“One bill to rule them all, one bill to bind them” — What no one is telling you about H.R. 1, the Democrats’ current top legislative priority
Lately, we have heard about H.R. 1, the ‘‘For the People Act of 2021.” This bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 4th. It is recycled from a similar bill that passed the House on a party line vote in 2019, but went nowhere and died. Now, it has reincarnated and can potentially pass the U.S. Senate as well. Democrat media outlets have trumpeted its reintroduction, and Senate majority leader Schumer’s office put out a statement last week that “the first bill of the new Congress will be the For the People Act.” This is a problem.
H.R. 1 constitutes a Federal takeover of all state elections to Federal office, leaving the states as agents of the Federal government, with no authority of their own. Among other highlights, the bill takes Congressional redistricting out of the hands of state legislatures, forces states to register everyone to vote, institutes Atlanta-style unmailed absentee ballot “drop boxes” nationwide, effectively does away with signature matching of absentee ballots, and eliminates any possible audit trail for paper ballots, absentee or otherwise. It also ends any stigma or liability around registering non-citizens to vote, thereby essentially enfranchising over 40 million legal and illegal aliens, granting them de facto voting ability—not the right, but the ability to vote without realistic fear of punishment, which, in practice, is the same as the right. The bill also forces states to add persons as young as 16 to the voter rolls, cracks down on military absentee ballots, and does many, many other crazy things.
I doubt anyone on the Democrat side has read all of H.R. 1. The bill is so outrageous and offensive to the Constitution, to the states, the courts, and everyone not a Democrat partisan, that it may not have been intended or expected to pass as-is, or if passed, to withstand any legal challenge. Rather, I believe it is a “progressive” wish-list, a marker for future efforts—waiting for a more favorable Supreme Court—that pleases “progressive” donors (Soros and down that list.) But, I could be wrong!
If the bill is to pass, it would be difficult to get through the Senate by the usual process. Due to the Senate’s 50-50 partisan split at present, Committee membership is also evenly split, and thus, a party line vote would not move any legislation out of Committee. Democrats could conceivably move the bill as a rider to a budget bill, without a standalone Committee vote, but then they would be passing perhaps the most far-reaching and radical piece of legislation in U.S. history without a real vote. Of course, anything is possible.
Here are some aspects and provisions to the bill:
“We have to pass it to know what’s in it.”
The bill is almost 800 pages long. It is the Obamacare of election laws. No one is going to read it.
Justification for a Federal takeover.
The bill’s preamble claims that Federal case law (prior court decisions, some dating to the Reconstruction era) as well as certain amendments to the U.S. Constitution have established that the Federal government has a right to take over state elections to Federal office, not just in special cases (e.g. after the Civil War), but totally and permanently and with respect to all states.
No challenges except in DC court.
The bill attempts to ensure that challenges to it will only be heard in a Federal court located in Washington, DC—evidently to make it easier for Congress (and Democrat pressure-mobs) to respond in person. This is a comical violation of Constitutional separation-of-powers. Of course, each Federal court decides which cases it will hear from among those cases brought to it. No legislation can limit that prerogative.
Automatic voter registration of everyone.
The bill requires all states to register every eligible person to vote. (Of course, there’s no way to really know who is eligible—the burden is on the state to prove you’re not a citizen or not a resident of that state, which is not going to happen when you’re talking about millions of voters.) As an individual, the only way to not be registered is to request in writing or online to not be registered. Moreover, while the bill recognizes that some (in reality, most) states register voters by party so as to facilitate party primary voting, the bill does not explain what to do if the state does not know to which party to register the voter. Thus, as written, this provision of the bill is not workable. This is a problem left over from the 2019 version that passed the House, suggesting that the bill was not vetted by Congress’ nonpartisan Legislative Counsel office, where cooler heads are employed to edit major legislation and bring attention to the kinks. It is in fact likely that the bill was handed off to Congressional Democrats in more-or-less current form by some “progressive” group, or a coalition of “progressive” groups.
Automatic voter registration of under-18’s.
Although the bill does not force states to allow below-18’s to vote, it requires states to follow its “must register” procedures with respect to anyone the state is aware of who is at least 16 years of age. In practice, a state would be required to register 16 and 17 year-olds to vote, provided that it has some recent knowledge of their existence (by way of driver’s permit applications, public assistance applications by their parents, state college admission applications, etc.) This provision is set forth twice in the bill, again suggesting that the bill was not fully edited.
Every state bureaucracy and university becomes a voter registration machine.
At each customer service touch-point (e.g. an application for public assistance, seasonal enrollment in a course of study, or any change of address), essentially all state agencies involved with public welfare and health services, and all state university administrations, as well as any private colleges that can get their students to attest to U.S. citizenship, must ensure that an individual is aware that he or she will be registered to vote unless he or she proactively declines to be registered to vote. Moreover, the middle of page 56 (current draft, may change) of the bill stipulates that they just have to keep asking, even if you previously declined. In other words, a state college student, for example, would be asked to register with every seasonal re-enrollment and every application for state aid. What this does is turn each and every state bureaucracy nationwide into a Democrat “poor vote” and “youth vote” registration machine.
