The latest came this month from a group of Ohio Republican lawmakers. Their bill would ban ballot drop boxes, rescind no-excuse absentee voting, slash early voting, bar election officials from sending out absentee ballot applications and narrow the forms of ID that people may present to vote, ruling out military IDs, bills and paychecks. “It would eliminate some of that fraud that potentially is happening in the system,” one Republican lawmaker told the Cincinnati Enquirer.Ohio has offered early and no-excuse absentee voting since 2005 without major incident. Other states run their elections almost entirely by mail without seeing substantial deviations from other states in their level of fraud, which is tiny.Aside from the usual fuming about fraud, they argue that early and absentee voting make it harder for campaigns to get out their messages, as though voting rules existed for candidates’ convenience. The real reason they want to crimp the early and absentee vote is not hard to discern: Even though Mr. Trump carried Ohio last year, Democratic voters appeared to cast most of the early votes.
The WaPo opinion piece noted that one FRP politician complained that Democrats want their ballots “served with breakfast in bed.” The FRP apparently wants voters to get their ballots from the top of Mt. Everest and they have to get them by hiking up there without a tour guide. To get rid of ballots served with breakfast in bed, the Ohio FRP is imposing a voting crackdown. This self-righteous voter discipline will “reduce the time people have to request absentee ballots; cut off early voting the day before Election Day; limit drop boxes to only one location per county, and permit their use in only the 10 days before Election Day.”
Note that thing about drop boxes being limited to just one location per county. Think about it. In counties with big populations, voters tend to be Democrats. In small population counties, voters tend to vote for the FRP. One location in a big pop. county will cut off far more votes than one location in a small pop. county. That would be especially true if the location in the big pop. counties is made as inconvenient and inaccessible as possible for the largest number of Democratic voters, while locating the one drop box in the low pop. counties in a place that is as convenient and accessible for the largest number of FRP voters. That one measure alone could be enough to throw an election to the FRP.
See how that works? Those mischievous little FRP devils! 😈 Take that you rotten voters.
But, this is the socialist fake news WaPo speaking, so it has the audacity to opine: “if Republicans cannot compete when more Americans have their say, they should change their candidates and their policies, not discourage people from casting ballots.”
What socialist gall and rot! The FRP is not going to field candidates that are acceptable to most voters. What were all those RINO hunts for? Not to be responsive to voter sentiment, that’s for sure. Fascism is not acceptable to most voters, and that’s that. The goal of suppressing votes by the FRP dates back at least to the 1980s. Rigging elections and suppressing voters are absolute necessities for the FRP to remain competitive today.
The bigger picture
But that is just Ohio. What about the rest of the country? How has the FRP effort to suppress votes and rig elections gone so far in other states? For context, the most recent surge in voter suppression and vote suppressing and election rigging started in 2013. That is when the FRP judges on the Supreme Court gutted voter protections under the 1965 Voting Rights Act in FRP states that had historically discriminated against voters they wanted to discriminate against. Shortly after that court decision, many FRP states passed laws that limited voting. That anti-democratic trend accelerated enormously after the 2020 election and the constant stream of FRP lies that the vote was fraudulent and invalid.
As of June 21, 2021, the Brennan Center reported that, among other things, 17 states had passed laws to restrict voting and/or rig elections.[1] Provisions are categorized as restrictive if they would make it harder for Americans to register, stay on the rolls, and/or vote, as compared to existing state law. The Brennan Center commented:
“At the same time, at least 880 bills with expansive provisions have been introduced in 49 states. Of these, at least 28 bills with expansive provisions have been signed into law in 14 states. At least 115 bills with expansive provisions are moving in 25 states: 45 have passed at least one chamber, and 70 have had some sort of committee action. .... At least 14 bills moving in 6 states would expand voter purge practices in ways that risk improper removals. At least eight bills would require the use of new and often unreliable data sources to eliminate voters from the rolls.
Three new state laws seek to punish local election officials for technical mistakes. Iowa’s SF 413 allows the state commissioner of elections to impose a fine on county election officials for technical infractions, including failure to purge voters. In Arkansas, SB 644 allows the State Board of Election Commissioners to decertify local election officials or even take over the administration of local elections based on any violation (even if inadvertent) of voter registration or election laws they deem severe enough.
After governors, secretaries of state, and local officials took action in 2020 so that voters could safely cast their ballots during the pandemic, state legislators are advancing bills that limit executive and local power.
This session, five bills have been enacted that restrict or prohibit the use of outside funding for election administration expenses. In 2020, nonpartisan philanthropic grants were essential to election officials’ ability to conduct safe elections during the pandemic. Laws in Arizona, Florida, and Georgia prohibit election administrators from accepting private funding for election expenses, while the Kansas law creates a felony offense for election officials to accept or spend money on elections from private sources.”
In recent weeks Texas also acted to rig elections and suppress votes. Now Ohio can be added to the list. If my arithmetic is right, these suppressed and/or rigged states, TX, GA, OH, MT, WY, UT, AZ, IA, KS, OK, AK, ID, KY, FL and AL control 176 Electoral College votes, 32 Senate seats and 144 Representatives.[2] At least 270 electoral college votes is required to elect the president and vice president. Given that, it is possible that FRP efforts have effectively subverted free and fair elections, but we just cannot know it yet. To assess the final impact of all the new laws, it will be necessary to see the outcomes of the 2022 and 2024 elections. In the case of restrictive laws the FRP supports, the goal has usually or always been to make it harder for Democrats to win according to experts who have looked at the laws and the rationales, if any, for passing them.
Questions: Do restrictive FRP laws constitute a lethal, serious, moderate, low or no threat to free and fair elections? Can one define a free and fair election as one that rigs it so that the FRP candidate almost always beats the Democrat?
Footnotes:
1. In some of the states that passed restrictive laws or election rigging laws, some laws were also passed that could expand voting, e.g., easier vote by mail laws. What could be given to voters with one law, could more than be taken away by another law(s) that suppresses votes or rigs elections. Election results from 2022 and 2024 will be necessary to assess the situation.
2, Some other states, e.g., ND, SD, NE, TN, NC, SC, MO, AK, and LA (71 Electoral College votes), rarely voted for Democrats in recent times in most congressional and presidential elections. That seems unlikely to change by 2024 if not a lot longer than that.
Christian nationalist Paul Weyrich attacking
goo-goo, voting and majority rule
https://youtu.be/8GBAsFwPglw
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