Jay Weber Show transcript 8-11-21 6:05am
You’ve probably heard that- yesterday-Tony Evers vetoed a package of six or seven new voter integrity laws that the republicans in the legislature had crafted, passed, and then passed along to him to sign.
He was never going to sign them, and a lazy legislature wouldn’t have gone thru the process, realizing that a democrat governor was going to block their effort, but I’m glad the republicans in our legislature did.
First of all- it means that these new voter laws are written and honed and ‘ready to go’ the next time we have a republican governor, which is hopefully to kick off 2023-
And second- it makes for a good campaign issue: it’s one thing for GOP lawmakers to generically promise voters that they’ll do more to secure our elections, it’s another to be able to tell them, ‘We passed a package of ‘next steps’ and Governor Evers vetoed it, so you got to help us get him out of office.’
And the Governor, himself, totally misrepresented what it is he was vetoing, yesterday. I believe it was Senator Van Waangard who said afterward, ‘look at what Evers was vetoing, don’t take his partisan puffery as the truth of it.
Yes, Evers actually held a little event at the capitol so that he could showboat to his side of the aisle over how he was ‘batting back the evil republicans who want to steal elections’.
He said...he issued these vetoes because republicans were trying to, quote...
"Stack the deck so (Republicans) get the results they want next time." They’re trying to make it harder for every eligible person to cast their ballot"
Well, not today. Not on this day....Evers said, sounding like King Arthur. I’m surprised he didn’t have a cape on, he sounded so ridiculous, as he ‘saved democracy’.
The truth of the matter is that, just like the new voting integrity rules that Republicans have passed in Texas and Georgia, these too, were reasonable rules meant to secure our ballots and hold fair elections.
The bills Evers vetoed would have-
- Allowed an absentee ballot to be returned only by the voter, an immediate family member or a legal guardian.
- Prohibited election officials from filling in missing address information on an absentee ballot envelope.
- Required voters to provide a copy of their ID every time they vote absentee (not just the first time, as under current law).
- Barred election officials from sending absentee ballot applications unless a voter request one.
- Required voters who request an absentee ballot to fill out two forms (one to apply for the ballot and another to certify that they are the person who filled it out). Under current law, one form covers both steps.
- Required indefinitely confined voters to reapply each year to receive absentee ballots, rather than receive them automatically.
- Required voters who are indefinitely confined due to age or disability to show a photo ID to vote absentee.
- Limited ballot collection events to occur only within two weeks before an election. Absentee ballots could only be collected at one site, located near and staffed by employees of the local clerk's office. This provision would effectively ban events like last year's "Democracy in the Park," where Madison poll workers collected absentee ballots and registered voters in more than 200 parks.
- Allowed recount observers to be within 3 feet of poll workers.
- Required local clerks' offices that livestream vote canvassing to keep recordings of the proceedings for at least 22 months after the election.
- Required administrators of residential care facilities and retirement homes to notify residents' relatives of when special voting deputies will be on site for residents who plan to vote absentee and make it a felony for a facility employee to influence a resident's vote.
That is -exactly-what these GOP reforms are meant to do, and Evers vetoed them.
He! Was the one who acted to allow for sloppier balloting with new ways to cheat- and then he!?-preened about being the protector of democracy?
What a clown.
Democrats’ efforts all revolve around finding new ways to cheat and keeping their old avenues open.
They have done a good job of messaging these voter integrity laws to the public as a bad thing, or as racist.
I just saw a poll yesterday that has Americans about split on the question if whether, quote these republican voter laws are racist or limit voting.
The voters are about split when they answer that question.
But a funny thing happens when you ask them about the specific plan’s republicans propose: do you support voter id?
A huge majority says yes. That’s a 75/25 win.
Do you believe ballot harvesting should be allowed?
No.
Should the voting process in nursing homes be more closely regulated? Yes.
The American people -know- what cheating is, and the American people-do- want fair elections. And so, when you explain what these GOP voter integrity laws do, they support them in large numbers.
It’s only when they are bunched together and labeled -ludicrously- as ‘Jim crow’ laws, and all that other nonsense, that people say they are against them.
And so, guess what democrats and their activists have been trying to do? Smear them as ‘a whole’, instead of being honest about what these voter integrity laws would do.
Do you want voter id? Yes.
Do you want more honest oversight in nursing homes? Yes.
Do you want better oversight and election observers? Yes.
These are popular ideas, and they do not at all limit voting or target minority voters in some effort to keep them from voting.
And the Democrats know it. So, they have to lie, which is what Tapioca Tony did yesterday.
story credit: The Cap Times
photo credit: Getty Images