The U.S. Department of Justice's recent guidance on the process of state election audits indicates that the federal agency is apparently deeply unsettled by the string of election audits and election reform efforts carried out by state Republicans since last November's presidential election.
The guidance, distributed last week and directed in part toward state legislatures, instructs investigators on "How states must comply with federal law" when conducting election audits.
Both the audits and the election reform efforts have become political flashpoints in the months since the 2020 election, with many Democrats insisting that those measures are intended to either suppress the vote or overturn November's election results, and Republicans countering that both efforts are meant to strengthen the U.S. voting system and address any underlying security issues.
"The Department's enforcement policy does not consider a jurisdiction's re-adoption of prior voting laws or procedures to be presumptively lawful; instead, the Department will review a jurisdiction's changes in voting laws or procedures for compliance with all federal laws regarding elections, as the facts and circumstances warrant," the guidance states.
An unnamed department official made the implications of the guidance more explicit following its release by telling media that it did not intend to give election officials "Safe harbor" to return to pre-pandemic voting practices if the DOJ determined those rules had "a racially discriminatory impact." Last month the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a similar legal premise in its ruling on a Voting Rights Act challenge by the Democratic National Committee to an Arizona ban on ballot harvesting.
The election audits still unfolding across the country have not amassed evidence of voter fraud on a scale that would have changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Auditors in Arizona have claimed to have found numerous irregularities in their survey of election results from the state's Maricopa County.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to discern fact from fiction, and unfortunately the media has a strong bias. They spin stories to make conservatives look bad and will go to great lengths to avoid reporting on the good that comes from conservative policies. There are a few shining lights in the media landscape-brave conservative outlets that report the truth and offer a different perspective. We must support conservative outlets like this one and ensure that our voices are heard.
Thursday, August 5, 2021
DOJ legal threats against state election audits suggest unease about potential findings
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