Biden-appointed Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Justice Department plan to protect voter rights by intervening when liberal state legislatures push to enact new restrictive voting law. Merrick announced this plan on Friday accompanied by the staff of the Civil Rights Division, joined by our Deputy and Associate Attorneys General and by our newly arrived Assistant Attorney General, Kristen Clarke.

This plan is a flashing red light notifying states that the federal government is perched and ready to intervene in state election policies. This act by the Justice Department may lead to a show down over the fight for control of election policies, and likely will result in many states starting an election audit if not already in progress.

The concern is protecting our Constitution by maintaining the right for citizens to vote, thus state policies must be scrutinized for unscrupulous methods to deny voter eligibility, make cast votes invalid, and make voting difficult. To do this the Justice Department will need to increase available staff.

“So again, the Civil Rights Division is going to need more lawyers,” said Merrick. “Accordingly, today I am announcing that within the next 30 days, we will double the Divisions enforcement staff for protecting the right to vote. We will use all existing provisions of the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to ensure that we protect every qualified American seeking to participate in our democracy.”

“We are scrutinizing new laws that seek to curb voter access and where we see violations, we will not hesitate to act. We are also scrutinizing current laws and practices in order to determine whether they discriminate against black voters and other voters of color.”

“Particularly concerning in this regard are several studies showing that in some jurisdictions, nonwhite voters must wait in line substantially longer than white voters to cast their ballots. We will apply the same scrutiny to post-election audits to ensure they abide by federal statutory requirements to protect election records and avoid the intimidation of voters. In that regard, we will publish guidance explaining the civil and criminal statutes that apply to post-election audits. And we will likewise publish guidance with respect to early voting and voting by mail.

A study by Enrico Cantoni and Vincent Pons in February 2019 for the National Bureau of Economic Research into the effects of strict voter ID laws found “mostly null results. First, the fears that strict ID requirements would disenfranchise disadvantaged populations have not materialized.”

“Second, contrary to the argument used by the Supreme Court in the 2008 case Crawford v. Marion County to uphold the constitutionality of one of the early strict ID laws, we find no significant impact on fraud or public confidence in election integrity. This result weakens the case for adopting such laws in the first place.”

Despite all the time, energy, and money used to restrict citizens from voting, Cantoni and Pons found that voter ID laws “have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation.”