In the latest move that should convince you how much your individual vote matters, the chair of the House Elections Committee told fellow extremists in a video he’d asked not be made public, that he’d like to eliminate advance voting and eliminate the three-day grace period for mail-in ballots.
As reported by The Kansas Reflector, an anonymous person sent the video of Leavenworth Rep. Pat Proctor, to the Topeka-based, voter-rights watchdog nonprofit, Loud Light.
This revelation followed a recent committee meeting in which Proctor advanced Senate Bill 4, which would mandate that mail-in ballots arrive by 7 p.m. on Election Day. That bill would eliminate the guidelines allowing the counting of ballots postmarked by Election Day if they arrive by Friday of that week, or, three days after Election Day.
It’s important to note that studies have shown that absent such arbitrary and capricious guidelines, most registered voters would actually get out and vote. However, such seemingly small impediments can lower turnout, particularly in rural areas.
Also, in 2020, CNN reported that the “United States Postal Service removed 711 mail-sorting machines from postal facilities – the highest level in at least four years – according to new court testimony from top-ranking agency officials.”
The unusually high number of removals was the most in one year of President Donald Trump’s tenure and roughly double the machines USPS typically removes in a given year, according to the report.
Many postal service employees raised concerns of doing this in an election year where millions of Americans were expected to vote by mail because of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Now, it seems, anti-democratic extremists want to penalize mail-in voters for using a mail system that extremists have tried to sabotage.
Said Davis Hammet, president of Loud Light in The Reflector: “Proctor’s secret meeting shows how some politicians would rather disenfranchise voters than try to win their vote. Politicians love to play games, but our ability to vote and have our vote counted, our democracy, cannot be treated like a game. Rep. Proctor’s comments are disturbing.”
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