Can Manchin Be Trusted on Voter Integrity?
How are the voters expected to tell?
by David Catron
June 7, 2021, 11:25 PM
A lot of Republicans breathed a sigh of relief when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) reiterated his support for the filibuster and pledged to vote against the For the People Act (S 1). His decision, which he explained in a Sunday op-ed written for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, is certainly good news. But, before celebrating the death of the pernicious “voting rights” bill, it would be useful to read paragraph 12 of Manchin’s column, wherein he declares his support for the equally dangerous John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (S 4263). This bill, like S 1, would effectively gut voter-ID laws and usurp state sovereignty over elections.
In his op-ed, Manchin makes the following claim about S 4263: “The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would update the formula states and localities must use to ensure proposed voting laws do not restrict the rights of any particular group or population.” The senator fails to mention that it would also exhume an obsolete section of the Civil Rights Act (CRA) that violated a key principle of federalism and was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder. Hans A. von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation explains why the Democrats so desperately want to reinstate this provision of the CRA:
Since the Shelby decision, there has been a false clamor about a supposed loss of voting rights. That is a myth created by the Left and abetted by the media. That myth has been perpetuated as a way of opposing reforms intended to improve the integrity of the election process, such as voter-identification requirements and the cleanup of statewide voter-registration lists, and to justify the re-imposition of federal control over state election procedures by reviving the preclearance requirement.
more
https://spectator.org/manchin-s-1-voter-integrity/
