The Washington Post reported Thursday, based on data compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice, that:
“In 43 states across the country, Republican lawmakers have proposed at least 250 laws that would limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting with such constraints as stricter ID requirements, limited hours or narrower eligibility to vote absentee.”
That actually undercounts the deluge of bills that seek to make it harder for Americans to vote, since the Brennan Center’s report was compiled Feb. 19.
More proposals have been introduced since then, the Post says.
The 2020 election, as you probably know, set records for voter participation, which benefited from various measures making it easier to vote early or by mail or in other ways designed to reduce the danger of COVID exposure on Election Day.
While the Republican sponsors and supporters generally claim to be concerned that they need to crack down on voting methods other than in-person on Election Day in order to reduce fraud and other problems, all but the most partisan observers recognize the flood of such bills for what they are: an effort to make it harder to vote in hopes of improving Republican chances in future elections by reducing turnout.
In addition to despicable, there’s something bordering on pitiful about a party having to adopt such a strategy.
The number and sweep of such anti- (small d) democratic and anti- (big D) Democratic measures is staggering. Many of the bills will fail, but in Republican-controlled states many of them will pass. It remains to be seen the extent of their impact.
Not only Democratic but neutral and expert observers agree that voter fraud is a small problem in the big picture and that very little fraud occurred in the 2020 vote. Despite the complaints of Donald Trump and his acolytes and enablers, the intent of the bills is obvious.
The Trump campaign filed more than 50 lawsuits and other challenges to the vote in dozens of court and other venues seeking to overthrow the comfortable victory of Joe Biden in the election. Almost all were dismissed quickly and easily by the courts, and none came close to the result desired by Trumpians, to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in both the popular and electoral votes.
Those court battles are over. But Trump insisted long past Election Day and even since Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day that the election was stolen by Democratic cheating. If polls can be believed, while most Americans reject the claims, a sizable majority of Republicans claim to believe the Trumpian lies.
But while those retrospective claims are basically dead, the spirit behind them – a spirit that objective observers basically understand to be a desire to rig the next election – poll well among Republicans, although among neither Democrats nor independents.
I assume this effort to rig future elections in favor of Republicans by making it harder to vote will fail in states where Republicans do not control both houses of the legislature and the governors’ offices. But there are quite a few Republican-controlled states where they will very likely become law.
How pitiful is this?
The Washington Post overview of the multistate Republican-led campaign to make it harder to vote is viewable here.
The “Revolution” is over, and conservatism, as an ideology, is as dead as Reagan, Limbaugh, and Buckley. Cheating is literally all they have left (as it’s the core tenet of their ideology, it comes naturally, but still).
It is time for the democrats to use their national mandate to scotch these voter suppression bills proliferating at the state level.
The problem is that a national mandate does not translate into state house control — the state legislatures are the ones who set the voting requirements.
Check the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments. Congress has significant power to oversee elections at both the state and federal levels. A Supreme Court that understood its role and that exercised that role consistently would defer to Congressional judgment.
But in fact the Constitution is what the Supreme Court rules that it is.
It’s main function currently is overruling State actions that violate civil rights, and the Trump court seems disinclined to do even this.
And Congress is too intimidated by the filibustero to override any state action that might affect the electability of one of its members.
Their actions are blatant, desperate, planned and extremely dangerous. They are banking on average Americans either being too ignorant or just flat-out out too exhausted by a pandemic, w it’s far reaching effects, to fight them now…or to put in greater effort to vote in future elections. The REPs live to WIN at any cost. Rig the game in every way imaginable: check. Lie thru their teeth constantly: check. Get and stay in lockstep w a psychopathic, narcissistic, destructive fool: check. Stay attached at the hip to him even after he incites violence and sedition and insurrection: check. The REPs have sold their souls and lost their way and their consciences. They truly could not sink down into the muck much further:( Yet they do not even blink an eye as they continue to torch the country. My prayer is that the Biden Admin uses every resource/idea possible to get their full agenda into place quickly and all Americans have sufficient time to experience and appreciate it fully before the next election. Because abuse victims can and do recognize kindness and normality when exposed to it, and understand it can be life changing.
It’s the falling away of the final mask of respectability as a “democratic” party. Repubs backed themselves into the corner of becoming almost exclusively a white peoples party, and vote suppression became the only viable tactic left to them. Attempts to shame them by pointing out the “pitiful” nature of their tactics falls on utterly deaf ears; they are long since immune to shame. Jim Crow does not embarrass them. Power trumps morality, and if the vote suppression campaign results in more Repub victories, then it wasn’t “pitiful”.
