Against the backdrop of a sacred pulpit that was instrumental in the fight to secure the rights of democracy, the Biden Administration continued its pattern of deception about election integrity.
On Sunday in Selma, Alabama, Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed to fight against popular, common-sense measures like voter ID laws and to challenge duly enacted legislation that focuses on vulnerable practices like mail-in voting and drop boxes.
Since 2020, Democrats have shown that their threats to election integrity are not empty, and this threat from the nation’s top law enforcement official should concern everyone that cares about security and transparency in our elections.
The fact that the attorney general wants to fight voter ID laws is particularly concerning. Garland chose Selma, Alabama, as the location to talk about voter ID because of the left’s unfounded claims that those laws unfairly affect voters of color. However, a 2021 Rasmussen poll showed that 75% of likely voters support voter ID requirements. Yet, Merrick Garland wants to unravel this basic measure in preventing fraudulent voting.
Garland has also vowed to fight other duly enacted election integrity measures that he deems to be “discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary.” The problem with that is the Left has been lying about the effects of election integrity legislation for years. The passage of Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 sparked intense debate, with Garland’s own boss, President Joe Biden, calling the law Jim Crow 2.0 to draw attention to the claimed effects of the bill on voters of color.
However, following the enactment of the law, Georgia witnessed a surge in early voting, the type of voting most thought to be affected. The first two days of early voting saw an 85% increase over midterm voting in 2018. Moreover, post-election polling done by the University of Georgia indicated that 99% of Georgia voters did not encounter significant issues while voting. This underscores the accessibility of Georgia’s voting system despite the new regulations.
In addition to voter identification requirements, Garland also signaled his willingness to challenge requirements to drop boxes and mail-in voting. It is unsurprising that he specifically chose those methods of voting, as the loosening of rules in 2020 led to confusion and it seems that Garland wants to be ensure further confusion in 2024.
Much of the developed world warns against mail-in voting due to its ease of corruptibility and serious questions that have been raised in recent elections about the Postal Service’s ability to be a fair arbiter in our elections. The USPS workers union outwardly endorses Democrats, including Joe Biden himself. Can we be sure that they’re being fair? Additionally, a Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports poll revealed that one-in-five mail-in-voters committed some form of fraud in 2020. Given these facts, why would the nation’s top cop forcefully push for such a sketchy method of voting?
While Garland’s policy stances on election integrity are highly concerning, an even bigger issue for Americans may be that the attorney general has committed to challenging, instead of upholding, election laws in an election year. Much of the mistrust of the 2020 election was the result of the left’s last-minute bulldozing of election-process safeguards without corresponding increases in transparency. In many states, this was done unilaterally through the executive branch or the courts, leaving citizens confused and angry. Without COVID as a pretext in the states this year, it seems that Garland is advertising his office as the unilateral authority to change our elections in 2024.
The attorney general would have you think that his statements on Sunday spoke to the disenfranchisement of certain groups of voters. If there was any evidence that the policies he spoke to specifically disenfranchised voters, his comments would seem much more genuine. Instead, he spoke of attacking policies that members of all parties support. Instead of providing evidence of disenfranchisement, he provided evidence of the left’s continual use of election integrity for further political division.
Church is a place where the truth should roam free. Jesus said in John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” However, Merrick Garland used his speech to attack the truth. As election season kicks into full gear, Americans need confidence, not empty rhetoric, injected into the conversation on election integrity and transparency.