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One of the silver linings of the havoc-ridden 2020 presidential election, is that America may finally be fixing its election system. Under the precautionary backdrop of a pandemic, Democratic governors, secretaries of state, election boards, and state courts overrode the constitutionally appointed state legislatures and rewrote electoral systems in pivotal states. This was a considerable disservice to American democracy. Consequently, voter integrity laws are sweeping across the U.S. The nation’s highest court is also getting involved (finally) to settle this seminal matter.
The gross election irregularities that were prevalent in key urban voting districts in 2020 cast a shadow of illegitimacy on the current U.S. president and America’s electoral system. Most Republicans believe the 2020 election was not fair and, henceforth, not free. That is half the country. By April 2021, 47 states had pending election integrity bills, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Far-left advocacy groups and Democratic Party officials, elected or bureaucratic, have waged war to impede their implementation. Corporate media, woke stakeholder businesses, and Big Tech have assisted and are actively engaged in attempting to frame the public discourse, that to remedy the electoral sins of 2020, as “voter suppression.”
The major infractions of the 2020 elections were the result of (1) relaxed voter and mail ballot validation mechanisms; (2) mail-vote drop box chain of custody laxities; and (3) private money (“Zucker Bucks”) disproportionately benefiting Democratic urban districts in purple states. Voter integrity laws and/or pending legislation (depending on the state) seek to frustrate election fraud enabling strategies. The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) stepped in recently, potentially settling the electoral system debate as to who is the primary agent.
On June 23, SCOTUS ruled in favor of two Republican North Carolina state legislators, allowing them to partake in an ongoing lawsuit. The Court’s decision simply allows the lawmakers to defend their state’s voter integrity law. While not directly addressing the underlying premise of most challenges to anti-cheat election laws, which is that ballot integrity initiatives violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the Constitution by suppressing Black American voters, it permits them to be a party to the federal lawsuit. This is important.
The Left and their proxy organizations, such as the NAACP, the litigant in the North Carolina federal case, prefer to exclude the state legislators. This is to be expected. The presence of the Republican lawmakers brings into focus the greater overarching contention as to who has the legitimate authority in crafting election laws.
SCOTUS punted this issue in 2020, by not hearing the Pennsylvania or Texas cases, which both addressed the constitutional inviolability that grants state legislators, as per Article 1 (elections Clause) and Article 4 (presidential elector’s Clause), the exclusive power. It was this constitutional travesty that facilitated the mail-in ballot shenanigans that handed Joe Biden the presidency.
Referred to as the Independent State Legislature Doctrine, the Elections Clause and the Presidential Election Clause of the Constitution clearly empower state legislators, solely, with the capacity to draft and alter election laws. Democrats will continue to use state courts and their federal counterparts in left-wing jurisdictions, to control rules that could rig elections on their behalf.
SCOTUS appears headed to an originalist underpinning. This is their natural habitat in the American Republic’s political ecosystem. Hearing cases of election integrity crafted by the people’s state representatives would help rebuild America’s electoral system and constitutional design.
Julio M Shiling, political scientist, writer, director of Patria de Martí and The Cuban American Voice, lecturer and media commentator. A native of Cuba, he currently lives in the United States. Twitter: @JulioMShiling // Julio es politólogo, escritor, director de Patria de Martí y The Cuban American Voice. Conferenciante y comentarista en los medios. Natural de Cuba, vive actualmente en EE UU.