Voter suppression – Page 3

Voter intimidation and suppression are illegal, as is election tampering. Yet our current president continues to openly support and encourage all three, evidently in fear that those are the only ways to ensure that he wins re-election. In few areas are Trump’s authoritarian ambitions more apparent than in his efforts at voter suppression and intimidation, as well as election tampering; and even if some guns, harassment, or violence happen to be in the mix, so be it.

Donald Trump has insisted that the only way he will lose the 2020 presidential election is if the Democrats cheat. Having already nursed his supporters’ distrust of anyone but himself and those associated with him, Trump has also persuaded his base to believe his narrative about election results. Trump’s desperate crafting of such an outcome expectation has set the stage for his supporters to refuse to accept any election outcome other than Trump’s re-election. This, in itself, is election tampering by Donald Trump. Cheating, even.

When it became clear that the coronavirus pandemic would stretch beyond the summer and into the time of the presidential election, it also became apparent that polling venues would be risky places to be on Election Day. Consequently, many states decided to make it easier for their residents to vote by mail in order to protect them from contracting the virus while voting, as well as make voting generally more accessible for every voter.

Donald Trump has used the situation as another opportunity to meddle with the election by insisting that voting by mail leads to widespread voter fraud. Though it’s true that more Democrats than Republicans vote by mail, both Republican-led and Democrat-led states have successfully carried out past elections that were largely by mail-in ballot, with negligible voter fraud. Trump, however, continues to try to promote mistrust in voting by mail, and his administration has initiated several lawsuits to try to stop voting by mail. If more voters vote (and more mail-in voting ensures that more voters will vote), it is a threat to a Trump victory.

Over the summer, as if to reinforce his scheme to prevent successful mail-in voting, Trump appointed top campaign donor Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service. DeJoy soon issued “cost-savings measures” that included reductions in service; decommissioning of hundreds of mail sorting machines; removal of numerous blue mailboxes across the country; and abolishing the overtime needed to ensure that all of the day’s mail is processed and delivered in a timely manner. DeJoy’s actions brought into question whether he would, intentionally or unintentionally, prevent mail-in ballots from arriving in time to be counted in the election.

Following challenges by Congress and by consumers, DeJoy pulled back on his plan to continue decommissioning postal machines and removing mailboxes. By that time, however, many machines had already been taken out of service, and many mailboxes had already been removed. Further, many Americans’ faith in the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots on time had been eroded.

For those who will not be casting their votes by mail, the polling places have begun to open for early voting. As evidenced by the hours-long lines of voters waiting to cast their votes, Donald Trump’s efforts have not squelched voter enthusiasm, nor have they prevented votes from being cast in any fashion.

As Donald Trump has seen that nothing will deter voters from voting in the 2020 election, he has now called for an army of his supporters to deem themselves “poll watchers,” and go to voting places to “watch very carefully” as voters exercise their right to vote.

“I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because that’s what has to happen,” Said Trump at his first presidential debate against former Vice President Joe Biden. “I am urging them to do it.”

Sean Morales-Doyle, deputy director of the Brennan Center’s voting rights and elections program, has said that many states have laws that dictate who is allowed to be in a polling place at a given time, including who is permitted to be a poll watcher, and what a poll watcher is allowed to do.

“There are laws like this in many states,” says Morales-Doyle. “Regular citizens can’t just take it upon themselves to engage in this kind of poll watching, and for good reason, because it opens up the possibility of voter intimidation, of vigilantism, which the president is seemingly encouraging. But it is illegal.”

Many Democratic leaders and election officials, including Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, also fear voter intimidation, and particularly, suppression of Black voters and other voters of color. Ford tweeted that Trump wasn’t referring to standard poll watching, but instead was calling for “voter intimidation.”

“Voter intimidation is illegal in Nevada. Believe me when I say it: You do it, and you will be prosecuted,” said Ford.

“The President is openly urging his supporters to congregate at polling places, go inside, and ostensibly harass and intimidate voters,” said Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. “While there are authorized ‘poll watchers’ who monitor polls on Election Day, their duties are clearly laid out, and they do not include what President Trump has suggested.”

During early voting at one location in Fairfax, Virginia, a group of about 50 Trump supporters gathered, waving Trump 2020 banners, wrapping themselves in American flags, and shouting, “Four more years! Four more years!” Though the group hadn’t violated any election laws, some voters felt threatened, and requested escorts into the building.

In Michigan, fearing that unauthorized “poll watching” by Trump’s supporters could turn violent, the state has banned open carry of guns at polling places on Election Day, as well as at places where absentee ballots are counted.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said that the Michigan directive prohibits the open carry of firearms “in a polling place, in any hallway used by voters to enter or exit, or within 100 feet of any entrance to a building in which a polling place is located.”

Donald Trump would like to abolish “liberty and justice for all” by using his supporters, the very people who claim to wield their guns in support of “liberty and justice” (at least for some), to help him accomplish his goal. He has shown that he would do anything to prevent an election result that is not in his favor, including stopping the mail, and even postponing the election (which can’t be done without an act of Congress).

