Another day, another screed from the GOP’s leading White House hopeful about how democracy is such a drag.
Former President Donald Trump ranted Monday on Truth Social, his social media platform, that Pennsylvania’s recent adoption of automatic voter registration, or AVR, was “unconstitutional” and “a disaster for the Election of Republicans, including your favorite President, ME!” In the same post, Trump complained that the Republican National Committee should focus on suing the state over the policy instead of hosting “meaningless” presidential debates that he refuses to attend. That diatribe came a couple days after an all-caps-lock post about how “Obama and his radical left thugs” were behind the policy and how it was a “scam” designed to “steal Pennsylvania again.”
As usual, Trump’s messaging is brimming with lies.
As usual, Trump’s messaging is brimming with lies: The many desperate lawsuits after the 2020 elections produced no evidence of impropriety in vote-counting in Pennsylvania. Former President Barack Obama has nothing to do with Pennsylvania’s new policy. AVR, which exists in some form in 23 states and Washington, D.C., isn’t unconstitutional. And voter registration is not only not a scam but probably one of the most scam-proof ways imaginable to establish registration.
Pennsylvania’s AVR policy, which went into effect last week, automatically enrolls people when they’re at the DMV — exactly the time when people are required to have substantial proof of their identities. “Residents of our Commonwealth already provide proof of identity, residency, age and citizenship at the DMV — all the information required to register to vote — so it makes good sense to streamline that process with voter registration,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a statement.
This isn’t, as Republicans often fear-monger about, a policy that lowers the threshold for proving one’s identity when voting. The process confirms a voter’s identity as rigorously as any other, and it simply makes it easier for people to vote. In Pennsylvania, about 1.7 million people who are eligible to vote aren’t registered, and visits to the DMV are prime opportunities to get them into the system.
To Trump — and the Republican Party more broadly — the idea of a fully enfranchised citizenry is a threat. Making voting more accessible and smoother allows for increased voter participation, and given that an outsize proportion of low-resource voters skew Democratic, that potentially benefits Democrats more than Republicans. But some experts are skeptical that AVR will necessarily benefit Democrats in elections. Both red states and blue states have passed AVR policies, and in certain purple states the benefits to either party could be toss-ups. A study in Oregon published by the Center for American Progress found that demographics that tend to swing Democratic and Republican benefited from the state's AVR policy. The real reason to support AVR is to support little-d democracy in a country that makes voting far too difficult.
That Trump also complained that the RNC is daring to hold a presidential primary debate while he faces the crisis of Pennsylvania’s daring to make it easier to vote is yet another sign of his disdain for the democratic process. Yes, he’s the dominant GOP front-runner, and at this rate he’s extremely likely to secure the presidential nomination again. But Trump thinks the party machinery should pivot away from frivolities like debating the policy issues of the day and devote itself instead to supporting his next Big Lie.
In a proper democracy, no party or politician would fear AVR — it would be seen as a sensible, secure practice to encourage civic participation. But we don’t live in a proper democracy. And Trump’s fear of automatic voter registration boils down to a fear of democracy itself.
