在总统及其盟友未能成功推翻2020年总统大选后在各个战场州的法庭和州议会大厦举行选举之后，各州立法机关现在将目光投向2021年会议，以试图减少扩大的民意调查范围。
2020年的扩张恰逢11月3日大选创纪录的投票率。155余万人投了票在总统选举中，无论是通过面对面的提前投票，投票通过邮寄或亲自投票选举日。这次选举，由专家和官员称赞为非常安全和经营有方，也产生了票，当选总统拜登，以及总统的数量空前的唐纳德·特朗普。
这些投票中的某些可以归因于缺席投票的扩大访问，即由于担心冠状病毒，几乎每个州的美国人都被缺席。在45个州以及哥伦比亚特区，条款（包括一些临时的和一些永久性的）允许在没有任何借口的情况下以邮件方式进行表决，并且还进行了其他更改，以简化表决。
虽然共和党人除了11月的总统竞选之外还有很多值得庆祝的日子，但在宾夕法尼亚，佐治亚州，密歇根州，亚利桑那州和德克萨斯州等战场州，共和党州立法者却在毫无根据地声称欺诈和缺乏选举完整性，这通常是由总统和总统提倡的。由选民反复投票，一直到2021年会议，以作为修改选举法的依据。
无党派投票权组织“共同事业”（Common Cause）的投票和选举主任西尔维亚·艾伯特（Sylvia Albert）表示：“各州的共和党议员都以总统的谎言为借口，以加大投票力度和压制投票。”
“显然，我们到处都看到了创纪录的投票率，部分原因是因为扩大了投票范围。显然，没有什么是完美的。我们希望与社区的选举官员，选举安全专家和拥护者进行磋商，以进行改进和改进，但这不是我们所看到的。阿尔伯特补充说，我们所看到的是立法机关采纳总统关于选举存在问题的谎言。他指的是关于投票机更改选票，欺诈性签名匹配程序以及总统提出的其他毫无根据的主张的没有根据的主张。
总体而言，作为推翻选举结果的努力的一部分，特朗普及其盟友提起了近60宗诉讼，其中大部分在全国各地的法院中都是短暂的，被抛弃，通常带有措辞刻板的裁决。仍有许多挥之不去的案子，例如反对副总统迈克·彭斯的一桩案子，要求他在韦德内赛国会上证明选举结果时授予候补选民。全国各地的国务卿上个月告诉《美国广播公司新闻》，没有证据表明选举舞弊普遍存在，而对投票机的选举后审计得出的投票数差异很小。
但是，全国各地的共和党人仍将欺诈指控作为拟议立法的理由，该立法将取消某些规定，某些规定是在冠状病毒期间实施的，例如使用投票箱和无请缺席的缺席投票。
佐治亚州参议院共和党鞭子史蒂夫·古奇（Steve Gooch）在一次委员会听证会上说：“今年我们对选举制度完全失去了信心。” “我代表这些公民在这里。我有义务让您知道，除非我们做出一些更改，否则这个问题不会消失。”
乔治亚州参议院共和党核心小组本月早些时候表示，它将“取消”今年实施的投票箱，部分原因是邮政服务的延误以及自2005年以来在佐治亚州都没有缺席的缺席投票，原因是“核心小组的一份新闻稿说，数以百万计的格鲁吉亚人对此深表关切，他们感到“违反了州法律，滥用了我们的选举程序”。尽管没有发现广泛的欺诈行为，但该州一直是总统对选举完整性进行毫无根据的攻击的最频繁的目标之一。
参议院共和党众议院提出的立法将“旨在逆转于2020年3月签订的同意法令的不利影响”，该法令允许缺席的投递箱，并“将改革我们的选举法，以消除选举中的不安全因素，从而确保选举程序的安全。将缺席投票。我们将要求缺席投票的原因有照片的身份证明，并且我们将通过禁止投递箱来打击选票的获取。”
特朗普袭击的目标是共和党国务卿布拉德·拉芬斯珀格（Brad Raffensperger），捍卫了佐治亚州的选举完整性，称赞投票率和“平稳统一”进程。
但是，上周，拉芬珀格（Raffensperger）首次支持了州共和党的呼吁，要求结束无理由缺席的缺席投票。自从共和党控制的立法机构15年前提出该提案以来，格鲁吉亚就一直使用该缺席投票，尽管直到2020年才被广泛使用，说这“为潜在的非法投票打开了大门”。
“这一周期表明，我们需要采用基于借口的缺席投票制度。2005年，无借口制度被投票通过为法律，这比你们大多数人（如果不是所有人）都早在我上任之前大会-当我们有3个星期的面对面的早期投票时没有任何意义。这为潜在的非法投票敞开了大门，” Raffensperger说道，尽管事实上没有广泛的证据记录非法投票或潜在的欺诈行为在佐治亚州的基础。
他还敦促修改州法律，要求选民出示带照片的身份证件，而不是使用签名匹配程序来请求或提交缺席选票。签名匹配过程也一直是特朗普欺诈指控的目标。
