Highland

To the editor:

Former Congressman John Faso recently wrote to criticize the Democrats’ “For the People Act” legislation that addresses a host of election law issues. (10/5/21) His criticism is out-of-date, as the Act has been replaced with a modified “Freedom to Vote Act” that does, indeed, attempt to establish federal laws governing elections.

Faso and other radical Republicans “oppose federalizing state election laws and ballot procedures.” That’s an understatement. Witness the GOP attempts in many states to make voting more difficult, especially for voters who Republicans fear are unfriendly to the party’s policies. Witness GOP state legislatures changing the processes for counting votes and installing officials who would be much more accommodating to subverting the will of the people, as ex-President Trump tried to do. Of course Republicans want no federal laws that would get in the way of their vote-fixing.

Faso’s opposition to two proposals that will be on November’s New York ballot is thoroughly in sync with the GOP “hands off my vote suppression laws” drive. Proposals 3 (same-day voter registration) and 4 (“no excuse” absentee voting) would both expand the opportunities of citizens to vote without unnecessary obstructions. Why are Faso’s Republicans afraid of voters? Faso himself acknowledges that the 2020 election was not “determined by fraud, though pandemic-related election changes raised suspicions among many”…suspicions that have been fanned by the same radical Republicans who are trying to seed doubts about future elections even as they lay the groundwork to subvert them.

Proposal 1—also opposed by Faso—addresses redistricting, a process going on in all states after new census counts were issued. The proposal, arguably, mildly favors the party in control of the NY State legislature, currently the Democrats. But Faso’s faux outrage at its “hypocrisy” must be measured against the furious, extreme gerrymandering taking place in Republican states. Democrats cannot surrender unilaterally to ruthless Republican subversion. The nation will have to wait for passage of the “Freedom to Vote Act” for a system—a federal one--that takes redistricting out of the hands of all politicians who try to construct their own victories.

Don’t look to the radical Republicans to champion anything like “integrity” for our election laws.