Serious disputes over the manner in which both the 2020 elections and 2022 elections were conducted continue to this day. “Liberalized” voting practices that were implemented to allow voting by mail, use of drop boxes, and other devices led to serious questions about the integrity of those federal and state elections. Some of those election challenges are still being litigated. One of those challenges was filed by Kari Lake, the 2022 Republican candidate for Governor of Arizona, against Katie Hobbs, the former Arizona Secretary of State, who conveniently established and administered the rules for an election which declared her the victor.
To implement those liberalized voting practices, Democrat lawyers filed more than 200 pre-election lawsuits to undermine election law security practices in order to tilt the election results to Democrats. The Democrats attacked election laws in state after state, demanding wholesale, judicially-imposed changes to the laws passed by the elected representatives of the people. (Records show that during the 2020 election cycle, the Democrat Party paid more than $40 million to its favorite election lawfare firm, Perkins Coie.)
What is less well known is that in some cases, these state election laws are being overturned by judges at the request not of Democrat Party-funded lawyers, but U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers funded by taxpayers.
The DOJ has limited authority to review state election laws under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act contains a wide range of protections for racial minorities, as well as certain other minority groups. It provides protections against state laws which might disproportionately hinder minority voting, such as literacy tests that once had been used for that purpose. While Congress intended the Voting Rights Act to protect racial and even what are termed “language minority groups,” it is not surprising the powers entrusted to DOJ lawyers and appointees of the President, could be abused to achieve political objectives.
For example, in July of 2021, the DOJ sent a threatening memo to states warning them not to reverse pandemic-era exceptions to election security laws, despite the original plan that the exceptions be only a temporary COVID measure.
In 2015, the Obama Justice Department sued North Carolina over the state’s decision to shorten the early voting period, and to end same-day voter registration. Is there a national requirement that states allow same-day voter registration? Apparently not, as Massachusetts and New York, two heavily Democrat states, do not have same-day registration. But neither the Obama nor the Biden DOJ has seen fit to sue Massachusetts or New York.
In June 2021, the Biden DOJ sued Georgia over its voter integrity law, arguing that requiring a photo ID to vote is racist and discriminatory. The DOJ complaint against Georgia was full of references to nooses and racial slurs. Is there a national requirement that bans states from requiring photo ID’s? Apparently not, as Minnesota has the requirement, despite having a Democrat governor, legislature, and Secretary of State. But the DOJ has not sued Minnesota.
On November 4, 2021, the DOJ sued Texas over its recently enacted voter integrity law that required mail-in ballots to contain the voter’s Social Security number for vote integrity purposes. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defiantly tweeted in response: “Ensuring Texas has safe, secure, and transparent elections is a top priority of mine. I will see you in court, Biden!#ElectionIntegrity.”
After every national census, states re-examine the districts from which public officials are elected at every level of government. According to the establishment press, when Democrats adjust those lines, it is called redistricting. When Republicans adjust those lines, it is described using the pejorative “gerrymandering.”
It should come as no surprise that the DOJ has sued conservative states over their redistricting plans. In 2021, the DOJ sued Texas, arguing that because the 2020 redistricting created white majorities in the state’s two new congressional districts, the plan automatically was racist and illegal. “The Department of Justice’s absurd lawsuit against our state is the Biden Administration’s latest ploy to control Texas voters,” tweeted Paxton. Meanwhile, the DOJ has turned a blind eye toward extreme gerrymanders to disenfranchise Republican voters in Democrat states such as New York and Maryland.
It is certainly not true that redistricting abuses never occur when Democrats are in control. In March, 2022, New York courts threw out the Democrat legislature’s congressional gerrymandering plan, noting that “the map was ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ illegally enacted with ‘political bias’ in violation of the state constitution.” Another state court threw out the legislature’s state senate map as well, noting that the redistricting process was “incapable of legislative cure.” However, the Justice Department appeared unperturbed at a process that tilted the playing field on behalf of Democrats in New York.
Maryland’s Democrat-controlled redistricting is also infamous for gerrymandering. “In the past, experts have agreed that Maryland has one of the worst cases of gerrymandering in the entire country. A federal judge once said the current map looked like a ‘broken-winged pterodactyl, lying prostrate across the center of the state.’”
Faith in elections is so low among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, that fully 55 percent of voters support forensic audits of election results to ensure there was no vote fraud, with only 29 percent opposing such audits.
It is bad enough when taxpayer-funded judges abuse their power to invalidate state election laws designed to ensure fair elections. It is even worse when the taxpayer-funded lawyers are the ones who file the suits to get those judges to require election laws which undermine election integrity.
