Loren Leman: H.R. 4 and S. 1 — federal takeover of elections — would be bad

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Loren Leman

By LOREN LEMAN AND KEN CUCCINELLI

Legislation the U.S. House has passed and the Senate is considering would override Alaska’s election laws, abolish voter I.D. and other commonsense election safeguards, force Alaska to let illegal aliens and non-citizens register to vote, remove penalties for illegal voting, and threaten state officials with criminal liability if they don’t play along.

Companion bills, originally introduced as H.R. 4 and S. 1, would give unelected, federal bureaucrats further “veto” authority over state-passed election laws, enabling them to toss out laws they don’t like, while mandating unsecure and unverifiable absentee voting practices, and severely restricting voter roll maintenance. Both bills are designed to force a politically driven takeover of state elections, and rig the system in partisan favor.

Fortunately, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan have rejected S. 1 and should be applauded for their defense of fair, secure, and transparent elections we can trust. However, in the last Congress, Senator Murkowski supported a previous version of H.R. 4. When it was re-introduced in the current Congress and abruptly passed by the House last month, the new version morphed into a grab-bag of much more radical policies.

In fact, it’s so unpopular and obviously partisan that Nancy Pelosi had to force it through the House without committee review, and without garnering a single Republican vote.

This new version of H.R. 4 provides that any state seeking a commonsense voter I.D. law would have to first seek approval from the Biden Administration, and that’s a scary thought. It makes voter I.D. an automatic indicator that a state is racist, thereby subjecting our elections to the dictates of particularly radical Washington bureaucrats.

It would expand the U.S. Attorney General’s authority to unilaterally determine voting violations, making him or her an ultra-powerful, unelected election “czar,” while re- writing the Voting Rights Act so the federal government would have veto power over state election laws through a process known as “pre-clearance”— one of many ways it directly overrides previous Supreme Court rulings.

To overturn a state’s election law, federal employees would not have to show that the law had any actual discriminatory effect or intent. The mere accusation would be enough. Disliking the law for political reasons would also be enough, because the burden of proving otherwise would then be on the state – a very difficult defense. 

In place of “objective measures” to determine a pattern of discrimination, (e.g., low minority voter registration or turnout), Democrats substituted a system in which trial lawyers, activist judges and an ultra-powerful attorney general would decide virtually all election discrimination questions. Collusive settlements would be sufficient to subject state election laws to the whims of federal bureaucrats. In the case of Attorney General “objections,” the mere accusation of discriminatory voting patterns is enough to drag states into preclearance.

The Supreme Court held in 2013 that the facts no longer support the narrative of widespread voter discrimination. While that was a problem in parts of our country in 1965, when I was in high school in Ninilchik and still a few years away from voting age, today with Alaska voter registration tied to the PFD application, it’s easier to register and vote than ever before, regardless of what color you are, what party you choose, or where you live.

We should be celebrating these accomplishments, while always looking to improve participation under Alaska’s secure voting system.

As the Senate considers this legislation, we know we can count on Sen. Sullivan. However, Sen. Murkowski will face intense pressure from the left. But if she remains true to her word—rejecting partisan voting bills—she will support the good work we have done in Alaska to have fair and transparent elections and reject this radical, hyper-partisan bill.

Loren Leman is a former lieutenant governor of Alaska, legislator, and long-time voter.

Ken Cuccinelli is a former attorney general of Virginia, acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and is now leading the Election Transparency Initiative.

24 COMMENTS

  1. Note to Loren and Ken: That train left the station already.
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    You’re like the heroes who holler, “Somebody just stole your car, but don’t worry, I got the license number!”
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    What’s roaring down the track is a super duper fun-to-watch train wreck when federal election fraudsters crash into state and local election fraudsters.
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    Anchorage’s easily corruptible mail-in vote scheme and the State’s mass mail-in vote scheme, both controlled by proprietary Dominion vote tabulation machinery and software, pretty much assure Anchorage’s and Alaska’s election laws can be easily overridden.
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    Boys, did you stop to think voter i-d might already be meaningless when dubious signature verification processes can disenfranchise voters without their knowledge, when voters get evidence in the damned mail that voter rolls aren’t updated or accurate?
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    Throw in ranked-choice voting, ballot harvesting,
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    … abolishing common-sense safeguards which came with on-site paper balloting and counting, and abolishing pollwatchers who knew what the bloody hell they were watching, then you won’t have to worry about penalties for illegal voting… voila, the perfect crime 1.0.
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    Now the feds bust in with perfect crime 2.0. Bigger fish in the pond than you want it, so absent some cataclysmic revelation, they’ll get it, just like they bought ranked-choice voting.
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    Can’t happen here? Don’t believe the Great Alaska LeDoux Vote Experiment wasn’t a trial run which almost worked, Somebody Important didn’t learn from their mistakes?
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    Anyhow, thanks for the heads up… even if it’s a day late, a dollar short, and you seem to have no clue what to do about it.

