Absurdity
GOP Declares Early Voting Unfair Because It Gives People Time to Think
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Republican National Committee filed a formal legal brief Tuesday arguing that extended early voting periods are fundamentally incompatible with democratic integrity, on the grounds that they give voters an unreasonable amount of time to form, reconsider and revise their political opinions before casting a ballot.
The brief, submitted to a federal district court in a case that election law experts are describing as "a document that exists," contends that the standard American voter requires no more than eleven to fourteen minutes to arrive at a sound electoral decision, and that anything beyond that window constitutes an undue advantage for candidates whose positions improve upon reflection.
"We are not anti-voting," said Randall Cuppett, the RNC's newly appointed Director of Electoral Fairness and Confidence, at a press conference held in a hotel ballroom with all the chairs facing the wrong way. "We are pro-voting in the same way that restaurants are pro-eating. You come in, you sit down, you pick something off the menu, you do not spend forty-five minutes Googling the chef."
The brief singles out several states where early voting windows of two to three weeks have produced what the RNC characterizes as "deliberative irregularities," defined in footnote seven as instances where a voter, having initially decided to support one candidate, encountered additional information and made a different choice. The document describes this as "the exact problem the system was designed to prevent."
Legal scholars were divided. Several said the brief raised genuinely novel constitutional questions. A larger group said the brief raised a genuinely different kind of question.
"What they're arguing," said Professor Dana Felch of Georgetown Law, speaking from what appeared to be a very tired face, "is that the constitutional right to vote is best exercised impulsively. That the franchise is strongest when it most resembles buying something at an airport."
The RNC's proposed remedy is a system it calls Verified Immediate Ballot Submission, or VIBS, under which all voters would cast ballots during a single four-hour window, with polling places equipped with what the brief describes as "decision-support infrastructure," including ambient lighting designed to reduce overthinking, staff trained to say "you know what you want" in a neutral and legally defensible tone, and a fifteen-second countdown timer that activates once a voter enters the booth and has, in the RNC's words, "clearly been standing there long enough."
The brief does acknowledge one potential objection: that shortening the decision window might disproportionately affect voters who work long hours, have unreliable transportation, face language barriers or require additional time due to disability. The RNC addresses this concern in paragraph forty-one, which reads: "These voters are encouraged to plan ahead."
Cuppett, asked at the press conference whether the proposal might be perceived as an attempt to suppress turnout among populations that historically vote Democratic, said the characterization was unfair and that the RNC was "committed to every American's right to vote, as long as they do it promptly and without a lot of additional research."
He then read a prepared statement for nine minutes without taking a question.
Several Republican state legislators have already expressed enthusiasm for the VIBS framework, with at least one state senate committee scheduling hearings for next spring. An aide for the committee chair confirmed the hearings would be brief.
The Biden administration declined to comment. The Trump campaign issued a statement calling the brief "very smart" and "frankly long overdue," and noting that the former president himself has always voted quickly and with tremendous confidence.
The case is expected to reach the Eleventh Circuit by fall, where a three-judge panel will have, by federal court scheduling standards, approximately eighteen months to think it over.
The RNC has formally requested an expedited ruling.
This is satire. The events and quotes are invented and none of it is real news.