Nevada voters can soon expect to see an advertisement from the organization Restoration Action urging them to tell Congress to leave the national election process alone.
The organization is paying approximately $2 million to run the ad in New Hampshire, Nevada and Georgia, according to an organization press release.
“We must protect the integrity of elections in America,” Doug Truax, Restoration Action founder and president, was quoted as saying in the release.
The For the People Act of 2021 includes a number of provisions related to voting, campaign finance and ethics.
The act is intended “To expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and implement other anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying our democracy, and for other purposes,” according to the preamble.
The bill proposes eliminating any requirements for voters to prove identification when voting. Many states require some form of identification be presented at the polls or in a mail ballot to prove the identity of the voter to election judges and officials before their ballot is cast. This bill would circumvent any proof of identification requirement for voting by allowing voters to simply sign affidavits instead of proving their identity.
Restoration Action stated that the act would effectively permit non-citizens to vote in U.S. elections.
“This legislation strips away critical safeguards necessary to ensure our elections are free, fair, and transparent,” Truax said.
Currently, 75% of likely U.S. voters are in favor of requiring voters to show a photo ID in order to vote, according to a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports. This is an increase since 2018, when 67% of the same group were in favor of voter ID requirements.
If signed into law, the measure could have a large impact on reducing signature verification requirements for absentee/mail ballots. As written, it leaves states the option to not verify absentee/mail ballots with a signature, and it requires that no less than two election judges agree to dismiss a signature, which limits the capability for ballots to be dismissed based on signature verification.
All 50 states currently require a valid signature for an absentee/mail-in ballot to be counted. Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, told The New York Times that signature matching "is the best way to strike a balance between security, transparency, and accessibility for voters" when done properly, including a process to fix signature mismatches.
For the People Act of 2021 also allows for absentee/mail ballots rejected due to a signature challenge to be cured and rehabilitated after they have been rejected. However, it does not require an individual whose rejected signature and ballot to cure the discrepancy in person.
The bill would also require states to establish a system that gathers information from all state agencies and automatically register anyone who, for instance, applies for services or assistance or even someone who enrolls at a university where they are a state resident. Individuals would still be permitted to decline being registered to vote, and agencies are expected to determine whether or not the individual is eligible to vote.
While the bill would require the individual to be notified they are going to be registered to vote unless they decline, as well as their obligation to inform the agency if they believe they are not eligible, it would also protect someone from prosecution who is ineligible to vote due to being a non-citizen, but we still automatically registered to vote.
In the Nevada Legislature, lawmakers are pushing both directions on AB 4, the bill passed last year that permits universal mail-in voting during a state of emergency.
A new bill, AB 321, would make universal mail-in voting permanent, according to coverage by KTNV.
On the other side, Republicans have answered with AB 134, which would instead repeal AB 4 completely, Assembly Minority Leader Robin Titust said in an editorial published in the Elko Daily. Other bills before the Assembly related to elections would make photo IDs mandatory to vote, empower funeral directors to notify county clerks when a voter dies and require a registrar of voters to be an elected official.
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