Republican lawmakers seek to restrict voting after record turnout

Republican lawmakers in statehouses across the United States are moving swiftly to attack some of the voting methods that fuelled the highest turnout for a presidential election in 50 years.

Although most legislative sessions are just getting underway, the Brennan Centre for Justice, a public policy institute, has already tallied more than 100 bills in 28 states meant to restrict voting access. More than a third of those proposals are aimed at limiting mail voting, while other bills seek to strengthen voter ID requirements and registration processes, as well as allow for more aggressive means to remove people from voter rolls.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing some politicians who want to manipulate the rules of the game so that some people can participate and some can’t,” said Myrna Pérez, director of the voting rights and elections programme at the Brennan Centre.

The proposals are advancing not only in Texas and other traditional red states but also in such places as Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania that supported Donald Trump four years ago, only to flip for Joe Biden in November.

Many Republicans have said the new bills are meant to shore up public confidence after Trump and his Republican allies falsely criticised the election as fraudulent. Those claims were turned away by dozens of courts and were made even as a group of election officials — including representatives of the federal government’s cybersecurity agency — deemed the 2020 presidential election the “the most secure in American history”. Trump’s former attorneygeneral, William Barr, also said he saw no evidence of widespread fraud that would have changed the election results.

In last year’s presidential election, nearly 70 per cent of all ballots cast nationwide came before election day, with an estimated 108 million people voting through the mail, early inperson or by dropping off absentee ballots. The surge came after states expanded access to mail voting and early voting, with a few states sending absentee ballots to all registered voters in response to the coronavirus pandemic that raised safety questions about large crowds at the polls.

In Texas, the nation’s largest Republican-controlled state, the 2020 presidential election was considered a resounding success by almost any measure. Millions took advantage of early in-person voting to shatter the state’s turnout record. There were no reports of widespread system meltdowns, voter disenfranchisement or fraud.

But some GOP lawmakers there are seeking new criminal offences to deter voter fraud, even though actual fraud is exceedingly rare. Other bills would prohibit independent groups from distributing application forms for mailin ballots and clarify who can request an application.