Kamala Harris' Plan to Save the Election [View all]

[PunkinPi]

Last edited Thu Apr 16, 2020, 12:17 PM - Edit history (1)

Kamala Harris’ Plan to Save the Election

The junior Senator from California on Thursday introduced the VoteSafe Act of 2020, a $5 billion piece of legislation that would satisfy what voting experts and advocates estimate states need to enact necessary reforms. Working closely with various secretaries of state, Harris crafted a bill that would standardize early in-person voting periods, mandating that each state have at least a 20-day period ahead of the November 3rd general election. It would also require states to permit no-excuse mail-in absentee voting for this election, allowing any citizen to submit such a ballot, regardless of explanation. The bill would also maintain minimum due process protections for each voter.

The Harris legislation sets aside $5 billion for this task, considerably more than the $400 million in the recently signed coronavirus relief bill. Half of that would help states establish whatever infrastructure is needed for establishing no-excuse absentee voting and early in-person voting. The other $2.5 billion would come in the form of discretionary grant funding for states to help improve both safety and accessibility of election systems — including the implementation and promotion of curbside voting, which allows voters to complete ballots safely in their cars while maintaining physical isolation. The grants would also fund improvements in voter registration, polling place and line management, and training of poll workers.

Speaking with Rolling Stone about the $5 billion legislation, the former presidential candidate said “this is about making sure that in our country that no one should have to decide about their right to vote versus their health.” In addition to the short-term fixes for 2020, Harris added that the bill offers pathways to modernize how our states help deliver greater ballot access to disabled Americans, to indigenous tribes, and to those who speak English as a second language.

More -> https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/kamala-harris-coronavirus-election-bill-984898/

ETA (since people are mentioning McConnell and him not letting it happen, it's addressed in the article):

But even if the bill made it through the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, one major obstacle that Harris faces is the president, who is unlikely to sign onto any expansion of the voting franchise. He said during a late March Fox News appearance that “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again” if Democrats had gotten their voting-rights wish list in the first relief bill.

Harris doesn’t believe that this bill may be doomed, but allowed that it could serve as a template for states to file their own similar pieces of legislation. “Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely,” Harris said. “And that’s why I’ve worked so closely with the California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, and others. This is doable. And I think that there are these moments of a crisis that give us the courage and encouragement to try something that actually may be better than how we were doing it before.”