House Republicans just dropped what might be the most important piece of legislation of our lifetimes. The Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act hit the floor on Thursday, and it’s a full-throttle effort to secure elections in ways Democrats have long fought against.
For starters, the MEGA Act would require a photo ID to vote and mandate proof of citizenship to register nationwide. The bill also directly targets practices that became major flashpoints in 2020 that undermined confidence in the 2020 election. This legislation mandates that mail-in ballots must arrive by the close of polls on Election Day to be counted, with one exception for military personnel overseas. Several states currently allow ballots postmarked by Election Day to be accepted later, which delays results in vote-by-mail-heavy states like California.
That would end under this bill.
The bill also mandates paper ballots for all federal elections to allow for auditing, stricter guidelines for maintaining voter rolls to prevent fraudulent votes by dead or otherwise ineligible voters, and a ban on ballot harvesting. Under the law, only immediate family members or caregivers could collect and deliver completed ballots. Anyone else handling mail ballots would be capped at four at a time. That closes a loophole that has long been exploited for fraud.
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The MEGA Act would bar Federal agencies from using taxpayer money to promote voter registration. That’s a direct shot at Biden’s 2021 executive order directing agencies to help people register, which Republicans labeled “BidenBucks.” The proposal also outlaws ranked-choice voting in federal races, a system Maine and Alaska use statewide, and which various local jurisdictions have adopted.
“Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity – including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,” House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil said in a statement. He argued the changes “will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.”
The House bill was introduced one day after Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act would come to the Senate floor “at some point.” Thune noted senators are working to add language ensuring only residents can actually cast ballots, not just register.
Conservative election reform groups are rallying behind the MEGA Act.
“I’ve spent the last decade registering voters across the country and empowering Americans to vote. Without fair elections, we aren’t a free nation,” Scott Presler, founder of Early Vote Action, said. “Thank you to Chairman Steil for his leadership on comprehensive election reform. Let’s make elections great again!”
Jason Snead of Honest Elections Project Action, J. Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, and Justin Riemer of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections also backed the bill. This isn’t just a Republican pipe dream anymore. It’s moving, and the battle lines are drawn.
While all this sounds great and necessary, here’s the rub: Democrats will never support this bill.
“President Trump and House Republicans are terrified of the American people. They are desperate to rig the system so they can choose their voters. This bill is their latest attempt to block millions of Americans from exercising their right to vote. I will fight this bill at every turn,” Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
I don’t see any issue getting this to pass in the House. But saying that getting this bill through the U.S. Senate will be a Herculean task is an understatement. Democrats, who rely on fraud and insecure elections for power, aren’t going to vote for this, and I don’t see how it will ever overcome a filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Hopefully, Senate Republicans have some tricks up their sleeves, because I genuinely think that this is our moment to make elections secure again. Remember, under Biden, Democrats nearly succeeded in overhauling elections to make them less secure. I hope Republicans can pull this off.
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