Written by Kay C. James

As a Black woman who grew up in the segregated South, I’m shocked and appalled with the race-baiting from mostly White left-wing politicians who are throwing around the “Jim Crow” label to score political points in the debate over strengthening our voting laws.

To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen’s line from the 1988 vice presidential debate with Dan Quayle: I knew Jim Crow. Jim Crow was no friend of mine. And these common-sense voting laws that states are adopting are no Jim Crow.

Frankly, it’s insulting that politicians are trying to manipulate Black folks like me into thinking that voting reforms that actually protect our right to vote are somehow racist. It’s insulting to be lied to, and — yes, I’m going to say it — it seems awfully racist to be thought of as so ignorant and gullible.

These state election reforms are about one thing—making it easier for American citizens to vote, while making it harder for cheaters to cheat.

Yet everyone from President Joe Biden to The New York Times to Coca-Cola and those in Hollywood are labeling voting reforms adopted in Georgia and other states as voter suppression and the new Jim Crow. There’s even a U.S. Senate hearing this week being held around this lie called, “Jim Crow 2021: The Latest Assault on the Right to Vote.”

Growing up as a Black teenager during the 1960s, I knew the tremendous sacrifices and the dangers that my friends and relatives endured to secure the right to vote for Black Americans. I myself was part of the Civil Rights Movement when I was thrust into an effort to desegregate my middle school in Richmond, Va.

So let me be perfectly clear: I have zero interest in disenfranchising or suppressing the vote of any portion of the population.

But that’s not what’s happening in Georgia or other states pursuing election reforms. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

As we’ve heard from the few truth tellers there are in the media, the new Georgia election reform doesn’t discourage voting or suppress votes. In fact, the availability of absentee ballots and early voting is a lot more robust than what it is in most “blue” states.

And Georgia provides a free voter ID to people without ID and has exceptions that mirror federal law. Turnout in the state as well as studies also show that ID requirements don’t suppress votes; and polling shows that voters, including Black voters, agree that voter ID is a common-sense reform. Claims that Black people are somehow unable or unwilling to obtain identification are insulting and have no basis in fact.

“You know what’s racist? Assuming because I’m black that ‘I just don’t have the capability of getting an I-D,’” Rep. Burgess Owens recently tweeted. I couldn’t agree more.

So why is the left calling these reforms racist? It’s a scare tactic and an attempt to rally support for a voting bill currently in Congress ironically called the For the People Act, or H.R. 1.

H.R. 1 would create a federal takeover of elections and force changes to election laws that would actually allow for greater fraud and election tampering. It would diminish the very voting rights that my relatives in the 1960s, the women suffragists of the early 1900s, and the men and women of the armed forces throughout our history fought so hard to gain and protect.

Under H.R. 1, no one has to prove they are who they say they are in order to vote. It’s likely to automatically add ineligible individuals like non-citizens to the voter rolls. And it outlaws or restricts safeguards that help states maintain accurate voter rolls to prevent people from voting twice. In other words, it would allow illegal votes to cancel out our legal ones.

And that’s just scratching the surface of this terrible law.

H.R. 1 isn’t for the people; it’s about creating more power for certain politicians. The people who support this bill expect that most illegal votes will favor left-wing politicians, and they are willing to dilute our legal votes by encouraging more illegal ones.

They are lying and calling common-sense voter protections racist to make people think that there is a groundswell of voter suppression coming from the states so that they can pretend to save us all with H.R. 1. But they aren’t really interested in protecting us; all they are interested in is helping themselves.

The right to vote is one of the most sacred rights that we as free citizens can exercise. That’s why we must protect it and not allow politicians to get away with pushing sinister bills like H.R. 1 that would diminish that right.

Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our republic, and every citizen — no matter their color, ethnicity, background or political persuasion — must be able to trust the voting process and its results.

The very future of a free nation depends on it.

Kay C. James is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).
This article was originally published by the Washington Times.

They claim creating an election integrity commission is a way to advance voter suppression.

Progressives are in an uproar over the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, and we have to ask why?

Why not look into ways to protect our elections from fraud?

Because to do so would advance “white supremacy,” according to Democratic U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York, who tweeted on Aug. 24, that “If the president wants to truly show that he rejects the discrimination agenda of the white supremacist movement, he will rescind the Executive Order that created this commission.”

Then, he warned, “And if the president does not act, the Congress should prohibit its operation through one of the must-pass legislative vehicles in September.”

Wow. So, the Democrats would shut down Congress in order to keep a blue-ribbon panel from studying the vulnerabilities of our election process? Mr. Schumer must truly fear this commission. He wants it to disband even before its second official meeting on Sept. 12 in New Hampshire.

“The Ku Klux Klan and its sympathizers at all levels of government denied black Americans the right to vote for decades,” Mr. Schumer continued in his tweet without a hint of irony. The Klan was the militant wing of the Democratic Party, which enforced Jim Crow laws against black people for 88 years. More on that later.

“Today, voting rights are once again under assault,” the senator bleated, er, tweeted. “The misguided Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision gutted the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to the same voter suppression tactics that existed before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.” He means back when Democrats ran the show in the South.

Instead of Jim Crow, the Democrats rely today on the bureaucratic behemoth created under Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, which shattered the black family and still keeps blacks and other minorities beholden to the Democrats’ federal welfare plantation. They just have to keep promising more and more stuff to the Free Stuff Army. Who needs the Klan when you’ve got Uncle Sugar? But, what does chronic dependence do to people’s souls? Hey, don’t be getting all religious on me.

Mr. Schumer was not the first Democrat to cry that the sky would fall. Former Attorney General Eric Holder called the new commission “another frightening attempt to suppress the votes of certain Americans.” This kind of balderdash is not harmless. Commission members that I have talked to have reported harassment and even death threats.

Mr. Schumer equates any and all election integrity measures such as voter ID laws as brutal instruments designed to “suppress” the votes of minorities, the elderly and the young. In fact, minority voting has increased following passage of voter ID laws. Perhaps folks have more of an incentive to vote when they know their ballots will actually count.

Mr. Schumer contends that vote fraud is a myth cooked up to advance voter suppression.

This is a serious charge, and nobody knows better how to go about suppressing voters than the Democratic Party, which benefited from it for nearly nine decades with its Jim Crow system before congressional Republicans rammed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But back to the original question. Why not have a bipartisan panel of experts make sure that election officials are doing their jobs to ensure fairness and integrity? Indeed, if you think vote fraud poses no threat, why oppose a study that might prove your point? If the panel comes up empty, you get to crow. But if it exposes sloppy practices that enable fraudulent voting, shouldn’t you want to know that and clean up the mess?

Progressives crowed that some liberal state officials initially refused to provide voter data to the commission. But as of now, virtually all states are complying with the request, having been told by their attorneys that it is entirely lawful, especially since the data are already in the public realm and commercially available. What? You hadn’t heard from the media that the states are now cooperating?

Here’s one more thing to consider: All of the allegedly vulnerable identity groups: minorities, elderly, the young — strongly favor voter ID laws, since, like everyone else, they don’t want their votes stolen by someone casting a fraudulent ballot. Survey after survey shows it.

So, I think I know what’s behind the Democrats’ fear of the election integrity commission: They have already lost the argument over voter IDs. In its eventual report, the commission will be making the case for how to ensure accurate voter registration rolls. And, accurate voter rolls prevent vote fraud.

If that isn’t frightening to a liberal, nothing is.

This article was originally posted by The Washington Times.