Expanding limited voting opportunity to greater numbers of fewer people
The coronavirus pandemic threatens to throw America’s elections into chaos. Luckily, Senate Republicans have proposed a brilliant plan to guarantee that our elections can safely go ahead across the country, no matter what. The bill guarantees widespread voting access for as many eligible voters as possible simply by redefining “eligible voters” as narrowly as possible. Republicans claim Democrats have no room to complain because the bill is almost exactly the same as their failed “Vote by Mail Act” that they proposed in January 2019 — just with a few minor edits and spelling changes. Reporter R.E. Porter obtained a leaked copy of the bill:
A BILL
To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to allow all eligible voters to vote by mail in Federal elections, to amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to provide for automatically voter vote R registration.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Vote by Mail Male Act of 2019 2020”.
SECTION 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) As of early May, 16 states have postponed their primary elections due to coronavirus concerns. The President cannot postpone the general election without an act of Congress, but state governments could use their emergency powers to “drastically curtail in-person voting locations” or even to “take back the power to determine which candidate wins their state in the general election,” given that there is “no constitutional obligation that a state support the presidential candidate who wins a plurality of its vote — or that the state hold a vote for president at all.” Scary! Yes, that’s right, most of us Congressional Republicans are just as afraid as anyone of another four years of Trump, even though we’re too Goddamn gutless strategic to say it — but we simply don’t want to give up our own power in the process.
(1) (2) An inequity of voting rights exists in the United States because voters in some States have the universal right to vote by mail while voters in other States do not.The goal of more equitably distributing the inequitableness of this inequity can be achieved not by adopting universal vote by mail rights, but by adopting universal vote by male for Rights, given that women are more likely to vote for Democrats. Thus, voting by male rather than by mail could result in more Congressional seats for Republicans!
(2) (3) Many voters often have work, family, or other commitments that make getting to the polls and waiting in line for hours on election day difficult to impossible, especially for disabled voters.If we send only the strong, rugged, Republican men to the polls, these concerns can easily be avoided. And since men represent less than half of the population, the lines at the polls will be shorter too!
(3) (4) Voting by Mail Male is cost-effective. We always say we care about this when we really don’t, so this is just a bonus. However, this makes sense logically since proper conservative God-fearing men with good old-fashioned traditional values all know that women can’t handle money.
(4) (5) Voting by Mail Male typically increases decreases turnout in all elections. For obvious reasons, we’d like to keep voter turnout as low as possible. This goal is made more feasible by limiting voting to the gender that generally favors Republicans.
(5) (6) A crucial component of a modern voting system is making it easy, affordable, and accessible to register to vote.
SECTION 3. PROMOTING ABILITY OF VOTERS TO VOTE BY MAIL IN FEDERAL ELECTIONS.
(a) VOTING BY Mail Male IN FEDERAL ELECTIONS. —
(1) IN GENERAL. — Subtitle A of title III of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (52 U.S.C. 21081 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 303 the following new section. This is too wordy and jargony to hold Trump’s attention, and we can’t lose that before that moron signs this into law for us! The President is far too brilliant, busy, and handsome to waste time reading this. Cut and paste the following into law, Mr. President, Sir!
“SEC. 303A. PROMOTING ABILITY OF VOTERS TO VOTE BY MAIL.
“(a) In general.—If an individual in a State is eligible to cast a vote in an election for Federal office, the State may not impose any additional conditions or requirements on the eligibility of the individual to cast the vote in such election by mail, except to the extent that the State imposes a deadline for returning the ballot to the appropriate State or local election official.
“(b) Provision of ballot materials.—Not later than 2 ?weeks before the date of any election for Federal office, each State sShalln’t mail ballots to individuals who are registered to vote in such election.
“(c) Accessibility for individuals with disabilities.—All ballots provided under this section shall be accessible to individuals with disabilities in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including for privacy and independence) as for other voters.
Ҥ 3407. Ballots (2) provided for voting in Federal elections
“Ballots mailed pursuant to section 303A(b) of the help America Vote Act of 2002 (individually or in bulk) shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage.”.
(2) TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS .—
(A) TABLE OF SECTIONS.— The table of sections for chapter 34 of title 39, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
“3407. Ballots provided for voting in Federal elections.”.
Author’s note: Some of the original clauses of the Vote by Mail Act of 2019 have been shortened or paraphrased for brevity’s sake, but still accurately reflect the contents of each clause so as to emphasize the irony of the “edits.” Some clauses and entire sections of the original bill have been omitted for comedy’s sake.
Written by: Benjamin Porter— bbporter@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)