    • Democrats only have a small window of time before 2022 to ram their socialist agenda down the gullets of the middle class they want subservient to big government in perpetuity.

      A day doesn’t go by the radical left in DC are trying to add much more than subtract America’s national debt, so taking our eye off the big picture, and witnessing freedoms Americans have enjoyed since the founding of our country replaced with indiscriminate new burdens on our constitutionally protected rights to freely speak, publish, organize into groups and advocate is like trying to walk uphill in a Haines mudslide. All that was there before will be gone.

      The real fly in the ointment here is Lisa ‘Censured’ Murkowski. Knowing Kelly Tshibaka has the wind at her back makes Joe Manchin look like less of an obstruction to Democrat’s wish for lifetime one- party rule.

      So no, Morrigan, I’ll take a heads up, update, whatever you want to call it from Leman and Cuccinelli anytime because popularity over practically is an obsession among Democrats, no matter how destructive, unconstitutional and past the point of no return it is.

      • Matthew, you obviously think that the Democrats are going to lose the next election. You have more faith than I. There agenda of total control has no room on a schedule interrupted by the other party unless the candidate from the other party plays ball with them. I see nothing different two years from now other than more erosion of American rights which will soon evolve into the erosion of human rights. They have almost perfected their ability to cheat in elections and no court will stop it.

      • With respect, it seems like their jeremiad is but one more in a dreary babble of heads up… what, stick our heads up just so the other side can get a better shot?
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        Why not challenge this Dynamic Duo to cut to the chase? What do they want us to do, to whom are we supposed to do it, what’s it supposed to look like after we did it?
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        We just got Pearl Harbor’ed by our very own countrymen, now we got to figure out what to do about it
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        … improvise, adapt, and overcome, or cease to exist as a country
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        … which is why we say to Ken and Loren, “So, boys, we’re just about out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas… what gets us home?

  2. Back in April I published an Op-Ed in the Mat-Su Valley’s “The Peoples Paper” about this evil attempt to totally extinguish states rights and independence in voting forever with HR-1. It had not yet been introduced in the senate. You can read it here:

    “https://www.makeasceneak.com/midapril-2021/2021/4/11/do-we-deny-evil-look-at-hr-1-in-todays-america-nbsp?rq=Doug%20Ferguson”

    Doug Ferguson

  3. “would be bad”? How about the end of America? I do not advocate fighting bad policy like this. If this where we are at, I would advise the breakup of the union and start over again.

  4. Build Back Better
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    Better is your vote means nothing.
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    Better is your total compliance or financial penalties will be adjudicated.
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    Better is destruction of the U.S. Constitution.
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    Better is extremely higher fossil fuel cost that will deplete your savings.
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    Better is grocery cost so high that it will deplete your health.
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    Better is China becoming the world leader, economically and militarily.
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    Better is a morally bankrupt nation.
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    Better is a two tier world, those who have and those who have not.
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    Better is a country so divided that it can never unite, unless everyone was a depraved, godless automaton.
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    These are the goals of the World Economic Forum of Billionaires making up the New World Order to comply with Agenda 2030.
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    It’s not conspiracy. In fact it is all in writing for all to see. People need to wake up.

    • “https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda”

      They have been apparently working on exactly what we are seeing right now since 2015…everyone read this.. Its frigging scary!! Talk about 1984 coming to life.. Here it is… Straight from a United Nations site.. The 2030 agenda… Google it… Wow!

