Americans love mail-in voting, but Republican-led legislatures are doing their best to make absentee voting more difficult. Louisiana established record numbers of mail-in voters for the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election.

The Advocate reported on Nov. 27, 2020, that the state’s voters used mail-in  ballots “at unheard of rates.” In all, 167,416 people voted by mail in Louisiana. That shattered the previous record of just over 63,000 set in 2016.

The popularity of mail-in voting is growing. The National Conference of State Legislatures in January said elections in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington and in the District of Columbia are conducted entirely by mail.

Why are Republicans cracking down on such a popular way of voting? We got an answer from a July 28, 2020, Steven Roberts column that is published in The Advocate.

Roberts said, “When Chris Wallace asked President Donald Trump on Fox if he would accept the results of the November (2020) election, the response was chilling. ‘I have to see,’ said Trump. ‘I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no.’ As a reason for his reticence, he charged: ‘I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.’”

Just the opposite happened in Louisiana and across the country in 2020, The Advocate reported after the election.

“The use of mail ballots has exploded in Louisiana and across the country during this election cycle despite widespread allegations of fraud and pre-election worries that the U.S. Postal Service couldn’t keep up,” the newspaper said.

Local election officials said they had no evidence of fraud involving large numbers of votes, and relatively small numbers of ballots being disqualified.

Louis Perret, clerk of court of Lafayette Parish in 2020, said, “That’s when you just shake your head about Facebook and Twitter claims of fraud that are completely baseless.”

Two laws passed by the Louisiana Legislature at its 2024 session are excellent examples of the GOP’s opposition to mail-in voting. Critics say it will be easier to disqualify more of those ballots.

The Louisiana Illuminator reported on July 31 that voter advocacy groups believe some of the laws that took effect Thursday could disenfranchise voters and be used to levy unfounded allegations of fraud.

Act 380 by Rep. Josh Carlson, R-Lafayette, prohibits a person from mailing more than one absentee ballot for a voter who isn’t an immediate family member. Act 317 by Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen, does the same thing but also makes it a crime to give an absentee ballot application form to two or more people who aren’t immediate family members.

Secretary of State Nancy Landry, while testifying in support of Kleinpeter’s bill in March, said allowing unknown individuals to collect unlimited numbers of ballot applications would give them access to the voter’s name and address and therefore allow them to “harass and intimidate voters” into voting a certain way.

Act 701 by Rep. Polly Thomas, R-Metairie, requires non-governmental groups to first sign up with the secretary of state before holding any voter registration drives.

The Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, a Louisiana voting rights advocacy group, is touring the state this summer to register Black voters and educate them on the new laws.

The Illuminator said Landry proposed her election bills at the session as “strengthening election integrity,” though authorities have never found evidence of widespread voter fraud in Louisiana or elsewhere in the United States.

Peter Robins-Brown, executive director of Louisiana Progress, talked about those who help neighbors get registered to vote.

“You just can’t expect the average person to know all of these rules or at least know them in detail,” he said. “At what point does my attempt to register my neighbors go from an act of civic engagement to a violation or a crime of voter fraud?”

Marc Morial, president of the Urban League and former mayor of New Orleans, said he thinks most of Landry’s legislative bills will only make it harder to vote or decrease voter turnout.

Since mail-in voting appears to be heavily restricted under some of those new laws, Morial is apparently correct. Shouldn’t legislators be making it easier to vote?

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at 337-515-8871 or jim.beam.press@gmail.com.

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