Federal assistance in voter registration.
Following up on the above, certain Federal agencies with a presence in a given state—such as the Social Security Administration, the VA, and the immigration and naturalization folks—would have to provide information on potential unregistered voters to the government of the state within which the given Federal office is located. And they would have to provide it continuously—a never-ending stream of data about mostly the same customers, over and over.
Likely costs and outcomes.
The conditions outlined within the two above paragraphs would require potentially tens of billions of dollars to be spent nationwide on IT upgrades or new IT systems, to ensure continuous communication between Federal agencies and state voter databases, as well as between various state agencies and university systems on the one hand, and the state elections commissioner or secretary of state on the other. In the real world, this is so impractical as to potentially ultimately lead to a Federal voter database, eventually with Federal voter registration, with no state involvement at all.
DE FACTO SUFFRAGE FOR NON-CITIZENS.
The bill absolves non-citizens of any Federal or state criminal or civil liability for being registered to vote if they were automatically registered by their state as universally required under the bill, and did not decline to be registered. Likewise, persons registered under an incorrect address would be under no liability. In other words, a state—which has no way to know for sure who’s a citizen and who’s not—can automatically register everyone, and not have to worry too much about who is eligible, or whether the information on file is correct. And then, when some of those people inevitably vote, who is going to catch them? Once you’re registered, “you’re in.” ESSENTIALLY, THIS BILL GIVES ALL NON-CITIZENS—BOTH LEGAL AND ILLEGAL ALIENS—THE ABILITY TO VOTE, WITHOUT ANY DOUBT OR FEAR, IN FEDERAL ELECTIONS.
(Don’t believe me? See Section 1015, current draft pages 62-63.)
Federal takeover of voter databases and voter eligibility standards.
The U.S. National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) shall establish binding standards for the structure and use of state voter databases, to include rules on how or under what circumstances a state may determine that an individual on the rolls is ineligible, or that a voter record is duplicate or outdated. Likewise, NIST shall determine who has access to state voter databases. (After the 2020 election, Democrats do not want any telltale signs of registration/voter fraud in the public domain—they do not want open databases! But I would say this is overkill, as the bill eliminates the very concept of fraud by institutionalizing it.) Every state would then have to certify annual compliance with all NIST conditions, or forego any funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (see two items down.)
No more provisional ballots—every ballot is 100% legit from conception.
Anyone automatically registered under incorrect information (misspelled name, wrong address, etc.) can correct that information at the polling place, immediately prior to voting, and then cast a regular—not a provisional—ballot. In fact, the way the bill reads, you could actually claim to be someone else, using an entirely different name, saying “that’s my address, but they got the name wrong”, and they would have to let you vote with a regular ballot.
$500 million as a down-payment on compliance.
The Election Assistance Commission is authorized to disburse $500 million in Fiscal Year 2021 to assist states in compliance with this bill. It wouldn’t be remotely enough. Again, this thing would cost tens of billions of dollars, and would be unworkable, anyway.
Requirement for “same-day” registration and voting.
Anyone not automatically registered to vote under this bill, and who is eligible to vote (who’s to say who is not?), can register to vote at the polling place on the day of voting, like Massachusetts students driving across the border into New Hampshire used to do, before NH got smart. Now, it will be a national thing.
De facto authorization to vote in multiple states.
Interstate cross-checks of voter records (looking for people registered in more than one state) would no longer be grounds for removal from a voter database, unless a state can verify the last four digits of a person’s SSN as part of the voter record. Of course, election bureaucracies in most states don’t collect any part of your SSN. So, feel free to register and vote absentee in almost every state you’ve ever lived in—they won’t be able to do anything about it. Additionally, any cross-checks would have to occur no later than 6 months (up from 3 months) before an election.
Show your homework to daddy.
Every state must submit an annual report to the Election Assistance Commission and Congress with extensive details on its voter registration operations.
If you blink or say anything, say hello to the FBI.
Oh, the Democrats must love this one. It shall be a crime, punishable by up to five years in jail, to “corruptly hinder, interfere with, or prevent” anyone registering to vote, or helping another person to register. Of course, based on the last four years, I think Democrats have their own definition of “corrupt” that applies only to Republicans, not to them. Basically, not automatically registering everyone will become a Federal crime.
Federal assistance to register 12th graders.
The Elections Assistance Commission shall establish a pilot program, with funds made available, for schools to help register 12th graders to vote.
All ex-felons can vote.
All felons who have served their time will be able to vote, and states must notify them to that effect. Felons sitting in jail still will not vote.
Audit trail and meaningful storage of paper ballots eliminated.
