If you’ve been living anywhere but under a rock for the last month or so, you will know that there are many allegations of voter fraud regarding the 2020 election. And as a result, President Donald Trump and his staff are fighting a very nasty battle to get these allegations not only verified in the court of law but prove that the election does not rightfully belong to Democrat presumed President-elect Joe Biden.
One such allegation is that some dishonest voters used deceased individuals’ ballots to cast extra votes for their preferred candidate. Naturally, this is already against the law and as such punishable in a court, usually by hefty fines and or jail time of up to five years. However, it would seem that such punishment or the fact that it is illegal is not enough to deter some voters.
And so one Republican is making sure that it doesn’t happen anymore.
Enter Texas GOP Representative Brian Babin. This week he proposed what he is calling the “You Must Be Alive to Vote Act.” Essentially, as its name implies, it is a bill to counteract the future use of dead peoples’ ballots for a US election.
In a news release put out by his office to announce the proposed bill, Babin said, “The ease with which someone is able to steal the ballot of a deceased person and cast an illegitimate vote should disturb, alarm, and outrage every American citizen, no matter what side of the aisle they sit on.”
It obviously upsets him.
“To protect our democratic process and Americans’ faith in our elections, we must ensure that deceased individuals are not allowed to remain on state voter rolls.”
But unlike the current laws, which only punish individuals who decide to break election and voter laws by casting ballots in the name of the dead, Babin’s law would put the responsibility on local governments, mainly county election offices.
No, it would not punish the county if and when some misguided soul in their county decided to go this unlawful route. Instead, it would punish them for not proactively and routinely updating voter rolls to eliminate the dead.
Babin told One America News, “It’s the easiest thing in the world for these local counties to purge their voter list of deceased individuals. All they have to do is go to the Social Security system and crosscheck against their deceased Social Security recipients on their list and then purge them off of their voter list.”
And if Babin’s proposed bill wasn’t followed on at least an annual basis, the act provides that the federal government penalize the county.
“My bill would actually penalize these states and these counties from getting any kind of federal money from the Department of Transportation and the Department of Education if they do no do so on an annual basis.”
Of course, not everyone is a fan of Babin’s proposed bill – it’s not just the Democrats.
Some, at least according to their rants on social media, believe the bill would be redundant, as illegal voting is, well, illegal already.
One person commented, “You realize this is already illegal! We don’t need another Bill! What we need are our Reps to follow the current laws and go after what’s happening now. Focus your attention there.”
Another woman wrote, “we don’t need more laws, we to enforce the laws on the books. Anyone doing this should be in jail for 5 years. It is treason and election fraud. If the GOP would just put their big boy pants on and hold these crooks accountable, then we would not have such silly proposals.”
Now I have to agree, at least in part, with these ideas. We most certainly need to make sure that the current laws are being upheld at any cost, and those that break them should most definitely pay, which is precisely why Trump and his legal team are fighting in court to have these allegations proven.
However, I also have to admit that making the whole process of deceased voter fraud less likely to happen in the first place would make things easier in the future. If counties kept their voter rolls up to date and purged of the deceased, this type of voter fraud could become nearly extinct.
Then our governments, both locally and federally, wouldn’t have to waste millions in legal fees to punish something that could have been stopped before it started. And, as Babin noted, that would go a long way in restoring the faith we as citizens have in our electoral process.