What Democrats need from Mitch McConnell in an election reform deal.

What Democrats need from Mitch McConnell in an election reform deal.

by Rick Hasen (UCLA)

The debate over whether Democrats should pursue their large voting rights package or a narrower law aimed against election subversion became moot on Wednesday when Democrats could not muster up enough votes to tweak the filibuster rule to pass their larger package. Some Republicans are now making noise that they would support narrower anti-election subversion legislation centered on fixing an 1887 law known as the “Electoral Count Act.” Democrats should pursue this goal but think more broadly about other anti-subversion provisions that could attract bipartisan support. Bipartisan, pinpointed legislation is the best chance we have of avoiding a potential stolen presidential election in 2024 or beyond.

The wide-or-narrow voting bill debate was weird because it was never an either/or proposition. As I wrote in the New York Times a few weeks ago, “reaching bipartisan compromise against election subversion will not stop Democrats from fixing voting rights or partisan gerrymanders on their own—the fate of those bills depend not on Republicans but on Democrats convincing Senators [Joe] Manchin and [Kyrsten] Sinema to modify the filibuster rules. Republicans should not try to hold anti-election subversion hostage to Democrats giving up their voting agenda.”