ATLANTA (AP) – In Arizona, a Republican senator worried aloud that his party’s proposed voter identification requirements might be too “cumbersome.” But he still voted for the bill.
In Iowa, the head of the state’s Republican election made a carefully worded statement that did not state whether he supports the laws of his own party, making it more difficult to vote early.
And in Georgia, Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan left the room when Senate Republicans passed a bill to block early voting for everyone except the GOP’s most reliable ballot box. Duncan instead watched Monday’s proceedings from a television in his office to protest.
This is what amounts to dissent as Republican lawmakers push a wave of legislation through state houses across the country to make voting more difficult. The bills are fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud, and many are sponsored by his most loyal allies. But support for the effort is far wider than just Trump’s far-right base, and the objections from GOP policymakers are so quiet that they can be easily overlooked.
“It is terrible what is happening,” said Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, who condemned the silence of the GOP’s elected officials. “There are no demonstrable, obvious, system-wide failures or frauds that would require the kind of ‘legislative remedies’ that Republican lawmakers are getting into. What are you so afraid of? Black people vote? ”
Experts note that most of the changes under discussion would disproportionately affect voters of color, the youth and the poor – all groups that historically vote for Democrats. But Republicans are also imposing restrictions on the potential to place new burdens on GOP-leaning groups.
It is a surprising shift for a party whose voters in some states, such as Florida and Arizona, had embraced absence and postal voting. Several Republican strategists note that the party may pass laws that only exclude their own voters.
“There are multiple states and in multiple demographics where Republicans consistently outperform Democrats in early voting and absenteeism, and they have to be very careful because they can shoot themselves in the foot to limit that and make it more difficult,” said Terry. Sullivan, a Republican strategist.
So far, if elected Republicans share these concerns, they have done little to slow the momentum of important legislation in competing states like Georgia, Arizona, Florida and Texas, where Republicans control the state legislature and the office of the governor.
Democratic officials, civil rights leaders and voting advocates are shocked.
Martin Luther King III said he celebrated the 56th anniversary of his father’s bloody march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge last weekend in Selma, Alabama. Rather than being a holiday, he said, there was a sense that the civil rights movement was in decline as a result of the Republican voting proposals.
“There is no doubt that this is a higher level of Jim Crow,” said King in an interview. He said he is concerned that little can be done to stop the Republican effort in the short term.
“I’m not sure what would make Republicans change other than they lose (in upcoming elections,” added King. color. . ”
Republicans in favor of the changes insist they are simply trying to restore public confidence in the US electoral system. There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in 2020, but polls show that many Republicans questioned the outcome of the election after Trump repeatedly falsely stated that he was the victim of illegal voting.
In an interview, Trump ally Ken Cuccinelli used a curse to describe King’s suggestion that the new laws are intended to deny rights to African Americans.
“I take the idea very offended that I am trying to prevent anyone from voting,” said Cuccinelli. “There is no reason why anyone, regardless of the color they are, cannot access this system if they are a legal and eligible voter.”
In Georgia, the senate has voted to limit access to absentee ballots to people over 65, people with physical disabilities, and people out of town on election day. Legislation passed by the state house would also drastically reduce early voting hours, limit the use of drop boxes for early voting, and make it a crime to feed or water voters standing in line.
During Monday’s Senate vote, several Republicans representing Atlanta’s competing metro districts did not vote, including Senator Brian Strickland. He had tried in committee to amend the bill to remove provisions that remove no-excuse votes in absence, but could not rally enough support.
If the change were ultimately approved by both chambers of the legislature, the change would end the broad, no-excuse vote introduced by a Republican-led legislature in 2005 after more than 1.3 million people by mail had voted as absent.
In Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, signed a GOP-backed bill on Monday requiring voting sites to close an hour earlier and shorten the early voting period to 20 days from the current 29. Voters will also be removed from active. voting lists if they miss a single general election and do not report a change of address or re-register.
Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate, who contradicted Trump’s references to widespread voter fraud last fall and extensive mail-in-voting during the pandemic, did not oppose the new law, but he also offered no resounding approval after a Latino advocacy group was indicted Tuesday to to stop it from taking effect.
“My office will continue to provide resources to assist every eligible voter and understand any changes to the electoral law,” Pate said. “Our goal has always been to make voting easy, but hard to cheat.”
And in Arizona, Republicans introduced dozens of bills to impose new voting restrictions, many of which targeted the vote-by-mail system that accounts for about 80 percent of Arizona ballots.
Some of the most aggressive proposals have died unceremoniously. House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, quietly buried a bill that would have allowed the legislature to reverse the presidential election results and appoint its own electoral college representatives. But other measures are advancing, some with the support of Republicans who recognize discomfort.
The Arizona Senate voted this week to require identification, such as a driver’s license number or a copy of a utility bill, to be included with the postal vote. Republican Senator Tyler Pace said he feared it would reduce voter secrecy and seriously hinder the many voters who don’t have printers at home.
“The problem is that every way you look at it becomes cumbersome,” Pace said during the legal debate.
Meanwhile, Steele warned Republican officials that next year’s midterm elections and beyond would face a fierce political backlash if they continued to make it harder for some voters to run in elections.
‘If you keep silent, you are an accomplice. You are an accomplice in denying African American voters the right to vote in key jurisdictions across the country, ”Steele said. “They will regret the upcoming elections if they stay on this course.”
Peoples reported from New York and Cooper reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.