The main difference in 2021 is that, as a result of the radicalization of so many whites by Trumpolini, Repubs can now approach their anti-democratic tactics much more openly and candidly, since they know that their Trumpite base and other right-leaning whites are completely comfortable with (indeed, enthusiastic towards) suppressing votes by non-white citizens. This all revolves around who is a “True American” and who is not. So there is no common commitment to democracy any longer. Repub claims of “voter fraud” are practically made with a wink and a nod…everyone knows it is nothing but a bad faith pretense at this point.
House Dems have already passed a bill (HR 1) which would make election practices much more uniform across the states, obviously without a single Repub supporter. That bill would basically end these state-based suppression tactics. It now goes to the senate graveyard to be doomed by McConnell’s universal filibuster. McConnell’s Repubs are daring the Dems to abolish the filibuster; but even if that happened, one has to predict that the democratically-illegitimate Trump “conservative” majority on the Supreme Court would declare the reforms unconstitutional under some made-up theory of “states rights” extremism or other.
It is possible that the 2020 election may be seen as the last “free and fair” one in American history. That is certainly the goal of today’s Repub party…
Well Eric, I don’t think most of the “R” folks actually believe in America and or the constitution.
Au contraire. “Conservatives” fervently believe in the constitutional right to gerrymander districts, the anti-democratic electoral college and the right to rural minority rule permitted by the constitution. Remember, all these Red State vote suppression measures are getting Repubs is a president who loses the popular vote by around 7 million votes, yet “wins” the EC. So they believe in democratically illegitimate leaders, who have no actual mandate from the people.
Now, as for “believing in America”, I agree. They surely do not believe in what the country has become, circa 2021….
My apologies, I stand corrected!
True, at least in regards to the 2020 election. When pressed on evidence of actual fraud, the best “conservatives” can come up with are some past absentee ballot] scams run by a few REPUB operatives.
As always, it’s 90% projection with these guys….
There are a few contradictory elements at work here. First, there is the assumption that the only way a Republican candidate, especially Trump, could lose is if there were cheating. By this line of thinking, Trump was supposed to win even though he is a singularly loathsome individual whose popularity as President never got much above 40%, and whose management of the government (especially of the pandemic response) looked like a case study from the Moe Howard School of Public Policy. Despite all that, Trump was sure to win, if the election had been fair.
The second element is that the Republicans must realize that their agenda is truly unpopular. This is why the focus on wedge cultural issues. Rather than trying to justify tax cuts targeted towards the wealthy, they will tell us about making Mr. Potato Head gender neutral is the first step towards confiscating everyone’s gun. It’s easier to get the based worked up over issues like that than to get them to sign on to a failed economic agenda.
It’s sad, because a democracy should have multiple political parties trying to advance ideas and debate. When one of the only two major parties has to resort to fraud and fear to stay viable, that is not a good thing.
For the most part, this “election security” legislation is a fine example of “…If facts and logic won’t support your argument, distract your opponent, and if that doesn’t work, call him/her names.” We’re all still waiting for Republicans at any level of government – county, state or national – to produce even a single instance of voter fraud that was both purposeful and substantial enough to have affected the outcome of the election in question. The Republican “concern” over voter behavior is simply a “concern” that they might never win another election beyond the county commissioner level because their ideology is false and misleading, to phrase it charitably. Every single reliable source has concluded that the 2020 election was the most fair and well-documented election we’ve ever had, and included more voters than ever before. It’s that last point that has Republicans breaking out in a cold sweat.
The Republican Party is demonstrably (i.e. How many in Congress voted to overturn an election that was, according to courts all over the country, perfectly legitimate?) beyond pitiful and desperate. It’s treasonous. The legislative proposals fly in the face of the governing philosophy that produced the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – both of which are based on the notion of citizens governing themselves through the ballot.
Democratic party tries to game the system to their advantage too. Just in a different way. They want to give citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants knowing they will overwhelming vote democratic. Or give statehood to DC or Puerto Rico. Same objective just different means cloaked in righteousness.
About the Senate and the Electoral College not being democratic. Lots of thinkers don’t necessarily believe democracy is the best form of government. Plato: “Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule.”
Yes indeed. Naked and brazen attempts to suppress turnout of certain demographics is exactly the same as efforts to grant millions of American citizens equal representation in Congress!
You know, another approach might be for Repubs to try to win the votes of various demographics that have been voting against them and their failed policies. But that approach is of course out of the question for a party that is committed to doing nothing but represent monied special interests, while inflaming white voters via “culture war” claptrap.
Illegal immigrants are not American citizens.
I was referring to your (apparent) opposition to statehood for US citizens residing in DC and Puerto Rico.
