THE BIG JUICY LIE
Trump’s stolen election lie has convinced many that fraud is a problem in American elections. Three out of every 4 Republicans believe that there was widespread voter fraud in last year’s election, according to a December Quinnipiac University poll, despite all evidence to the contrary. State Republicans in Texas, Georgia and Florida are now proposing voting restrictions that they say are needed to restore trust in the system. According to the Brennan Center, there are at least 253 restrictive bills under consideration in 43 states this year.
From Coast to Coast, President Trump and some members of the Republican party’s believed the accounts of voter fraud emanated from the urban areas with large minority populations.
Republican and Democratic poll watchers could not find any significant evidence of tampering during the 2020 Presidential Election that would change the face of the election. The Justice Department found there was no widespread electoral fraud in 2020.
The GOP insists, with the new laws they are attempting to enact are based on election security. Based on what exactly?
When asked why the changes were necessary? Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “I don’t think we have identified a problem we are trying to solve, I think this is an opportunity ‘to update and modernize’ voting in Georgia.”
PHASE ONE :DISMANTLE MAIL IN VOTING
Republicans are attempting to dismantle mail in voting in nearly every state. The goal is to make if difficult to qualify for an absentee ballot. Pending bills may penalize a voter for returning a ballot too early. Others wont recognize ballots postmarked before election day and disqualify ballots arriving after election day, even though they were processed on time. If one state has its way, it will be a crime for any public official to give a citizen a absentee ballot. Nearly all the states propose more stringent ID requirement, with one state proposing voters will need a notary to qualify for absentee ballot.
If Texas has its way. Voters with disabilities will be required to prove they can’t make it to the polls before they can get a mail-in ballot.
PHASE TWO: PURGE
Unlike rural areas, cities have many moving pieces. Its not uncommon for voters in urban areas to change addresses. In some states, once a voter can prove he lives at an new address (often with a utility bill) with drivers license. Other states mail verification notices, requiring voters to return those cards to vote. Some states may purge a voter from the rolls if they who haven’t cast a ballot in “both the primary election and the general election for two consecutive primary and general elections. Independent voters would need to request a party primary ballot to participate,. Other states are considering removing voters ,after missing just two mailed ballots for general elections.
PHASE THREE: DISCOURAGE VOTING
In the last Presidential election, many red states not only reduced the number of voting locations in the big cities. They also reduced staffing, resulting in long lines nationally. Georgia Republicans just made it a crime, to give a voter in line food or water.
An analysis of data collected by Georgia Public Broadcasting and ProPublica, found a significant disparity in who had to wait the longest: The average wait time after the 7 p.m. scheduled poll-closing time was 51 minutes in polling places that were 90% or more non-White. But it was just six minutes in polling places where 90% of the voters were White.
Georgia the perennial red state, voted for Joe Biden. Followed by a two Democrats taking the US Senate in the runoff election. 30% of the states population is black. The fastest growing demographic is Asian. Georgia and number of states are legalizing voter intimidation. In Georgia, any Georgian can challenge the voting eligibility of an unlimited number of voters. Georgia’s law adds a new provision that allows the State Elections Board to sanction counties that refuse to comply with the provision allowing unlimited challenges.
Our government has a long history of excluding Native Americans from voting, with the U.S. government depriving them of citizenship until 1924. Some states, including the Dakotas, had laws preventing tribal members from voting into the 1950s.
Voters living on the reservation don’t always have addresses with a street names and numbers. Some states have required ID’s with street address for Native Americans. With few polling places on reservations it isn’t uncommon for residents to drive up to 75 miles to vote.
In Arizona: Senate Bill 1593 would shorten the window for mail voters to get and return their ballots and require they be postmarked on or prior to the Thursday before an election, something that could be particularly difficult on Arizona’s many Native American reservations, where many people do not have home mail service.
In Large cities, many polling locations closed without notice. Others relocated to remote locations, there were shortage of translators, and ballots.
Beginning this year, Latino’s will be the largest minority in the state of Texas. In the last few years ,there has been successful grass root movement to increase the Latino vote in the state. A new bill would Give the attorney general broad authority to prosecute volunteers who engage in get-out-the-vote campaigns in the lead-up to elections. The Texas voting law would ,give partisan “poll watchers” special rights to intimidate voters, outlawing their removal from polling places for any reason other than “election fraud”
Texas would require county-wide polling places in a given county have “approximately the same number of voting machines” as every other county-wide polling place in the county, regardless of variations in population.
Harris County is the largest county in Texas. Houston is the largest city. Nearly 45% of Houston’s population is Hispanic, 31% is black and 21% is white. If passed, the Houston (pop 2.7 million) would have the same number of voting machines in each polling place as El Lago (2.7 thousand).
THE END OF THE GOP?
Yesterday, President Biden was asked during a press conference whether he expects to run for reelection against former President Donald Trump in 2024?“I have no idea if there will be a Republican Party. Do you?”
150, 000 Republicans have left the party since the Capitol Riots
15 years ago, the GOP acknowledged the party needed to make changes as the Demographic was changing, sighting the growth of the Latino population. Perhaps it lost its way, due to the invasion of the Tea Party. Since then, they party has not only closed the doors to Latinos, it has attacked them.
In California, Republican party went to war with rapidly growing Latino community. 1994’s Proposition 187 called “The Save Our State Initiative. The proposition, supported by the Republican Governor Pete Wilson, would have denied all public services to illegal immigrants and forced all state employees to immediately report illegal immigrants to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for deportation. This proposition awakened the Latino community, the ads supporting the law suggested Latinos were lazy and illegally entered California, to get welfare. By 1997,the law was struck down by the courts. The fight over 187 changed the political landscape in California forever as Latinos were elected to states offices in large numbers throughout the state.
In 2010, Arizona Republicans passed SB 1070 ” Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” This law encouraged legal profiling. It required state law enforcement officers attempt to determine an individual’s immigration status. The weeks after the bill’s signing saw a sharp increase in the number of Hispanics in the state registering their party affiliations as Democrats.
This law was very popular in many Republican states, most were a considerable distance from the Mexican border. Indiana, Georgia, and South Carolina passed similar laws, Alabama’s HB 56 was stronger than Arizona’s. The court eventually struck down, most of the key provisions of the law in all of the states. Despite’s its popularity, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who signed the bill into law, was not reelected.
These new voting laws, reinforces the image of a non-inclusive organization.
This isn’t 1981, the majority of Americans live in urban areas. They live and work in densely populated cities and integrated suburbs. Unlike the rural communities, they or their children, are likely to have a friend of another race ,which makes them sensitive to matters of race. Unlike 1981, many of the communities are multiracial.
These hastily written laws, will negatively effect many Republican’s who live in large suburbs. Like the Democrat’s, will be forced to wait in long lines, their friends and family would be subjected to fines if they brought water and sandwich. Their vote could be challenged by a complete stranger ,who may just happen to find their vote or eligibility suspicious.
There will be court challenges to these new voting laws.
Sixty, seventy years ago, politicians could be openly racist. Require, a Black , Asian, Native American or Mexican voter to count the number of jelly beans in the jar or participate in some rudimentary test designed to prevent them from voting. The Republicans say these new voting requirements are necessary to insure and restore trust in a voting system that isn’t broken. Just be patient.
CityFella
+
SACRATOMATOVILLE POST 