Hillary Clinton Peddles Voting Reform: ‘We Need to Act Now’

Former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, attends a news conference for the film 'Hillary' during the 70th International Film Festival Berlin, Berlinale in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Markus Schreiber/AP Photo
Hannah Bleau

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday renewed her calls for voting reform, warning that the United States needs to “act now” in order to ensure that citizens can “safely cast a ballot in November” as members of her party eagerly pursue universal mail-in voting.

“GOP officials and conservative jurists forced Wisconsin voters yesterday to choose between risking their lives to vote and being disenfranchised. It’s unconscionable,” she said following the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Gov. Tony Evers’ (D) executive order delaying in-person voting in his state.

“We need to act now to make sure every citizen can safely cast a ballot in November,” she added:

While the twice-failed presidential candidate did not provide specifics in her latest call to action, she has repeatedly signaled her support of mail-in voting, urging it to be “the norm going forward.” She has also frequently touted the reforms presented by her former campaign attorney Marc Elias, a progressive figure who has attempted to challenge existing voting methods by seeding lawsuits across the country:

In addition to mail-in voting, Elias is promoting curbside voting, “vote anywhere” rules, and ballot harvesting — a method House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) packed in her own version of the last coronavirus relief measure.

Elias outlined his vision in a piece for The Atlantic, which Breitbart News detailed:

“There is no question that voting by mail is an important part of the solution. It mitigates the problems of long lines and fosters social distancing. But the specific rules used to implement vote by mail may determine whose vote is counted and whose is not,” he continued, listing four mail-in voting “safeguards,” including free or prepaid postage and the ability of “community organizations” to “help collect and deliver voted, sealed ballots.”

A lack of community organizations “assisting” with the collection and delivery of ballots, he argued, effectively serves as a “disadvantage” to minority voters.

Meanwhile, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is promoting a bill she introduced last month, the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act of 2020 (NDEBA), which would make “no-excuse absentee vote-by-mail” a universal reality:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Klobuchar’s former presidential challenger, also supports the bill and has issued a series of potential reforms herself, including but not limited to a ban on cleaning voter rolls and a change in voter ID laws, allowing an individual voting in person to vote “with a sworn statement of identity instead of a voter ID.”

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