As for illegal immigrants who have resided in the country for years, why is forcible deportation the only possible solution? Why take “law and order” to its most extreme limits?
The citizens of the Federal District clearly desire citizenship.
Puerto Ricans, on the other hand, remain fairly evenly divided.
Regarding your Plato reference– Have you read Plato’s 3 metals?
“…each citizen has a certain sort of metal mixed in with his soul. In the souls of those most fit to rule there is gold, in those suited to be auxiliaries there is silver, and in those suited to be producers there is either bronze or iron.”
Your Plato quote “Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule.” surely is in contradiction to his “3 metals” myth, which can only be interpreted as a caste system like we have wherever one class runs the society to their benefit because they are “gold”.
Elitism is not democratic, it is structural discrimination.
That kind of reminds me of the Australian (so-called) system of enfranchisement.
Start with one vote per adult citizen. Then add a vote for stature in the creative arts,
such as architects, clergymen, engineers, artists, poets, authors. [By no means add votes for
those in government or beholden to them in someway, such as highway contractors,
medical, police, teachers, defense workers, but perhaps after they’ve retired.] Nobel Prize winners. One extra vote for every $10o,000 in taxes paid. Perhaps extend to useful trades such as carpenters, plumbers, farmers, fishermen, etc.
But the idea never much caught on. I think you can see where it could get too controversial, or too cumbersome. Might work where you have a King or Queen doing the awarding.
At least you are up front about not believing in democracy. Although I am quite sure that giving voters in places like Wyoming and Idaho a disproportionate amount of electoral power was not what Plato had in mind. But your comment does flesh out the stark differences between the parties – one thinks people who are part of this country should vote, and the other doesn’t. More voters vs fewer.
There doesn’t need to be any “cloak” of righteousness to ask that residents of Washington DC actually have representation. Taxation without representation (which you can get printed on your DC license plates) is a concept that led to the founding of this country in the first place. Its only the denial of votes to DC residents that involves cynical politics.
If you are going with that, then representation without taxation kind of points toward
disenfranchisement.. Maybe if a state can’t support its own weight, it should revert to
territorial status.
How about making representation in the Senate proportional to a state’s contribution to the treasury? A minimum of one Senator apiece, and then add more in proportion to the tax paid. This would not be the same as the House of Representatives: Texas and Florida have more people than New York, but contribute less in federal revenue.
“They want to give citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants knowing they will overwhelming vote democratic.”
That’s not true. There should be a path to citizenship, not automatic citizenship. If these recent citizens would “overwhelming vote democratic” that speaks more to why the Republicans can’t attract voters who might tend more conservative on many issues.
“Or give statehood to DC or Puerto Rico.”
The people of Puerto Rico have voted in favor of becoming a US state, rather than continuing their amorphous status as US citizens living in a “Commonwealth of Free Association.” DC statehood has long been denied for the flimsiest of reasons (I recall a friend arguing that it would be the only state without farms), but in the end, it comes down to race.
“Lots of thinkers don’t necessarily believe democracy is the best form of government.”
Stalin, Pol Pot, and Kim Jong-un among them.
“Plato: ‘Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule.’”
I don’t know that Plato ever said those exact words, quotation marks notwithstanding (he would have had that opinion voiced by Socrates or one of his interlocutors, if he had). In any event, Athenian democracy excluded women, the foreign-born, and those without property. It also allowed for the keeping of slaves. Plato also envisioned an ideal republic governed only by the most educated and trained elite. Would you have qualified?
I’d like to remind you that 97.6% of us are here because of immigration. The only difference between “legal” and “illegal” immigration is time and/or ethnic or racial features (check out, e.g., the Naturalization Act of 1790 and the Chinese Exclusion Act) in most cases. Oh, and by the way, that 2.4% (Native Americans, in case you haven’t guessed) didn’t have the national right to vote until 1924 despite being the original occupants of this land. With just these 3 facts in mind, it seems pretty nonsensical to start a conversation about how it’s not fair that there are some people not born here that might get the right to vote.
The only difference between “legal” and “illegal” immigration is time …
and the laws that were in effect at the time. Do you support the “rule of law” or not. If not, we have anarchy.
Rule of law? I wonder whether you’re being serious. I support laws that serve justice and prosperity for all. I don’t support the “rule of law” when it is arbitrary and capricious, let alone cruel and malignant. Take a look at my examples, then tell me whether supporting the “rule of law” is always ethical and moral. It remains silly that your right to vote rests solely on the fact that your ancestors arrived at the right time with the right complexion and you’re here arguing about who gets to vote for any reason whatsoever. You did not earn that right. It was granted to you. And it is a right granted with to others with little justice in mind. I can think of a certain former First Lady who violated a number of US immigration laws, and yet I suspect you don’t think that the rule of law should apply.
