Devin Nunes says voting rules are a threat to the U.S. But GOP schemes are the real danger

Rep. Devin Nunes got to enjoy a friendly outing recently when he attended the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida. That’s the annual event sponsored by the American Conservative Union that attracts some of the reddest members of the GOP. Under the theme “America Uncancelled,” the event’s keynote address was given by former President Donald Trump.

In his 12 minutes on the stage, Nunes, the long-serving Republican from Tulare, got to utter two of his favorite words to the delight of the crowd: “socialists” and “radicals.” He meant it in reference to California’s Democratic leaders. Nunes routinely applies the labels like slurs to those officials for any manner of policy differences. The target of his ire this time was how voters get registered in the state.

That normally is a dry subject, but Nunes enlivened it with dramatic storytelling as only he can. He said that California is no longer part of American democracy, but is rather a socialist collective being run by Democrats who were radicals in San Francisco in the 1960s and ‘70s, and only ventured outside the city to smoke marijuana in the Sierra.

To complete their takeover of state government, the Democrats “used the green movement, which is really what I call the watermelon movement,” Nunes said. “Green on the outside, red on the inside.”

Those “radical” Democrats then turned their attention to voting, Nunes indicated, and in the process have deepened their grip on the machinery of democracy. “I’ve been warning people that what you see in California is coming to the rest of the country.”

Voting under Democrats

So just what might that looming threat be? The ways voters can get registered. Nunes laid it out this way:

First came absentee voting, which then evolved into permanent absentee voting to cut down on paperwork. So far, so good, Nunes said.

“Then they (Democrats) came along and said, ‘Well, when you go into the Department of Motor Vehicles, you are going to register to vote, even if you don’t want to register to vote.’”

Where has this led? “Essentially then, over the last, I don’t know, five years, virtually everybody’s registered to vote, and ballots are flying out everywhere.”

The CPAC crowd ate it up, but as often is the case with Nunes, his argument was factually misleading.

For one thing, the so-called motor voter movement came not from California, but from the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The bill was sponsored by Democrat Al Swift of Washington. It had nine co-sponsors from California, but they were just part of 72 co-sponsors.

Second, 44 states and the District of Columbia are covered by the act. Registering to vote at the DMV is not some new plot being hatched by “socialists” in California.

And here’s the key point: The act makes registering to vote easier. That’s it. A person can choose whatever party he or she wants, and can decline to state as well. Republicans have as much to gain potentially as Democrats. Nunes conveniently ignored this fact.

Nunes makes up problem

Nunes also attacked the method of ballot “harvesting.” That’s when a voter who cannot turn in a ballot has someone else do it. Under California law, the voter gives that helper permission, and that person must print their name on the ballot, state their relationship to the voter and sign it. And, they must return the ballot within three days of receiving it. Ballots are due by Election Day, same as always.

In Nunes’ world, that process is sinister, as he said to CPAC: “So, in matter of fact, any of you that are in here, even if you’re a foreigner, you can actually go to California, and you can go door to door, and harvest ballots if you’d like. So imagine that, replicated across the whole country.”

That makes for good drama, but here’s the real way it works: An elderly parent who cannot venture to the polls anymore has their son, daughter or grandchild deliver the ballot. That’s not wrong — that’s American.

Republicans’ aim is un-American

What the CPAC audience should really be worried about — as should all Americans — are GOP politicians like Nunes waging a concerted effort to cast doubts on the nation’s voting process. Trump got the ball rolling with his months-long battle to overturn the November election, saying falsely that the presidency was stolen from him by Democrat Joe Biden. Nevermind Trump lost more than 60 court challenges.

Efforts are under way in Georgia and Arizona by Republican legislators to make it harder for people to vote. In Georgia, two bills would “restrict early voting on the weekends, limiting the longstanding civic tradition of ‘Souls to the Polls’ in which Black voters cast ballots on Sunday after church services,” The New York Times reports. The states were among the key battlegrounds Trump lost to Biden.

America’s voting system is not broken. And California Democrats are not trying to take over the nation. As he has done throughout his long time in Congress, Nunes enjoys spinning conspiracy theories over the mundane issues of governance.

One would think that any elected official, of any party, would support getting more voters to the polls. If Republican arguments are persuasive, they should win on merits.

But what Republicans like Nunes are most interested right now in spreading fear, doubt and falsehoods so they can make voting harder and limit participation, namely of Democrats.

Is that un-American? You bet it is. Or, to recast the CPAC, theme, it is “America Cancelled.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2021 at 4:00 AM.