Opinion | Michigan should be protecting the vote, not suppressing it

In a blatant and brazen power grab, partisan Republican legislators just passed another package of anti-voter laws to limit access to the ballot box for Michigan families.

These restrictions are just as dangerous and burdensome as the ones passed in states like Florida and Georgia. They would constrain hard-working local officials who run our elections, empower partisan poll watchers who can intimidate voters and harass poll workers, and limit the freedom of Michiganders to choose the method to vote that is best for them, including voting by mail.

Fortunately, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer believes every American should have the right to vote in safe, accessible elections, and she vetoed these anti-voter proposals. But the attacks on voting won’t stop. Some extremist Republicans are trying to work around her veto by attempting to exploit the state’s ballot initiative system to pass their restrictive voter laws without approval from the Governor.

In other states, dark money and self-serving politicians have already jammed through partisan anti-voting laws. They’ve passed 33 laws in 19 states to put up barriers to voting this year. I heard this first hand when I joined state lawmakers from around the country in Washington D.C. this summer to demand action to secure our voting rights once and for all.

These partisan attacks will sow further distrust in our democracy and further divide us as a nation. That’s why we need the Senate to unite behind a bill that 72 percent of Americans agree on: the Freedom to Vote Act.

This common-sense voting rights and anti-corruption bill was put forward by Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and a number of other senators who combined ideas from both Republicans and Democrats.

The bill will protect the freedom to vote for all Americans and prevent efforts to sabotage our elections, including protecting election officials from harassment so they can count every vote and preventing voter intimidation. It would also end dark money so that billionaires can’t buy elections and stop partisan gerrymandering, so that the people choose their elected representatives, not the other way around.

Passing this bill would help restore the faith in our system that has been rigged to favor corporate interests and dark money groups. Michiganders all agree that our democracy works better when we can all participate and have a say in the decisions that affect our lives. We want all of our voices to be heard and for government to work for everyone, not just big donors and people who are well connected.

We must also stand united against these state level attacks on our rights in Michigan through the legislature and deceptive ballot proposals. Voters here moved our democracy forward in 2018 with expanded access to the ballot, removing long-standing barriers, and in 2020 exercised these rights for a huge turnout in the most safe, secure, accurate election ever. We have no intention of going backward now.