Strawmen aside, it remains that only citizens are allowed to vote. And, by definition, citizens are here legally.
Of course, Native Americans were the first immigrants (about 17,000 years ago). No one is indigenous to the the American continents.
True, but for all intents and purpose, they are indigenous. Or, if you prefer, aboriginal. With the exception of Africa (and maybe a little genetic contribution from some Eurasian hominid species), Homo sapiens sapiens are an invasive species on every other landmass in the world. It becomes purely academic after a few millennia, though.
Follow the example of Stacy Abrams in GA. Pour money into voter registration and get out the vote efforts. Rile D voters up with the blatant attempts to disenfranchise them.
The number of R Senators retiring makes 2022 a great time to pick up 2~3 D seats and make Manchin and Sinema irrelevant.
If the D’s can build on delivering what people want and the R’s keeping fighting for Mr Potato Head’s genitals and live in a fairy tale world where they believe they automatically pick up controlling seats the filibuster will be gone or seriously changed, opening the way for HR1
Love the correlation of your 3rd paragraph descriptors…
I am glad so many voters learned civic responsibility so quickly.
Hopefully other responsibilities can be learned quickly as well.
I’m not sure what exactly you mean by this rather cryptic comment, Ron, but I hope you are aware that there was a significant increase in turnout for both Dem and Repub voters in 2020. Don’t forget that Trump lost the House in 2018.
As for “quickly learning other civic responsibilities”, I hope that these new (and old) Repub voters can learn to accept the certified results of elections in future, unlike their appalling behavior in 2020…
Like the responsibility not to spread lies?
Um … does “learned civic responsibility” mean that they also will feel it’s okay to storm and trash our nation’s Capitol; battle policemen, causing one to die; go hunting for the Vice-President and the Speaker of the House. All because they want to believe a serial liar’s baseless claim that an election was stolen from him. But hang on to the illusion that somehow Republicans are better citizens than all those poor, colored people.
For sure. Lets hope that Republicans can start telling the truth. And can carry their own weight instead of being subsidized by hard-working Democrats.
In 2017, one of my brothers and I drove down to Missouri, where my nephew was attending college, to see the solar eclipse.
It was striking to see all the pro-Trump signs in the fields and in people’s yards as we drove through rural and small town Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri.
In such an environment, it must have been easy to believe that Trump was overwhelmingly popular and that the Democrats could win only by cheating. It didn’t help that Trump started complaining about “cheating” and “stolen elections” in the summer of 2020. (Perhaps the Republicans’ internal polling showed that Trump was in trouble and that they needed a face-saving maneuver.)
But really, both parties need to do some thorough soul-searching. The Republicans have NOTHING to offer on the economic front except more tax cuts, which have proved to enrich no one but top corporate executives and major shareholders, and they are relying on the curmudgeon voters, the people whose rallying cry is, “That isn’t the way I was brought up!” An awful lot of city people are former rural residents who are in the city precisely to escape the way they were brought up.
Meanwhile, the Democrats have veered too far from the New Deal-style programs that built them up in the 1940s through the 1960s and have quietly adopted ideas that were formerly the purview of the Republicans, such as privatized services, supporting “free” trade that allows movement of money but not of people (unlike the European Union), and a “whip ’em into shape” attitude toward poor people. They used to be able to win rural areas, but today, it seems almost unbelievable that George McGovern was from South Dakota.
Both parties are too indebted to major contributors and have bought into the “strong defense” mythology, which holds that if the U.S. isn’t the biggest bruiser on the globe the world will descend into chaos.
I’m seeing hopeful signs from the current Democratic administration, but we still have a long way to go to achieve the standard of living that my Norwegian relatives (and people in the Scandinavian countries that DON’T have oil ) enjoy.
Well our National Intelligence folks say the GOP is working right out of Putin’s playbook, now, is anyone surprised that the GOP and Putin are on the same team trying to undercut America’s democracy?
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/17/politics/trump-russia-elections/index.html
“A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 75% of Likely U.S. Voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote. Only 21% are opposed to such a requirement.”
Pitiful indeed.
Even more pitiful is apparent belief in the alternate reality presented to one by a Repub polling outfit like Rasmussen.
It does nothing but provide “data” for whatever happens to be the latest “conservative”/Repub operation, which for the next two years is vote suppression.
Everyone everywhere must show some form of identification to register to vote. A small number use something other than a photo ID. That group tends to vote for Dems, so they must be burdened to obtain something they don’t have, for no reason….