Pennsylvania’s Republican legislators sure do seem bent upon making it more difficult for Pennsylvanians to vote, and to have their votes actually count. The recent ruling by the state Supreme Court upholding the expansion of mail-in voting was immediately vilified by Republicans as politically motivated, never mind that these very Republicans are among those who voted for this expansion three years ago.
Why are Republicans now so strongly against any legislation that encourages and enables as many Pennsylvania registered voters as possible to exercise their right to vote? Shouldn’t those who shepherd our democracy want to encourage as many of us as possible to participate in our democratic rights and obligations? To want all voices to be heard?
They don’t want E pluribus as they seek to be the unum. The conservative Republican legislators who currently hold sway in the state House and Senate do not want all of pluribus to vote. They do not want to hear all voices. Their intent to hinder, silence and disenfranchise voters is clear in two Republican-crafted proposed amendments to the state constitution.
The first is "in addition to the qualifications…a qualified elector shall provide a valid identification at each election.” This is an unnecessary additional impediment to voting. There has been no widespread election fraud in Pennsylvania (despite the endless, baseless claims of Republican election deniers). Republicans are being disingenuous when they insist that this additional hoop to go through does anything other than prevent legitimate voters from exercising their right to vote.
More pernicious than this voter ID requirement is the proposed amendment that the “General Assembly shall by statute provide for the auditing of elections and election results by the Auditor General.” Not the attorney general, whose role is to act as the chief law enforcement officer, but the auditor general, whose role is chief fiscal watchdog of the commonwealth. This change in election oversight neatly cuts out recourse to the courts, consolidating Republican legislators’ ability to overturn any election result that does not go their way. Given the recent state Supreme Court’s Republican setback that upheld mail-in voting, it’s clear why Republicans want to make these changes. They do not want a watchdog, they want a lapdog. They don’t want justice, they want their way.
They piously insist that these amendments place decisions in the hands of the people, when the true intent is to remove as much choice, say, and recourse from the people as possible. Do not be fooled. These amendments cannot pass. They pose dire consequences and threats to our right to vote, to our democracy, while abetting an entrenched conservative Republicans that are using all contrivances, smoke and mirrors necessary to stay in power, even, and especially when, they fly in the face of the will of the pluribus — we the many, we the people.