There's nothing in the SAFE act that can be considered partisan, unless you assume that one of the parties is against allowing people to vote. The Republicans in the senate blocked it for two reasons:
- It is impossible to print legible ballots on recycled paper. (The recycled paper requirement in the bill could have been removed in reconciliation, even if this argument is nonsense.)
- Establishing federal standards for election machines and paper ballots would discourage states from establishing redundant standards. (Note that the opponents of the bill didn't make the stronger claim that it would prevent states from establishing stronger standards.)
The bill would provide funding for standardizing best practices around paper ballot counting. That would speed up the count and reduce election fraud.
The bill doesn't touch voter disenfranchisement, except that it includes a small amount of research funding to allow people with disabilities to vote on paper ballots without trusting a computer or divulging their vote to another person (this is currently an open problem).
It was repeatedly proposed by Democrats + fillibustered by Senate Republicans.
I don't see how any honest conversation about voting counting issues in the US can't point out that there are low-tech solutions to the exact issues you're complaining about, that the bill has been written, and that exactly one party has been blocking / fillibustering it for 3+ years (without publicly providing any legitimate complaints about the contents of the bill).
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2722
So, the Democrats are the racist right-wingers, and Mitch McConnell is the progressive in this story?
Note that, on their own, paper ballots don't actually address the attack described in the article, though the bill provides funding for mechanisms that would.