尽管呼吁做出这些改变-尽管说有关于选举的“真正实质性问题”，拉芬斯佩格仍然坚持认为“我们在网上和媒体上看到的绝大多数主张，甚至在国会大厦的大厅中都进行了讨论。根本没有根据。”
佐治亚州的一些人还表示有兴趣改变某些规定，例如在周二参议院至关重要的决选之前取消投币箱，这将决定哪一方可以控制国家的上议院议员。那没有发生。
宾夕法尼亚州众议员吉姆·格雷戈里（Jim Gregory）指出，宾夕法尼亚州是推动拜登赢得270张选举人票的关键州，他将制定立法以撤销第77号法案的规定，该法案于2019年获得通过，该法案通过了选举综合法案，允许选民要求无故缺席的缺席投票。
尽管由于冠状病毒，宾夕法尼亚州没有对缺席者进行重大的投票变更，但今年的官员们选择将退回选票的期限延长至11月6日，给邮戳加了三天的时间以通过邮件系统进行投票。
格雷戈里告诉美国广播公司新闻（ABC News），以压倒多数投票支持特朗普的选区鼓励他继续支持总统，并对全国选举结果提出法律上的挑战，但未成功。
“我很好，”他谈到将对特朗普的辩护带入2021年届会时说道。“我代表选民，我代表多数，但我代表63,000人，所有人都是共和党人，但我从未真正听到任何人的消息。我不能说我听到一个人说我需要放手。”
格雷戈里在一份声明中宣布他打算提出一项法案，该法案将使第77号法案的某些部分回撤，例如无故缺席的缺席投票，格里高利列举了“极大量的违规行为”，这是他提出该法案的部分原因。
在宾夕法尼亚州提起的多项诉讼中，该州未发现任何极端违规的证据。宾夕法尼亚州国务卿凯西·博克瓦尔（Kathy Boockvar）表示，该州投票系统的“诚信”是“无与伦比的”。
“我的办公室里充斥着有邮寄选票问题的选民的电话和电子邮件，包括那些没有提交请求就收到的人。此外，11月，我们目睹了有关邮寄选票的极端违规行为，”格雷戈里说，尽管没有找到广泛的证据来支持他的主张：“从一个县到另一个县之间存在的违规行为，使选举给选民和候选人带来了极大的混乱。”
格雷戈里指出了其他州在邮寄投票方面的多年经验，并说第77号法案是宾夕法尼亚州80年来首次修改其选举法。
“其他州已经这样做了数十年，而我们只是在这样做的那一年就提出了要求，”格里高利谈到这些变化之后，允许无请假的缺席投票，永久的邮件投票登记并分配资金以提供所有选票的书面记录。“但是，它不在管内。您不能放回原处。因此，在处理前进中的邮寄投票方面，我们需要做的是看看如何加强我们作为立法机关的地位。”
他说，提出该法案的动机的一部分是共和党的政治前途。2022年将在宾夕法尼亚州带来一个州长官邸和参议院席位，这对双方都有机会举行至关重要的中期选举。由于不符合总统的主张，一些人担心该党的政治前途可能陷入危险。
总统也清楚地表达了这一信息，部分原因是他对佐治亚州州长布莱恩·肯普和亚利桑那州州长道格·杜西的威胁，后者在证明乔·拜登在各自州的胜利中发挥了作用。在共和党州长证实结果后，特朗普在11月谈到杜西（Ducey）时说：“亚利桑那州不会忘记道格·杜西（Doug Ducey）的所作所为。”
格雷戈里说：“如果您在这场比赛中没有下象棋而不是下棋，那么您将被甩在后面。”
Common Cause的阿尔伯特说，虽然数据表明共和党人不一定会在选民投票率提高时输掉比赛，但这并不意味着共和党中的某些人不会这样认为。
她说：“……这是一个先入为主的观念，即结果越多的人，民主党人获胜的可能性就越大。” “我们没有看到今年会发生这种情况，但是仍然存在那种先入为主的观念，这确实使共和党试图阻止更多人投票的政治机制成为现实。”
在得克萨斯州（该州于2020年保持红色状态），共和党人得以保留一些被认为是该国最具竞争力的战场国会选区-许多共和党州参议员正在领导这项指控禁止在邮件中向选民发送缺席选票。尽管德克萨斯州在2020年没有这样做，但他们仍在提出禁令。
After the president's and his allies’ failed attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in courtrooms and statehouses across the battleground states, state legislatures are now setting their sights on the 2021 session to attempt to roll back expanded access to the polls.
