HR-1 For the People Act Is a Tyranny Against Election Integrity

On March 3, the Democratic-led House passed H.R.-1, the For the People Act. This so-called election reform package, if passed by the Senate, would transfer authority over how elections are administered from states to the federal government and institutionalize many rules that will virtually guarantee voter fraud.

Reassigns State Voting Authority to Federal Government

The bill represents an ambitious Democratic effort to steamroll federal government control over how states run national elections and restrict First Amendment free speech guarantee.

• Mandates automatic voter registration (AVR) in all 50 states in which any person who provides their information to designated government agencies, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, a public university, or a social service agency, would be registered to vote on the same day and on-line.
• Mandates states to permit same-day registration, including for early voting at polling stations. This requirement is to become implemented in time for upcoming 2022 congressional mid-term elections.
• Mandates that states implement early voting which allows anyone to cast a ballot during a period prior to the official election date.
• Mandates states to accept any mailed ballots postmarked before or on Election Day within 10 days after the election. The bill also authorizes states to extend that deadline so that national results may remain unknown indefinitely.
• Mandates that states make absentee voter drop boxes available 24/7 within 45 days of a federal election, making location monitoring difficult or impossible.
• Mandates that states may not ''prohibit any jurisdiction administering an election for federal office in the state from utilizing curbside voting as a method by which individuals may cast ballots in the election.''
• Takes power away from state legislatures by requiring states to redraw congressional districts through ''independent'' commissions which are also required to show ''racial, ethnic, economic, and gender'' diversity.

Encourages and Facilitates Unverified and Illegitimate Votes

H.R.-1 virtually eliminates valid voter identification requirements, prevents removal of illegitimate registrants from voter rolls, extends voting rights to felons, and invites uncontrolled ballot harvesting.

• Mandates no-fault absentee ballots, doing away with witness signatures or notarization requirements.
• Legalizes nationwide mail-in voting without a photo ID, and indicates that states ''may not require an individual to provide any form of identification as a condition of obtaining an absentee ballot.''
• Prevents election officials from removing ineligible voters from registries or confirming the eligibility qualifications of voters to cross check, for example, if individuals are registered in multiple states.
• Virtually ensures that illegal immigrants can vote, shielding non-citizens from prosecution if they are registered automatically.
• Allows felons to vote: Under the Democracy Restoration Act, federal dollars for prisons would be restricted in states that don’t allow ex-convicts to vote unless they are ''serving a felony sentence in a correctional institution or facility at the time of the election.''
• Promotes ballot harvesting whereby any designated person would be allowed to return absentee ballots to any ballot drop-off location or election office so long as the person doesn’t receive compensation on the number of ballots he or she collected without limit. They could, however, be hired on an hourly time-compensated basis.
• Requires colleges and universities to hire ''campus vote coordinators'' who encourage students to vote and provide grants to incentivize institutions that have high registration rates.

Transparently Politicizes Election Rules to Promote Distrust

The For the People Act is a transparent agenda to rig all future national elections to ensure that far-left liberal progressives will have a permanent and absolute winning advantage.

• Limits a plaintiff’s access to federal courts in challenging H.R.-1 constitutionality. It mandates that any lawsuits be filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia.
• Urges statehood for the District of Columbia and representation for territories. A commission would be appointed to advocate for congressional and presidential representation.
• Creates a national commission to ''protect United States democratic institutions'' comprising 10 members of which only four would be Republicans (the minority party). They would provide recommendations prior to the 2022 midterm elections.
• Raises First Amendment concerns by prohibiting the publication of ''misleading information'' about elections, making it a crime to ''communicate or cause to be communicated'' any information that is known to be false and designed to discourage voting, carrying a sentence up to five years.
• Contains free speech impingements; H.R.-1 gives federal bureaucrats powers to control political speech through a new category of regulations called "campaign-related disbursements" which apply to public policy communications among nonprofit advocacy groups and others that mention a specific candidate for federal office without regard to whether it expressly advocates a vote for or against the candidate.
• Creates a scheme of public funds to match small political contributions at a 6-to-1 rate, whereby a $200 donation would be eligible get an additional $1,200 from "the government." Incidentally, the top-five list for share of funds coming in from small donors includes two socialists, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.

In summary, despite its lofty-sounding moniker, the For the People Act, is an act of tyranny against our most fundamental American rights and cherished time-honored traditions.

Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 10 books, "What Makes Humans Truly Exceptional," (2021) is available on Amazon along with all others. Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.