“Are New Voting Bill Talks for Real or for Show?”

Carl Hulse for the NYT:

So as a rump group of senators in both parties has recently ramped up discussions aimed at reaching a compromise on voting legislation, leading Democrats who saw their far broader voting rights package stall in the Senate last week have been wary.

They worry that the emerging legislation could be a distraction from the pressing issue their bill was meant to address — Republican voter-suppression efforts at the state level — and amount to little more than cover for Republicans who want to appear interested in protecting election integrity despite uniformly opposing Democrats’ voting rights bill.

They have taken note that Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, has blessed the effort — a telltale sign, say Democrats who have learned to be endlessly suspicious of his motives, that it might go nowhere.

The Democratic fear is that once the moment passes and attention shifts away from election law to spending issues and now a contentious Supreme Court nomination, the talks will fizzle and Democrats will be left with nothing to show for their voting rights drive, even as the 2022 midterms loom and the 2024 election is just over the horizon.

But leaders of the talks that now include at least 16 senators divided between Republicans and Democrats say they are substantive, gaining momentum and could produce legislation that might prevent another Jan. 6-style confrontation by focusing on fixing the deficiencies in the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act….

She and others said the ongoing negotiations were extending beyond counting the electoral ballots into shoring up other areas of the federal election process after the experiences of 2020. Those involved in the talks are now beginning to focus on specific areas where they think action is needed to try to develop relevant consensus legislation.

Those areas include overhauling the Electoral Count Act to clarify issues such as the role of the vice president, who presides over the congressional count, and what to do in cases of competing slates of voters; handling threats against election workers and officials, and imposing penalties for election interference; voting rights and practices; renewing the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and providing new grants for election entities; and the presidential transition.

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