| Congratulations to the members of the House Republican Caucus who voted, successfully, to block the passage of a terrible bill that would have changed the Delaware Constitution regarding voting. HB 75 provides, “The General Assembly shall enact general laws providing the circumstances, rules, and procedures by which registered voters may vote by absentee ballot.”
The Democrats have called this Amendment the “Absentee Voting Amendment”, and represented that they want to allow voters to be able to vote absentee without having to meet the current, six criteria in the Constitution that allow one to vote absentee in Delaware. That characterization of this Amendment is very misleading and incomplete. You need to know the truth about what this Amendment could do
This Amendment could easily be called the
“mail ballots to every registered voter amendment” because that’s exactly what the General Assembly would have the authority to do without the Constitutional protections we currently have. The General Assembly could decide that the way to vote “absentee” is to mail every voter a ballot. Or, they could continue what they did during the pandemic and send an application to vote absentee to every person registered to vote in Delaware (we know that list is inaccurate), and institute vote by mail, without any need to call it that. That process would be certain, given our experience last year with the inaccuracies and mistakes that were made, to undermine confidence in Delaware’s elections in the future.
Additionally, by giving the General Assembly the vast discretion the Amendment would allow them, the rules on voting could change depending on the whim of the majority. One of the reasons people lost confidence in the election results in 2020 was that the rules were changed quickly and right before the election. Our citizens need, and deserve, foundational security that the rules will be stable in order to have confidence in election results.
Delaware has always had elections of good integrity. We need to make sure that we continue to hold our elections in a way that the public can have confidence in the results a
nd support those who prevail regardless of their party.
Republicans generally favor a no-excuse absentee provision. If the amendment did only that it would have everyone’s support. But it doesn’t.
On Friday, June 11, I appeared on the Rick Jensen Show on WDEL to explain HB 75. I include it with this Brady Bulletin. Please take the time to listen and learn what everyone needs to know to protect our voting rights and ensure election integrity in Delaware.
Thank you
Jane
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