      • This has been going on as far back as 1950 and some may say, as far back as Theodore Roosevelt days as even earlier. It has been a slow, subtle whittling away of morality and economic independence for decades until recently. In the 1950, Eisenhower warned us of what was coming in his departure speech. In the 1980’s, Bush Sr. spoke of the New World Order. In the 1990’s Clinton began giving our top secret weapons designs and plans to the Chinese who were completely a 3rd world nation at the time. This was part of Agenda 21 in those days. Post 9/11, Bush stole much of our freedoms under the Patriot Act and continued giving nuclear secrets to the Chinese. Obama did much more massive damage to our Country by completely allowing Chinese Spies into Washington DC and throughout state governments. Even with the increase speed that Obama placed on the Agenda 21, it was still behind the World Economic Forum’s time line, and so because of that and people started reading more about Agenda 21, the powers to be changed the name to Agenda 2030. As the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Flynn stated that over 2 million Chinese spies have infiltrated the 5I countries, which one can only assume that their influence has corrupted the government’s of theses five countries. Trump slowed down their plans, so now they are being put into hyperdrive. If people can’t see the drastic changes that are going on in this country, they are blind and/or complicit.
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        It’s time to stand up NOW and stop complying with tyranny.

  5. « Allowing illegal aliens and non-citizens to vote…insecure and unverifiable absentee voting practices… »

    These claims have been particularly strident following the 2020 election with the former President repeating over and over that the election was « stolen ».
    If you have ever voted absentee in Alaska, this is totally false. Absentee voting is definitely not as easy as you make it sound.
    You are currently required to present some form of voter ID and the various state election officials do an excellent job of verifying this.
    If you cannot show precise evidence of your editorial claims, then your statements are simply baseless political rhetoric designed to unnecessarily stir up the masses and encourage distrust and divisiveness.

    • Catherine do you work or volunteer in elections? I find your statements to be simply baseless political rhetoric designed to unnecessarily stir up the masses and encourage distrust and divisiviness.

    • Catherine, you REALLY don’t understand the concept of “logic”, do you?
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      After just having read (one presumes) the article detailing how the federal government wants to utterly destroy the integrity of voting on a national scale through House Resolution 4, you then bring up the CURRENT statewide procedures in Alaska for verifying an ABSENTEE ballot. While, of course, the one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
      You also ignore the fact that the aforementioned Senate Resolution 1 would significantly if not completely eliminate those safeguards currently in place in Alaska to CONTINUE providing that measure of integrity for absentee ballots.
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      Honestly, rebutting such feeble and laughable ‘arguments’ is like shooting radical leftist fish in a barrel.

    • Neither of these statutes are about absentee voting. It is about sending out ballots via mail without justification, without verification of eligibility, and without regard as to ease of cheating.
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      A buddy of mine received three ballots for the Recall Meg effort. Three. That is the effect of 100% mail in voting. The only reason why he is not going to vote No three times is he is an honest and law abiding individual. I cannot be sure everyone who receives more than one ballot is the same.
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      Also note, the laws being considered by the House and Senate are removing the strict signature verification process, not enhancing them.
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      Here’s a pro tip. Before commenting, actually research what you are talking about.

    • Absentee and mail-in voting are NOT the same thing. We are PRO-absentee voting. We’ve had it forever. It works. We are not PRO- mail in ballots. No ID required. No verification. Multiple ballots can be sent by the same person as attested to in the Arizona forensic audit. Even Carter back in the day said mail-in ballots were an invitation to election fraud! To equate the two would be like equating immigrants and illegal immigrants. Oh, wait, they’re trying to do that, too!

  6. I hope you have the right call with Murky, Loren. She just has to support us and spend all the time she will save by not hashing over a bad bill to help HER STATE on other important issues rather than a goat rope elections cabal

  7. All Federal laws need to be Ratified to become legally binding upon upon the USA. Remember DOMA defense of marriage act? It was unconstitutional therefore illegal, Federal law for several years, until SCOTUS ruled it unconstitutional. Likewise take those matters to the Supreme Court of the US. If they have not obtained ratification. Then SCOTUS must again likewise rule.

  8. Democrats already have DOMINION over most of the fifty states, so this actually wouldn’t change much

  9. As I have been saying for months now, they are just trying to codify into law their current election fraud system that is already in place. Senator Wendy Rogers from Arizona has it right! We need a full forensic audit of all 50 States to correct the discrepancies and implement corrective election laws that use Voter I.D., Signature Verification and forbid mail in voting and electronic voting (i.e. Dominion or their affiliates machines). As ex-Army Intelligence Officer Seth Ketchel has already examined all 50 States and Alaska is one of the worst for fraud! Our political machine here is corrupt.

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