The bill throws out the auditable paper trail requirements under Section 301(a)(2) of Public Law 107–252—OCT. 29, 2002. I don’t even need to paraphrase. Read the new language yourself: ‘‘The voting system shall not preserve the voter-verified paper ballots in any manner that makes it possible, at any time after the ballot has been cast, to associate a voter with the record of the voter’s vote without the voter’s consent.” (Who will give their consent, and how? Yeah, I’m going to send in a letter of consent with my absentee ballot, hahaha.)
Don’t believe me? See Section 1502, current draft page 149.
ID and witness signature requirements for absentee ballots eliminated.
See the above headline. I have nothing to add here.
One absentee ballot application gets you absentee for life.
When you apply for an absentee ballot, the state must give you the option to receive absentee ballots at the same address for all future elections (even after you die?) with no re-application. This provision is stated twice—in different language, but nonetheless—in the bill, again showing that the bill did not go through professional editing.
Signature matching of absentee ballots effectively prohibited.
An absentee ballot cannot be disqualified for failing a signature matching requirement, or for absence of signature, unless the voter has been contacted and has failed to “cure” the problem within 10 days of being notified. (How are you supposed to do this for thousands of phony ballots? It will never happen.) Moreover, in the case of a signature discrepancy, the “curing” may occur by phone or email—the voter can explain it away without providing a new signature. Also, the vote counters can’t make a determination of discrepancy unless at least two of them have received “training in procedures used to verify signatures.” (Yeah, let me sell you a $500-per-person online training seminar.) On top of that, each state must report to the Feds on how many ballots were cured and how many invalidated in each election, to include a description of steps taken to contact the voters (in each case?). This is pure comedy—Democrats should just come clean and declare, “No signature matching!”
Don’t believe me? See Section 307, current draft pages 174-178.
Military absentee ballots under the microscope.
Content with all the dirt in their own core cities, it appears the Democrats view military absentee ballots as a source of Republican vote padding, and they want to shine a laser on it. The bill requires states to report to various Federal agencies and persons, including the U.S. Attorney General (!!!), as to how many military absentee ballot applications were received, by county; how many military absentee ballots were sent out, by county; and how many military absentee ballots were returned, by county. The bill also grants Federal courts the authority (in the context of a suit brought by the Attorney General) to “assess a civil penalty” on states that don’t meet these requirements. The fine is $110,000 for the first violation and $220,000 for any subsequent violation. This may seem like a token amount, but if a state with 70 or 90 counties does not file the report, potentially the noncompliance with respect to each county may be considered a violation. In any case, who ever heard of a state paying the Federal government a monetary fine? This is madness, but it shows how strongly Democrats suspect the military ballots.
Drop boxes!
Atlanta-style public “drop boxes” for the anonymous submission of unmailed absentee ballots shall become a ubiquitous, nationwide phenomenon. The drop boxes must be made available starting 45 days before an election.
Redistricting.
The bill takes Congressional redistricting within each state out of the hands of the state legislature or its committees, and gives it to “nonpartisan” commissions established under the bill, with extremely complicated procedures for selection of members, issuing of public hearing notices, approval of redistricting plans, and so forth. In principle, the general outline seems OK, but in fact, this is likely an attempt to make an end-run around the Republican party at the state level (the GOP has controlled most state legislatures for the last ten years), seeing as Democrat fraud machines in the big cities cannot penetrate the exurbs and countryside.
Potential U.S. House & Senate seats, and Electoral College votes, for U.S. Territories.
The bill forms a commission to look vaguely into granting all U.S. Territories—American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—potentially full voting and representational rights and privileges, but without actual statehood. Of course, this is not remotely Constitutional. But if it happened, it would grow our Senate to as many as 110 seats, and add as many as 18 new electoral votes to the mix, without adding any new states. Evidently, Democrats think they might work it without Joe Sixpack noticing, so long as they don’t add any stars to our flag. Frankly, it would be funny if the Marianas, with a population of 50-some thousand, were granted one congressman, two senators, and three Electoral College votes. Evidently, the Democrats are not as opposed to the Electoral College as we thought.
(Despite what you might have heard, the bill DOES NOT grant statehood to Washington, DC, though it talks about how fair and proper that would be.)
A FINAL NOTE
That’s it, I give up. I have only gotten through a SMALL FRACTION of this bill. No one is paying me for this. I have a day job and a family, and I need sleep—I hope someone out there in this nation of 330 million can do this full-time. The “news media” sure won’t.
This is the craziest piece of legislation I have ever seen. If this gets so much as a hearing in Congress, we will know that the system of checks and balances in our Federal government has been severely compromised. My best guess is that Democrat state governments, state university systems, etc., will tell their friends in Congress that this is just too damn complicated and expensive, and needs to go back to the kitchen. But again, it sounds terrible and it is a hint of what the Democrats have in store for us, should they take back the Supreme Court.
I sincerely hope this has been useful to you. Thanks for reading. If you can do so without causing problems for yourself, please pass this along to your friends and associates.