Trump’s false claims of voter fraud inspire flurry of voting restriction bills

Source: Politico | March 15, 2021 | Nolan D. McCaskill

In statehouses around the country — most notably, in Georgia — lawmakers are rolling out legislation that would make it a lot harder to vote.

Former President Donald Trump’s debunked claims of widespread voter fraud and a stolen election galvanized his supporters who stormed the Capitol in January. Now, his rhetoric is turning into policies that are moving through GOP-dominated state legislatures: a rollback of voting access.

In statehouses around the country — most notably, Georgia — lawmakers are rolling out legislation that would make it a lot harder to vote. They’re considering dozens of restrictive bills to purge voters from rolls, limit early and absentee voting, add voter ID requirements and eliminate automatic and same-day voter registration.

In short, bills are being introduced to prevent something that didn’t happen in 2020 — widespread voter fraud — from recurring in 2022, 2024 and beyond.

“They’re all predicated on the ‘big lie,’ the idea that Trump won the election, that there was widespread voter fraud,” said Nsé Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project. “The ‘big lie’ is the engine or the fuel that powered in a lot of ways the Jan. 6 insurrection. It’s also the fuel that’s powering these anti-voting bills that we are seeing across the country.”

If passed, critics warn, the policies would disproportionately impact Democratic constituencies like young voters, poor voters and voters of color, erecting barriers to the ballot box after a historic turnout last fall.

“There’s absolutely no coincidence in terms of the people who are gonna be impacted and the timing of this,” said Nancy Abudu, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, an arm of the SPLC, which prioritizes impact litigation on issues like voting rights and criminal justice reform.

Some voting rights advocates are pinning their hopes on the federal government, where there are moves afoot to make it easier for Americans to cast votes. President Joe Biden signed an executive order promoting voting access on March 7, the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a civil rights touchstone. And days earlier, the House passed sweeping election reforms expanding voting rights.

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