Why Do Democrats Hate Popular Democracy So Much?

Democratic state officials regularly use process to prevent the public from voting for election integrity.

The Democratic Party's position is upside down in the polls with the American people on citizenship verification and voter ID. Overwhelming majorities of its own voters support these commonsense measures to secure American elections. Leftist special interests, however, prefer to keep it easy for ineligible voters to vote. Rather than let the people decide this issue, Democratic Secretaries of State regularly pull every trick possible to kill election integrity measures before they reach the ballot.

They often word ballot measures to make them sound confusing or unconscionable to unsuspecting voters. Other times, they disapprove of ballot petitions at the last minute to prevent conservative groups from successfully challenging them in court before the next election.

Something Is Rotten In the State of Michigan

In Michigan, a constitutional amendment that would have required proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote will not reach the November ballot.

Americans for Citizen Voting (ACV) submitted roughly 710,000 signatures—far above the 446,198 required to get this on the ballot. Polling showed that over 80 percent of Michiganders support these measures. It should have been a slam dunk for grassroots citizens fed up with the inaction in Washington on election integrity. Twelve states have citizen-only voting measures on the ballot this year—more than any year in history. Michigan should have made it 13.

As is standard procedure, the Bureau of Elections, inside the office of Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson—who is running for governor—sampled 1,000 names. It needed 629 valid signatures to recommend the Board of State Canvassers certify the petition.

The Bureau counted 612 valid signatures. On Aug. 24, the four Board members, consisting of two Republicans and two Democrats, spent seven hours poring over contested signatures and affidavits. There were many signatures that the Republican Board members believed should have counted. But, according to state law, whenever the Board deadlocks 2–2, the signature doesn't count. The Democrats acquiesced on an additional 14 signatures, bringing the total approved to 626—conveniently three short of the required 629, which was the corresponding equivalent of 446,198 out of 710,000.

On Aug. 27, ACV asked the Michigan Supreme Court to intervene, but the ballot deadline was Sept. 4. As the Michigan court took its sweet time, ACV filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected the application without comment on Sept. 3. Later that night, the Michigan Supreme Court told ACV to appeal to the legislature if it didn't like the state's petition rules.

It's very possible there was nothing else ACV could have done to put election integrity on the ballot. The fight for eligible citizen-only voting in the Wolverine State will continue after the November election, but so will the subjective procedural hurdles Democratic officials lay to prevent the will of the people.

The Same Playbook, Coast to Coast

The Michigan case is no outlier. Democratic officials in the following states engaged in similar tactics to deny voters an honest vote on Republican-led referenda.

Maine

Last year, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) submitted absurdly charged language for a voter-ID and absentee-rules initiative:

Do you want to change Maine election laws to eliminate two days of absentee voting, prohibit requests for absentee ballots by phone or family members, end ongoing absentee voter status for seniors and people with disabilities, ban prepaid postage on absentee ballot return envelopes, limit the number of drop boxes, require voters to show certain photo ID before voting, and make other changes to our elections?

Sponsors sued, arguing the framing buried the measure's most popular element—voter ID—and presented it as a voter suppression initiative. The Maine Superior Court upheld Bellows' wording, and the initiative unsurprisingly lost.

Oregon

This year offers two examples of Oregon Democrats' shenanigans.

In Portland, city elections staff allegedly discarded 11 percent of the signatures on a police-staffing petition before the county sample. Even Secretary of State Tobias Read, a Democrat, criticized the lack of transparency but declined to intervene. The measure ultimately failed to qualify for the ballot.

When Read certified a separate Republican-backed anti-tax referendum for this November's ballot, the Democratic legislature moved its election date forward to May. This posed two problems. Roughly 250,000 Oregonians had signed to put the question on the November ballot. Additionally, Oregon mails a pamphlet to every voter with arguments for and against ballot measures, and this compressed the timeline to get arguments into the May pamphlet. A judge allowed the rushed referendum to stand, but voters still overwhelmingly voted down the Democrats' tax increases.

Arizona

This year, Arizona's Proposition 144 is a legislative referral measure that packs voter ID, citizenship verification, on-site tabulation, and a foreign-funding ban into a single description capped at 50 words. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) published a summary that mentions the ID requirement but folds everything else into a catch-all "other changes." America First Legal argued on behalf of the proposition's supporters that this framing erases the other provisions from what voters read. On Aug. 19, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled the wording within Fontes' discretion.

California

California's current voter ID measure, which will be on November's ballot, followed a similar pattern. In Attorney General Rob Bonta's (D) original description, Proposition 39 purported to establish "additional voter identification and citizenship verification requirements." After it qualified for the ballot, that description became "prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification."

This prompted State Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R) who spearheaded the initiative to accuse Bonta of "corruptly trying to rig the election by putting a biased and dishonest title on this common-sense measure."

It remains to be seen if this tactic will work in California as it did in Maine.

America Needs a Federal Solution

Democratic elites know theirs is a losing position. Voter ID and citizenship verification poll well even among their own voters. But for that very reason, they know that the safest place to stop it isn't the ballot box, it's the process. Whether they kill it during signature approval or rig the outcome during the drafting of the official question, anti-election integrity gatekeepers understand their best bet is to ensure voters never get to properly weigh in on citizen-only voting and voter ID.

Until Republicans pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, the country's election laws will remain a state-based patchwork. The SAVE America Act would fix all of this by requiring nationwide citizenship-verification, mandating a government-issued photo ID, and limiting mail-in voting for federal elections.

The bill has already passed the House of Representatives and awaits Senate approval. Americans can contact their senator today at SaveActNow.com and demand they force a vote on it.

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