Republicans have been forced to take countermeasures against California's new vote harvesting law that saw Democrats reverse numerous GOP election victories in last year's midterm races, while continuing to warn that the practice invites fraud.
In 2016, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a change of the Election Code that allows any person to collect a mail-in ballot from voters and turn in that ballot to a polling place or the registrar’s office. Prior law restricted the practice to just relatives of or those living in the same household as the voter.
Ever since their drubbing in California’s congressional races, Republicans have raised questions about that new law, according to The Washington Post.
In a March 14 story, the Post reported that GOP leaders and operatives are quietly planning ways to improve their own ballot-harvest in California, where the party now holds a scant seven out of 53 congressional seats. The Post cited "people familiar with the efforts."
Yet, it seems likely that the harvesting scheme is much more likely to benefit Democrats than Republicans. The reason is that people who are indifferent to mailing in a ballot are not likely to follow politics, and such individuals tend to identify themselves as Democrats. In general, the more affluent who follow politics are often Republican and make sure that their ballots are cast before partisan workers offers to fetch their votes.
So the change in the law tends to make California a one-party state, and that party will be able to use its strength to see to it that Republicans remain marginalized.
The question becomes: Is California compliant with the U.S. Constitution's requirement that every state have a republic form of government or has California now become a degenerate democracy -- as in, one-party rule with no functioning checks and balances? Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution reads
A challenge to California's law needs to be fought in the federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court could then rule on whether California's government, with its vote harvesting law, passes Constitutional muster as to whether it is any longer a true republic.
In 2016, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a change of the Election Code that allows any person to collect a mail-in ballot from voters and turn in that ballot to a polling place or the registrar’s office. Prior law restricted the practice to just relatives of or those living in the same household as the voter.
Ever since their drubbing in California’s congressional races, Republicans have raised questions about that new law, according to The Washington Post.
In a March 14 story, the Post reported that GOP leaders and operatives are quietly planning ways to improve their own ballot-harvest in California, where the party now holds a scant seven out of 53 congressional seats. The Post cited "people familiar with the efforts."
Yet, it seems likely that the harvesting scheme is much more likely to benefit Democrats than Republicans. The reason is that people who are indifferent to mailing in a ballot are not likely to follow politics, and such individuals tend to identify themselves as Democrats. In general, the more affluent who follow politics are often Republican and make sure that their ballots are cast before partisan workers offers to fetch their votes.
So the change in the law tends to make California a one-party state, and that party will be able to use its strength to see to it that Republicans remain marginalized.
The question becomes: Is California compliant with the U.S. Constitution's requirement that every state have a republic form of government or has California now become a degenerate democracy -- as in, one-party rule with no functioning checks and balances? Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution reads
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.Some may wonder whether that guarantee actually applies to the federal government. Yet since the Constitution spells out exactly what form the federal government takes, the guarantee seems gratuitous -- unless the founders were perhaps using ambiguity to imply that not only must the federal government be a republic, but so must the state governments. Certainly, no state government has ever tried to set up a non-representative form of government,
A challenge to California's law needs to be fought in the federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court could then rule on whether California's government, with its vote harvesting law, passes Constitutional muster as to whether it is any longer a true republic.
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