Natural State News

Arkansas will be stripped of its constitutionally derived authority to administer elections under the For the People Act of 2021, say critics of the measure. 

H.R. 1, passed by the U.S. House in March and awaiting action in the Senate, codifies many of the election practices adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, including a dramatic increase in the use of mail-in ballots with reduced voter verification -- a move that even progressive news outlets reported could heighten the opportunities for election fraud.

Numerous examinations found no evidence of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 elections.

In what Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston called “one of the biggest government overreaches in the history of our country,” the legislation would void current Arkansas law that does not allow for counting of mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. By state law, ballots must arrive by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day in order to be counted. The federal law will allow the counting of ballots received 10 days after the election, the Brennan Center reports.

Additional federal directives include: Requiring the state to allow at least two weeks of early voting; requiring the state to allow ballot harvesting, which permits political operatives and others to collect voters' ballots and turn them in en masse to polling stations; and require the state to provide voters with same-day registration and allow them to change their names and addresses on the rolls at the polling place on Election Day.

In March 2020, the progressive news outlet ProPublica cited findings of a 2005 bipartisan commission on elections led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III concluded that mail-in ballots “remain the largest source of potential voter fraud." And ProPublica reported that “ballot harvesting scandals, in which political operatives tamper with absentee ballots that voters have entrusted to them, have marred recent elections in North Carolina and Texas.”

The bill could, in effect, snuff out viable challenges to the ruling party in Washington, according to Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation's election law reform initiative.

“There's a reason the framers of the Constitution gave the authority to the states to run elections,” von Spakovsky said in a recent interview at Heritage. “And the reason for that was they didn't want the people who are in control in Washington, say one political party, which is apparently the case right now, changing the rules nationally to ensure that they remain in office.”

Congress returned to session this week for two weeks and then returns in May for the two weeks leading up to a Memorial Day break. Deadlocked at 50-50, the Senate will almost certainly need to revoke the filibuster (the 60-vote requirement to end debate on legislation), at least temporarily, to send H.R. 1 to President Joe Biden.