Conservative group pushes voting proposals

As Donald Trump made false allegations about voting fraud and tried to overturn the will of the people in last year’s election, one of his chief allies was conspicuously silent. The Honest Elections Project, a leading advocate for more restrictive voting laws, stayed away from Trump’s doomed effort.

But now the group founded by conservative activist and informal Trump adviser Leonard Leo is rejoining the debate with a new set of recommendations likely to guide GOP lawmakers as they overhaul voting systems. The suggestions range from ones that are likely to be embraced by Democrats and voting rights groups — allowing election offices to start processing mail ballots weeks before Election Day — to ones likely to spark fierce opposition, such as mandatory voter identification for both mail and in-person voting, and creation of a secure system that would link an absentee ballot to its voter.

“There is much more to the election reform push than what happened after the November election,” said Jason Snead, the group’s executive director.

But Snead made a point to separate his group from the post-election efforts — launched by Trump but embraced by many GOP groups and lawmakers — to reverse the outcome of the presidential vote.

The Honest Elections Project was created in early 2020 to advocate for greater controls on elections. The group has drawn scrutiny in part because of Leo’s influence in conservative legal circles. As cochairman of the Federalist Society, Leo helped spearhead the effort to appoint conservative judges to the federal courts.