting harder. These efforts, sheathed in oratory about electoral fraud and integrity, have produced over 20 new statutes in at least 14 states. While most of these states have enacted narrow bills focused on or two issues, four states—Florida, Georgia, Iowa and Texas—have enacted big omnibus bills. [We will address these omnibus bills in our next essay.] Earlier in 2021, at least 24 states were considering over 60 bills to restrict voting.
The hard voting laws share several common features. Tougher registration rules, such as accelerating voter purges, increasing red tape and banning automatic and same-day voter registration. Voter access barriers like onerous identification rules, fewer polling places, reduced voter hours and partisan poll watchers. Provisions for eliminating or at least reducing access to new voting options.
At first glance, the speed at which these election bills arrived at state capitols this year seemed remarkable. However, these bills were largely crafted and promoted by national advocacy groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Heritage Foundation (and its affiliate Heritage Action for America). With their extensive resources and laser focus on power, such groups can produce “model” bills overnight.
The widely disseminated rationale for this year’s onslaught of GOP-sponsored election bills is to ensure electoral integrity. While many advocates are genuinely concerned about election reliability, there are other motivations at play. Republican strategists (like Paul Weyrich, the late founder of the Heritage Foundation) have long viewed their political power as a function of two things—reducing Democratic votes and increasing Republican votes.
The 2021 GOP-sponsored election bills may do both. For example, they limit voting access in urban areas and expand early voting in ways that could benefit rural areas. Whether the aim is to eliminate fraud or reduce potential Democratic voters, the tactics are the same. Dubious registration red tape and purges. Onerous photo ID and signature rules. Fewer polling places and drop boxes. Reduced voting days and hours.
Election Interference Initiatives
By far, the single most alarming feature of this year’s state election legislation is the craven intent to shift election administration from local authorities to state politicians. That is, to enable state legislatures from one party to seize control of local election institutions run by another. The media coverage of voter suppression legislation may have inadvertently helped conceal an unprecedented assault on democracy.
The election interference bills appear to be about improving election administration, but they are more about exerting partisan control. They empower partisan state officials to fine local election officials for minor infractions (e.g., failing to purge voters to the legislature’s satisfaction). They require legislative approval for local election rule changes during emergencies. They ban private funds for local election administration (e.g., philanthropic grants during the pandemic), but not for Arizona-style “ninja audits.”
These bills take an even more Orwellian leap by empowering state legislatures to take over local elections. While the bills vary in their particulars, their essence is to allow a partisan state body to decertify local election officials and seize control of local elections. At any time, for any perceived violation (solely at their discretion), partisan legislators can replace local election officials with their own acolytes.
Unlike laws that authorize the state takeover of a distressed local government, the election interference laws do not oblige the state to hire professionals to manage the takeover. State legislatures can appoint partisan allies to run local election offices and overturn elections that don’t go their way. The legal justification for such election interference legislation is the innocuously-named “independent state legislature doctrine,” a dubious theory invented to support a state’s right to overturn elections. Its real aim: Heads I win, tails you lose.
The Implications of New Election Legislation
The impact of new state election legislation, whether to expand or restrict voting rights, is hard to project. Streamlining voter registration, offering more convenient voting options and ensuring adequate voting facilities are intended to expand the electorate. There is no guarantee that they will. Voter turnout is affected by many factors, including disinterested voters, uninspiring candidates and bad weather.
Similarly, legislation that makes voting harder may impact election outcomes less than many fear. To the extent that federal or state legislative districts are gerrymandered, for example, voter suppression efforts could disappoint their advocates. Since there is little evidence indicating that mail voting favors either party, efforts to limit VBM may affect both parties equally. However, in tight statewide races, especially in battleground states like Georgia, laws restricting voter access could make a difference.
It is the election interference legislation that poses the most predictable threat. This legislation includes provisions for micro-managing administrative matters, criminalizing local election official actions, taking over local election duties and invalidating election results (e.g., decertifying results or replacing electors). The ultimate outcome will be to fast-track the partisan control of elections.
When election interference becomes election subversion, there will be no turning back. Disappointed partisans will be unable to resist the temptation to overturn election outcomes. Instead of conceding their defeat and planning the next campaign, they will replace local election boards where they lost. But, they won’t stop there. They will find a way to subvert the elections they lost. That is the most efficient way to retain power.
The impact of this legislation on democracy will be irrevocable. Ironically, its effect on election integrity will be negligible. Promising to eliminate fraud will merely raise expectations that these politicians have little desire or expertise to fulfill. Turning elections over to another set of partisans will only increase doubts about election integrity. The opportunity to professionalize local elections could be lost for years.
Conclusion
This “High Noon” moment should worry every American. Not because one side is wholly wrong and the other side wholly right. In one sense, both sides are right; in a democracy, we should encourage voting and maintain the integrity of our elections. We should respect Democratic concerns about voter rights and Republican concerns about fraud. And we should embrace nonpartisan solutions that reconcile both.
Democrats are right to urge easier, more convenient voting and higher voter turnout. Republicans are right to fight fraud and mismanagement. However, Democrats shouldn’t overlook the voting rights progress that has been realized or discount the very real risks of fraud and mismanagement. Similarly, Republicans shouldn’t reflexively reject ideas for increasing voter turnout or overstate the threat of fraud.
The rest of us should take a lot more interest in election processes. And we should get some perspective on the issue. Demanding fraud-free elections is silly. Afterall, we have learned to tolerate some level of fraud in our daily lives, such as credit card scams and retail theft. We don’t like these things, but we understand we can’t eliminate them. The current level of fraud in American elections is a mere fraction of the fraud found in other avenues. Do we really want to destroy our democracy in pursuit of the holy grail of zero-fraud elections?
We also must find the right balance between easy voting processes and personal responsibility. Arguably, a citizen’s most sacred duty is to vote. While voting rules should never frustrate a sincere citizen’s good faith effort to vote, every citizen should care enough to appreciate the right to vote and to take that right seriously. The right to vote should be available to all eligible citizens, but it must be exercised.
What is troubling about both Democratic and Republican positions is that they offer stealth partisan solutions to an issue—election reform—that demands nonpartisan ideas. To protect our democracy from the partisans who would remake it in their image, we should cleanse elections of undue partisan meddling. We should seize control of elections from politicians and manage them independently, impartially and professionally.