The 2020 expansion coincided with record-breaking turnout in the Nov. 3 election. More than 155 million people cast their ballots in the presidential election, either through in-person early voting, voting by mail or voting in-person on Election Day. The election, lauded by experts and officials as extremely secure and well-run, also produced an unprecedented number of votes for President-elect Joe Biden, as well as President Donald Trump.
Some of those votes can be attributed to expanded access to absentee voting that Americans in almost every state were given due to concerns about the coronavirus. In 45 states plus the District of Columbia, provisions, some temporary and some permanent, allowed voting by mail without an excuse and other changes were also made to make voting easier.
And while Republicans had plenty to celebrate other than the presidential race in November, in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Texas, Republican state lawmakers are taking the baseless claims of fraud and lack of election integrity often promoted by the president and repeated by their constituents, into the 2021 session as arguments for changing election law.
“Republican lawmakers in a variety of states are using the president's lies as justification for making voting harder and suppressing the vote,” Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at the nonpartisan voting rights group Common Cause, told ABC News.
“Obviously we saw record turnout everywhere and part of that was because access to the ballot was expanded. And obviously nothing is perfect. We would want improvements and improvements should be made, with consultation with election officials and election security experts and advocates in the community, but that's not what we're seeing. What we're seeing is legislatures adopting the president's lies about there being problems with the election,” Albert added, referring to unsubstantiated claims about voting machines changing votes, fraudulent signature matching processes and other baseless claims promoted by the president.
Overall, Trump and his allies filed nearly 60 lawsuits as part of the efforts to overturn the results of the election, most of which were short lived in courts across the country and were tossed out, often with sharply worded rulings. A number of lingering cases still remain, such as one against Vice President Mike Pence, asking him to grant alternate electors when certifying election results in Congress on Wednesdsay. Secretaries of state across the country told ABC News last month that there was no evidence of widespread election fraud, while post-election audits of voting machines returned miniscule differences in the vote count.
But Republicans across the country are still using fraud claims as justification for proposed legislation that would undo some provisions, some implemented during the coronavirus, such as the use of ballot drop boxes and no-excuse absentee voting.
“We have totally lost confidence in our election system this year,” state Senate Republican Whip Steve Gooch of Georgia said during a committee hearing about the election. “I’m here on behalf of those citizens. I have a duty to let you know that this issue isn’t going to go away unless we make some changes.”
The Georgia Senate Republican Caucus said earlier this month that it will "crack down" on ballot drop boxes implemented this year in part due to postal service delays, and no-excuse absentee voting, which has been available in Georgia since 2005, because of "deep and heartfelt concerns" from millions of Georgians who feel "that state law has been violated and our elections process abused," according to a press release from the caucus. The state has been one of the most frequent targets of the president's baseless attacks on election integrity, despite no findings of widespread fraud.
The Senate Republican caucus proposed legislation that will "aim to reverse the detrimental effects of the consent decree which was entered into in March 2020," which allowed absentee drop boxes, and "will reform our election laws to secure our electoral process by eliminating at-will absentee voting. We will require photo identification for absentee voting for cause, and we will crack down on ballot harvesting by outlawing drop boxes," the caucus wrote.
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a target of Trump's attacks, has defended Georgia’s election integrity, praising turnout and the “smooth and uniform” process.
But for the first time last week, Raffensperger backed calls from the state GOP to end no-excuse absentee voting, which Georgia has used since the Republican-controlled legislature introduced it over 15 years ago, although it wasn’t widely used until 2020, saying it "opens the door to potential illegal voting."
"This cycle has shown, we need to move to an excuse-based system for absentee voting. The no excuses system voted into law in 2005 -- long before most of you, if not all of you, long before I was in the General Assembly -- it makes no sense when we have three weeks of in-person, early voting available. It opens the door to potential illegal voting," Raffensperger said, despite the fact that no illegal voting or potential fraud has been documented on a widespread basis in Georgia.
He also pushed for a change in state law that would require voters to present photo identification, rather than using the signature matching process for requesting or submitting absentee ballots. The signature matching process has also been a target of Trump's fraud claims.
Despite calling for these changes -- and despite saying there are "real substantive questions" about the election -- Raffensperger still maintained that "the vast majority of claims we have seen online and in the media, and even discussed in the halls of the Capitol are simply unfounded."
Some in Georgia also expressed interest in changing certain provisions, such as removing drop boxes, before the crucial Senate runoffs Tuesday, which will determine which party has control of the nation’s upper legislative chamber. That did not happen.
In Pennsylvania, a state that was critical in pushing Biden over the 270 electoral votes needed to win, state Rep. Jim Gregory indicated he will introduce legislation to undo provisions in Act 77, an election omnibus bill passed in 2019 that allowed voters to request an absentee ballot without citing an excuse.
