Conservative pundit acknowledges a painful reality about GOP voting bills

All over the United States, Republicans in state legislatures have been aggressively pushing voter suppression bills in the hope of regaining a majority in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022 and the White House in 2024 — and a Georgia bill is so mean-spirited that it would make it a crime to give food or water to someone waiting in line to vote. The Republicans pushing these bills, of course, won't openly admit that they are promoting voter suppression, insisting that the bills are meant to encourage "election integrity." But in an article published by The Bulwark this week, conservative pundit and CNN contributor Amanda Carpenter acknowledges something that many others on the right will not: GOP "election integrity" bills are designed to make it harder to vote.

"If you value more voter participation, then you want more Americans to have access to the voting options that worked so successfully in 2020," the 38-year-old Carpenter explains. "If you prefer lower voter participation, then you want those options either rescinded or restricted. This isn't rocket science. Also not rocket science: It's clear that one of our country's two political parties overtly prefers less voter participation and so, as a consequence, is now actively pursuing avenues designed to reduce — or suppress, or depress, or whatever perfectly non-judgmental verb you'd like to use — the number of votes cast in future elections."

Carpenter notes that in state legislatures around the U.S., Republicans "are currently advancing hundreds of bills" designed to "restrict voting rights in the name of restoring 'election integrity'." Former Vice President Mike Pence, Carpenter observes, is applauding such efforts, along with countless supporters of "2020 loser Donald Trump."

"The plain fact is that more Americans voted against Trump and Pence — both singularly in 2020 and cumulatively in combination with 2016 — than any other ticket in the long history of our nation," Carpenter writes. "That's the real problem Republicans have with the 2020 election."

Although Carpenter has a very conservative resumé — she formerly served as communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and was a speechwriter for former Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint — she has been a blistering critic of Trump, who she believes has been terrible for the GOP and terrible for the conservative movement. And Carpenter points out that Democrats, in contrast to Republicans, are trying to protect voting rights with House Resolution 1, a.k.a. the For the People Act.

"Democrats and Republicans do not have the same interests when it comes to the act of voting," Carpenter stresses. "One party wants to make it easier to vote. The other is on record trying to stop opposition votes from being counted at all. When those are the parameters of the voting rights debate, there's no room for compromise. There's nothing to discuss."