… Democrats are offering something different than what they say: not an expansion of voting rights but a relaxation of voting regulations. The For the People Act would codify the looser rules many states adopted in order to conduct the 2020 elections in the midst of a pandemic. That election had the largest turnout rate (66.3 percent) since 1900, and strengthened Democrats. But the looser rules were not so much triumphs of reason as concessions to Covid-19. The conditions that made the new rules seem normal or common-sensical no longer obtain. We might want those rules. But we don’t need them. CONTINUED
Christopher Caldwell, New York Times