Although no major absentee voting changes were introduced in Pennsylvania because of the coronavirus, officials this year opted to extend the deadline to return ballots to Nov. 6, giving an extra three days for postmarked ballots to make it through the mail system.
Gregory told ABC News that his district, which overwhelmingly voted for Trump, has encouraged him to continue his support for the president and his unsuccessful legal challenges to election results across the country.
“I'm fine with that,” he said of carrying his defenses of Trump into the 2021 session. “I speak for my constituents, and I speak for the majority, but I represent 63,000 people, all of whom are Republicans, and I haven't heard from really anyone. I can't say that I heard from a single one that said I need to let it go.”
In a statement announcing his intent to introduce a bill that would roll back some parts of Act 77, like no-excuse absentee voting, Gregory cited an "extreme amount of irregularities," as part of the reason he is introducing the bill.
Across multiple lawsuits filed in Pennsylvania, no evidence of extreme irregularities was found in the state. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said the the “integrity” of the state’s voting system was “unparalleled.”
"My office has been flooded with calls and emails from constituents who had issues with mail-in ballots, including those who received them without submitting a request. Additionally, in November, we witnessed an extreme amount of irregularities regarding mail-in ballots,” Gregory said, despite the fact that no widespread evidence has been found to back his claims. “The irregularities that existed from one county to another made this election incredibly confusing for voters and candidates.”
Gregory pointed to the many years of experience other states have had with mail-in voting and said that Act 77 was the first time in 80 years Pennsylvania had altered its election laws.
“Other states have been doing it for decades, and we were just asking for trouble by doing it, the year that we did,” Gregory said of the changes, which allowed for no-excuse absentee voting, permanent vote-by-mail registration and allocated funds to provide a paper trail of all ballots. “But, it's out of the tube. You can't put it back in. So what we need to do is take a look at how we can strengthen our position as a legislature when it comes to how we're going to handle mail-in balloting moving forward.”
Part of his motivation for introducing the bill, he said, is the political future of the Republican party. The year 2022 will bring an open gubernatorial mansion and Senate seat in Pennsylvania, an opportunity for both parties in what will likely be a crucial midterm election. By not falling in line with the president’s claims, some fear a political future for the party could be in peril.
The president has made that message clear as well, partly through his threats to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who played roles in certifying Joe Biden's win in their states. Trump said of Ducey in November, "Arizona will not forget what Doug Ducey just did," after the Republican governor certified results.
“If you're not playing chess in this game and playing checkers, you're going to get left behind,” Gregory said.
While data suggests that Republicans don’t necessarily lose when there’s greater voter turnout, that doesn’t mean that some in the GOP don’t think that, Common Cause's Albert said.
“... There is this preconceived notion that the more people that turn out, the more likely Democrats are to win,” she said. “We didn't see that happen this year, but there is still kind of that underlying preconceived notion that really informs the political machinery of the Republican Party trying to stop more people from being able to vote.”
In Texas -- a state which kept its red status in 2020 and where Republicans were able to keep hold of a number of battleground congressional districts considered some of the most competitive in the country -- a number of Republican state senators are leading the charge to ban sending absentee ballot applications to voters in the mail. They are proposing the ban despite the fact that Texas did not do so in 2020.
"We must do all we can to ensure election integrity and uniformity among all counties during the voting process,” said state Sen. Bettencourt, one of the co-sponsors of the bill. A press release from his office added that the bill is only one piece of multiple election-related packages he plans to introduce. "This bill SB 208 is about making sure all votes in Texas are counted legally,” he said, pointing to calls from Republicans during the election to only count "all legal ballots."
This year Gov. Greg Abbott extended the early voting period by a week due to the coronavirus, but voters were not able to access some of the expanded vote-by-mail provisions that other states implemented. Texas was one of the many states pre-pandemic where voters needed an excuse to vote absentee, and it did not adapt its law in 2020 to allow coronavirus to count as one of those excuses.
“It's hard to get worse in Texas, in terms of a bad law,” Albert said of Texas' stances on absentee voting and drop boxes. “But they are also looking at passing legislation to bar election officials from sending absentee voter applications unless specifically requested by the voter.”
Secretary of State Ruth Hughs said Texas' election was a "resounding success, and turnout among registered voters was the highest in 28 years as Texans exercised their right to vote."
But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is the subject of an FBI investigation into allegations he abused his office to benefit a wealthy donor, spearheaded a nationwide lawsuit that aimed to overturn the results of the election in a number of battleground states, and over 120 Congressional Republicans signed an amicus brief supporting the litigation, which was tossed out by the United States Supreme Court.
