Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy gave us another reason why it’s a good thing he’ll be out of a job soon: he doesn’t understand the basics of one of the most crucial policy aspects of it.
Recently, Cassidy was quoted musing about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act and, even though he sponsors the one and only version of it, would like to see changes to it. Basically, insofar as the act of voting it requires official government-issued identification in order to vote, and it restricts the use of mail-in ballots to certain special cases that prevents mass-mailing.
However, Cassidy isn’t on board with control that tight. Moreover, he wants to encourage participation, which he imagines would come from not restricting mail ballots but expanding their use such as Oregon’s practice of mailing ballots to all who were registered to vote with that vast bulk coming from driver’s license interactions. Indeed, he claims having closed primary elections constitute an impediment to voting, even as the majority of states restrict voter choices when selecting a particular political party’s nominee for offices, and tried to back this sentiment by noting that voting turnout for the GOP closed primary in May that announced his defeat had significantly lower turnout than his 2020 general election victory.
