Republican state lawmakers in three battlefield states, where President Biden overtook Donald Trump in the November presidential election, are pushing to tighten postal voting restrictions in future disputes.
The measures came after then-President Trump spent the eight months leading up to November’s general elections, repressing the urge of several states to expand voting by post due to health concerns about voting in person amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has continually claimed that the moves would trigger electoral fraud and result in a “fraudulent election”.
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There was a sudden increase across the country in early and postal ballots during the election, with many of these ballots by Democrats. After his defeat in the elections, Trump refused to give in to Biden and repeatedly stated, without providing hard evidence, that there was “massive voter fraud” and that the election was “stolen”.
Corey Lewandowski, a longtime Trump adviser, told Fox News on Thursday that the former president would be involved in “voting integrity” efforts going forward.
Now, with new legislative sessions in state assemblies taking place across the country, Republican lawmakers in some states – Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania – are taking action.
Georgia
Last week, a state senator from the Republican Party in Georgia, where the legislature is controlled by Republicans, introduced a bill that requires voters to provide a photo ID when requesting and returning their absent ballot.
The introduction of the bill comes a month after the Republican caucus in the state Senate promised to “reform our electoral laws to guarantee our electoral process, eliminating absentee voting at will. We will require photo identification for absentees for cause, and we will repress the harvest of votes by banning hanging boxes. “
Workers examine the ballots as the Fulton County presidential recount begins on Wednesday morning, November 25, 2020, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. County election officials across Georgia have started an automatic recount of about 5 million votes in the state’s presidential race. The recount was requested by President Donald Trump after certified results showed that he lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden by 12,670 votes, or 0.25%. (AP Photo / Ben Gray)
Biden defeated Georgia by less than 12,000 votes out of nearly 5 million, becoming the first Democrat to win the state in a presidential election in more than a quarter of a century. The state became the focus of Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn Biden’s victory, with Georgia’s Republican governor and secretary of state refusing the then president’s requests to cancel certification of election results.
Republican Deputy Governor Geoff Duncan, who also pressed against Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud, said on Tuesday that he supports the new bill.
“I think the best step forward is just looking for an opportunity to create a photo identification process,” Duncan, who chairs the state Senate, told reporters. “I think it fits the needs of 11 million Georgians better, or at least the people who are going to vote.”
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Arizona
Trump and his supporters also tried to reverse the election results in Arizona, where Biden won by just over 10,000 votes, becoming the first Democrat since 1996 to win the state in the White House race. As in Georgia, Republicans control the executive and legislative branches in Arizona.
A new bill submitted to the state legislature would revoke Arizona’s permanent early voting list. Voters on such lists automatically receive ballots for each primary and general election. A separate bill would expel people who did not vote in primary and general elections from the list for two consecutive cycles.
Pennsylvania
Trump and his supporters also initiated unsuccessful lawsuits in Pennsylvania, where Biden won by just over 80,000 votes out of nearly 7 million votes.
State legislators from the Republican Party are promoting a bill that would repeal Pennsylvania’s 2019 no-excuse voting law.
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“During the last presidential election, we witnessed mass confusion and irregularities in the ballots in the mail and I know that my district office was not the only one to receive an unprecedented amount of phone calls from constituents concerned about electoral fraud through this postal voting system” , GOP state deputy Michael Puskaric, co-sponsor of the project, wrote. “As representatives of the people, we must listen to the concerns of our constituents and act quickly to ensure that future elections are safe, protected.”
Republicans control the legislature, but Democratic Governor Tom Wolf would likely veto any bill passed by lawmakers. Pennsylvania opened contests for governor and senate next year.