Trump may fantasize about winning re-election, no matter what, and he may fantasize even more about being an authoritarian leader, but Americans in large numbers have shown how dogged they are when it comes to the standing up against the attempts by the president and his enablers to prevent them from casting their votes in this election.

After all votes are counted, may the total be against the one who wanted to suppress and intimidate voters, and may it be in favor of the candidate who will work for “liberty and justice,” not just for some, but for all.

Trump’s “poll watcher” comments raise concerns about voter intimidation |
CBS News [2020-10-06]

Trump Supporters Disrupt Early Voting in Virginia | Now This News
[2020-09-22]

Before this presidency, it didn’t occur to most Americans that their president would more likely than not try to openly and shamelessly steal a presidential election. It probably would never have crossed our minds before now that a sitting president might refuse to leave office if not re-elected. Sure, we’ve had contested elections in the past; and when we suspected that an office or seat was given unfairly or dishonestly, we were shocked and angered.

In America in 2020, however, many Americans, though angered, are no longer shocked. We have come to expect that Donald Trump and his allies will do what they can to remove fairness from any election in the U.S.

The current GOP, who has historically prided itself on the idea of more, not less, personal freedom, and less, not more, government regulation, has in fact waged a war on democracy and personal freedoms for years.

They’ve done their best to prevent safe and legal abortions, even though the freedom to have an abortion has been protected by law since 1973. They’ve turned themselves inside out in their efforts to prevent same-sex marriage, as well as various other basic human rights for the LGBTQ community. They’ve tried to force a particularly strict, intolerant, exclusionist brand of Christianity—Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity—onto Americans as the religion that would govern the decisions made by legislators and courts. And not only can’t a lot of them bring themselves to take a stand against systemic racism, many of them, through their action (or inaction) support it.

They’ve tried to undermine free and fair access to voting, citing “widespread voter fraud,” even though evidence shows that voter fraud is rare. They’ve practiced gerrymandering to benefit their own party. And, riding on their president’s bandwagon, they’re trying to prevent as many Americans as possible from voting by mail, despite the threat of COVID-19 for people who would vote in person.

Now, we have only to look at Georgia’s primary election this week to conclude that the latest tool in the GOP Democracy-squelching box of tools is the use of more widespread, blatant, and unapologetic voter suppression tactics. In a situation one usually associates with authoritarian banana republics, thousands of Georgia voters found it impossible or nearly so to cast their votes on Tuesday.

Many voters who had requested mail-in ballots, including African American Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, never received them. Others received their mail-in ballots, but were unable to use them.

Former Democratic candidate for governor, Stacey Abrams, who lost the election to Republican Kemp by a narrow margin, said that her ballot had arrived with the return label sealed, and thus unusable.

“I tried to steam it open because I watched a lot of ‘Perry Mason.’ It didn’t work, so I had to go vote in person,” Abrams said.

In some areas, new voting machines were not delivered in time for the election, and as a result, some voters showed up to precincts where they couldn’t vote, or had to wait for the slow process of manual vote processing. Some precincts didn’t have enough paper ballots to accommodate voters.

Many election officials were not trained in using the voting machines at the precincts where they were delivered. Electronic voting equipment often produced errors, again requiring votes to be slowly processed by hand.

Even voters who had shown up at 7 a.m. and were at the beginning of the line often had to wait for hours to vote because their precincts didn’t open on time.

One woman, who had gotten in line early in order to vote before having a scheduled surgery later that day, waited for hours, only to discover that her precinct was one of those that didn’t have any machines. She finally had to get out of line, and didn’t get to vote.

“This is a way of discouraging people from voting,” said the woman’s husband, who is African American. “It’s unacceptable. If we’re going through this now, just think what November is going to be like.”

Another voter, Bobby Fuse, a Democratic activist, said, “It’s the same game that we were fighting 50 years ago. There’s always some sneaky trick that’s played. This time, they had a whole bunch of sneaky tricks.”

Though both Republicans and Democrats hurled blame at each other for what happened in Georgia on Tuesday, Georgia has long been troubled by allegations of voter disenfranchisement and voter suppression by Republicans, particularly in communities that are predominantly African-American. For generations, civil rights groups and African American leaders have fought policies implemented by Republican officials, most recently led by Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, when he was Georgia’s secretary of state.

Is it just coincidence that those who most felt the impact from the voting chaos on Tuesday were again African American voters and their communities?

Cliff Albright, the co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, said that what happened on Georgia’s Election Day indicates that authorities either “don’t care about our vote or they care about our vote and they know the power of our vote and they are intentionally trying to suppress it. But,” he said, “People waited it out. That means they are passionate about voting.”

Many American communities have known for generations what more and more “mainstream” white Americans are discovering: We can never take for granted that being American will always guarantee that we’ll be able to freely vote, or that a corrupt president will be justly dealt with. But we must not stop standing in line, and we must not stop showing up.

Georgia election problems reported as long lines and computer problems arise | 11 Alive [2020-06-09]

Georgia voters experience major voting issues during primary election | CBS News [2020-06-10]

Category: Voter suppression

Editorial: Voter Intimidation and Suppression are Illegal, and Our President Openly Encourages Both

Editorial: Georgia’s Election Debacle Shows Latest Voter Suppression Tricks