Democrats and RINOs have ended an effort to protect election integrity in one key battleground state, killing a bill passed by the state Senate that would have required voter-ID for absentee ballots.
House Rejection
FOX 2 Detroit reports: “Michigan Republicans’ attempts to add an ID component to absentee ballot applications and to institute signature verification at polling places have died in the GOP-led Legislature, amid pushback from election clerks and voting-rights advocates.”
The Senate-passed bill requires absentee ballot applicants to include a copy of their photo ID, their driver’s license number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Anyone who is unable to provide these forms of identification would receive a provisional ballot, and would have to either verify their voter registration or verify their identity and residence within six days after the election in order for their vote to count.
RINO Representative Ann Bollin, the chair of the House Elections and Ethics Committee, said in a statement to The Associated Press that she and many other House Republicans oppose this bill.
“There was not support to make it more difficult for voters through the AV process,” said Bollin.
Currently, Michigan voters who seek an absentee ballot must sign the application, and the signature is later matched to the voter file.
Senate Rejection
Strangely, the same Senate that passed the above-mentioned bill is poised to reject the House GOP’s proposal to require in-person voters’ signatures to be verified before they are given a ballot. The bill would mandate that signatures in Michigan’s voter file are added to the electronic poll books, as the existing verification requirement is pretty much meaningless and unenforceable because signatures are not uploaded into the electronic poll books.
“The most positive means of proving your identity is through your photo ID… I don’t think the signature should be used as the mechanism for verifying someone’s identity over the photo ID,” said Republican Sen. Tom Barrett, a sponsor of the legislation that will undergo changes.
The Bottom Line
Of course, Barrett is right about voter ID being the best measure to protect election integrity, but the fact is that no matter what legislation the GOP passes in Michigan, it will most likely be vetoed by Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
It is just curious that the two chambers of the state legislature are at odds over these measures, rejecting bills from members of their own party. Ultimately, their efforts are meaningless. Republicans are famous for working hard to pass important GOP voter-supported measures… But only when they are out of power and the bills are doomed to fail. The first two years of Donald Trump‘s presidency, they held a majority in Congress, yet they did nothing. As soon as Democrats retook the House in 2018, the Republicans sprang into action. The same thing is happening in Michigan, the GOP is advancing and defeating their own party’s election integrity legislation while they know it is hopeless with a Democrat governor in power. When will the GOP learn?