by Jason Snead
At first glance, some Americans could mistakenly conclude that election integrity safeguards are deeply unpopular. After all, liberal politicians and the mainstream media regularly denounce commonsense measures like photo ID laws and routine voter roll cleanups.
No matter what they claim or how loudly they claim it, these voices do not speak for the majority of Americans. As recent polling conducted by Honest Elections Project Action shows beyond all doubt, an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans embrace commonsense voting laws that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped the left from systematically undermining election integrity. For more than a decade, left-wing groups and liberal antidemocracy election lawyers like Marc Elias, have aggressively challenged election safeguards meant to bring transparency and fairness on Election Day. Politicians like President Joe Biden have called simple laws like voter ID “Jim Crow 2.0.” Just days ago, Vice President Kamala Harris repeated the liberal lie that conservative states are just trying to “make it more difficult for people to vote.”
Across the country, left-wing politicians are openly talking about lowering the voting age and following the lead of New York City and Washington, D.C. by giving noncitizens and illegal aliens the vote. Progressive activists fight for all-mail elections, unfettered vote trafficking, and deadlines that let ballots stream in weeks after Election Day. Meanwhile, left-wing groups like the Center for Tech and Civic Life create programs like the “U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence” to pump liberal politics and potentially even foreign influence into the offices that run elections.
None of this sits well with the American people. Take voter ID, for instance. 88 percent of Americans—the highest share ever recorded in an HEP Action poll—embrace photo ID requirements. Over 80 percent of Black and Hispanic voters endorse these supposedly discriminatory laws. Liberals have poured millions into lawsuits to gut voter ID, something that only 9 percent of Americans want to see done.
That’s not all that the liberal election agenda gets wrong. The left insists on transforming Election Day into “Election Season” with six weeks of early voting, but nearly 80 percent of voters say there should be two weeks or less. In fact, nearly 60 percent of Black and Hispanic voters say that seven days is enough.
The public rejects the liberal dream of all mail elections, too. Almost three-in-four voters say that mail ballots should have to be requested every single time a voter wants one. Nearly 90 percent think that every ballot should be received by Election Day, and 75 percent believe that voting in person is better than by mail. In fact, if states offer two weeks of early in-person voting, including time on weekends, two-in-three people—including 55 percent of Black and 69 percent of Hispanic voters—would be comfortable eliminating no-excuse mail voting altogether.
While large, overwhelmingly Democrat cities like New York and Washington, D.C. have passed laws to permit non-citizens to vote in local elections, nearly 90 percent of Americans think that U.S. citizens alone should be able to vote, including 82 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Black voters, and 78 percent of Hispanic voters. This kind of near-unanimous agreement is exceedingly rare, especially in today’s political landscape, yet when it comes to election integrity issues it happens over and over again.
The polling also reveals that 78 percent of Americans are opposed to foreign influence over elections. Liberal politicians rail against foreign interference in elections, even as they use foreign money to influence American politics. Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire, has poured nearly half a billion dollars into left-wing causes. Since 2016, Wyss has put at least $245 million into New Venture Fund, a grant-making entity managed by Arabella Advisors. In 2020, New Venture gave $25 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL). CTCL now runs an $80 million program called the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, which targets local election offices with grants and influence, raising the disturbing prospect that CTCL has created a conduit for foreign influence directly into the foundations of American elections.
This polls shows one thing above all: Americans are loud and clear in what they want to see in elections. They want the assurance over election integrity laws like photo ID, responsible early and mail voting policies, and they want American elections to be decided by American citizens. The left should stop shouting and start listening. And every state should pass the commonsense election laws that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.
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Jason Snead is the executive director of Honest Elections Project Action.
Photo “Election Day Voting” by Phil Roeder CC2.0.
