The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Republican Party of Florida secured a victory for election integrity by reaching a settlement in Nielsen v. DeSantis on Sunday. Earlier this year, plaintiffs sued Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to radically alter Florida's absentee ballot laws to allow ballot harvesting and require absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day to be counted. As part of the settlement agreement, plaintiffs dropped all substantive claims in the suit.

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to push a federal power grab for elections with the HEROES Act, the problems with her attempted election administration dictates have been exposed. Just yesterday in Pelosi’s birthplace of Baltimore, Maryland, a story came out about how one of her top priorities, vote by mail, disenfranchises people:

Nearly 1 in 10 ballots could not be delivered to Baltimore City voters during the special election in April, raising concerns for the June 2 primary, which is also being conducted by mail.

The data, released by the Maryland Board of Elections late Tuesday, shows that 20,367 of the more than 230,500 ballots sent to Baltimore City voters could not be delivered before the April 28 special election. An additional 4,355 ballots were undeliverable to Baltimore County voters, while 3,886 were not delivered to Howard County voters — about 3% of all ballots in those two jurisdictions. . . .

An additional 660 were not counted because they lacked a signature.

While reasonable people can disagree about how elections should be changed in response to the unique challenges of COVID-19, there should be universal agreement not to make them more dangerous and less effective.  Yet that is what the left and California are trying to do.

Hillary Clinton's 2016 lawyer and Steele dossier funder Marc Elias has made ballot harvesting one of his four pillars for election reform.  As Logan Churchwell explains in an op-ed entitled, All-mail ballot harvesters could be the next COVID-19 superspreaders:

Picture a harvester in a densely-populated city visiting dozens of houses and apartments each day — often crossing thresholds into living rooms to promote a particular candidate, cause or party. Think of the air they breathe, the touched surfaces and the collected ballot envelopes sealed with human saliva from each home. It only takes one untested, asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier’s ballot being harvested to risk exposure for the rest of the neighborhood as that political operative continues door-to-door.

Proponents have a tough sell in credibly convincing the public that all-mail ballot elections are actually safer with respect to sanitary concerns. 

Just today, the Republican National Committee (RNC) launched an online platform to promote the efforts of Republicans to uphold honest and fair elections: ProtectTheVote.com.

Yesterday, the California Republican Party, represented by RNLA Co-Chair Harmeet Dhillon, filed suit in the Superior Court for Sacramento County against Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Xavier Becerra, and Secretary of State Alex Padilla.  

The complaint seeks clarification of the governor's overreaching Stay Home Order in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which could be interpreted to designate ballot harvesters as "nonessential workers" who must stay home under the order.  The complaint seeks clarification so that "all candidates and their supporters are . . . abiding by the same rules" for the May 12 special congressional election.

RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen states: “In my 25 years in Washington, DC, Rep. Rodney Davis is the best leader of the House Administration Committee. And it is a good thing, as the Committee’s work has never been more important.”

Rep. Davis understands that election law changes should be bipartisan and we need to stop partisan attacks such as claims that Russia stole the election. As Davis explains in an op-ed entitled "Pelosi’s partisanship (and misinformation) threaten America's elections":

We have recently written about vote fraud and Election Administration blunders.  For those who doubt the existence of widespread fraud on the left, a great example comes from public sector unions.  Thanks to the work of Freedom Foundation, fraud amongst government unions is being exposed:

It’s widely known that government unions are hotbeds of corruption. There’s hardly any other way to put it when union bosses forcibly take money out of public-sector employee paychecks to line their campaign war chests, use that money to buy corrupt politicians, then negotiate with their bought-and-paid-for lawmakers for sweetheart government deals at taxpayer expense.

While election officials need to make sure that no voters are disenfranchised during the COVID-19 crisis, they also need to make sure that the integrity of the election is still protected.  The expected and understandable increase in mail voting will present unique challenges, as mail voting is uniquely susceptible to disenfranchising voters through fraud and mistake.  After describing some specific examples of fraud through ballot harvesting, former RNLA Ed Meese Award Winner Hans von Spakovsky and Christian Adams wrote today:

Thanks to the leadership of Senators Mitch McConnell. Richard Shelby and Roy Blunt and the constant vigilance of House Administration Committee Ranking Member Rodney Davis, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats were unsuccessful in their efforts to hijack the COVID-19 relief bill for the legislative priorities on matters such as elections.  But the left is not done and will undoubtedly keep fighting for their own election desires over the needs of the American people.   

Two conservative leaders are hitting back hard against the Democrats' unprecedented and fortunately ultimately unsuccessful federal power grab in the recent CARES Act.  Christian Adams and Hans von Spakovsky wrote:

We always knew that liberals considered federalizing control over elections to be an important priority. We just never dreamed it was more important than fighting the coronavirus pandemic or preserving American jobs. . . .

Shame on you, Speaker Pelosi.  At a time when Americans were coming together, she blew up the bipartisan coronavirus relief package for her legislative desires. 

Senate spends all weekend negotiating a bipartisan deal. Agreement reached. Pelosi flies in from California, whips out her unrelated “wishlist,” and says no. Senate Democrats then vote against proceeding on a bill they negotiated.

Jaw dropping.

— Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) March 22, 2020