As GOP makes it harder to vote, few Republicans dissent

ATLANTA >> In Arizona, a Republican state senator worried aloud that his party’s proposed voter identification requirements might be too “cumbersome.” But he voted for the bill anyway.

In Iowa, the state’s Republican elections chief put out a carefully worded statement that didn’t say whether he backs his own party’s legislation making it more difficult to vote early.

And in Georgia, Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan left the room as Senate Republicans approved a bill to block early voting for all but the GOP’s most reliable voting bloc. Duncan instead watched Monday’s proceedings from a television in his office to protest.

This is what amounts to dissent as Republican lawmakers push a wave of legislation through statehouses across the nation to make voting more difficult. The bills are fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud and many are sponsored by his most loyal allies. But support for the effort is much broader than just Trump’s hardright base, and objections from GOP policymakers are so quiet they can be easy to miss.

“It’s appalling what’s happening,” said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, who condemned the silence of the GOP’s elected officials. “There have been no provable, obvious, systemwide failures or fraud that would require the kind of ‘legislative remedies’ that Republican legislatures are embarking on. What the hell are you so afraid of? Black people voting?”

Experts note that most changes up for debate would disproportionately affect voters of color, younger people and the poor — all groups that historically vote for Democrats. But Republicans are also pushing restrictions with the potential to place new burdens on GOP-leaning groups.

It’s a startling shift for a party whose voters in some states, such as Florida and Arizona, had embraced absentee and mail voting. Several Republican strategists note the party may be passing laws that only box out their own voters.

“There are multiple states and in multiple demographics where Republicans consistently outperform Democrats in early voting and absentee voting, and they need to be very careful because they could be shooting themselves in the foot to restrict that and make it more difficult,,” said Terry Sullivan, a Republican strategist.

If elected Republicans share these concerns, they have done little so far to slow the momentum of major legislation in competitive states like Georgia, Arizona, Florida and Texas, where Republicans control the state legislature and the governor’s office.

Democratic officials, civil rights leaders and voting advocates are horrified.

Martin Luther King III said he spent last weekend in Selma, Alabama, celebrating the 56th anniversary of his father’s bloody march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Instead of being a day of celebration, he said, there was a sense that the civil rights movement was sliding backward because of the Republican voting proposals.

“There’s no question about this being a higher level of Jim Crow,” King said in an interview. He said he’s worried that little can be done to stop the Republican effort in the short term.

“I’m not sure what would make Republicans change other than they lose (in upcoming elections,” King added. “There has to be a maximum effort so that does happen. They’re going to get very few votes from community of color.”

Republicans championing the changes insist they’re simply trying to help restore public confidence to the U.S. election system. There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in 2020, but polls suggest that many Republicans doubted the outcome of the election after Trump repeatedly declared, falsely, that he was the victim of illegal voting.

In an interview, Trump ally Ken Cuccinelli used an expletive to describe King’s suggestion that the new laws are designed to disenfranchise African Americans.

“I take great offense to the idea that I’m trying to keep anybody from voting,” Cuccinelli said.

“There’s no question about this being a higher level of Jim Crow.”

— Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr.