Elections And Democracy Under Siege

Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | May 4, 2023

Former President Donald Trump and his coup plotters failed when they tried to steal the 2020 election. Election deniers failed when they tried to win key statewide elections in 2022.

That hasn’t stopped MAGA Republicans, triggered by Trump’s lies, from continuing to try to rig elections and weaken our democracy.

Here are just a few examples:

Early Voting/Vote By Mail

Nearly half of all voters in 2022 voted by mail or took advantage of early voting opportunities. This was a key factor in the midterms having the second-highest voter turnout since 2000.

Fact: Voting by mail, by drop box, or voting early is safe and secure, according to CISA, the government cyber-security watchdog.

Despite that, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and other Republican-controlled legislatures have already enacted or are pushing for restrictive voting measures such as onerous voter ID requirements, requiring proof of identification when voting by mail, and limiting drop boxes and early voting opportunities.

These kinds of restrictions disproportionately impact people of color, the elderly, the young, urban populations, and the disabled.

The goal? Limit the ability of likely Democratic voters to cast their votes.

Gerrymanders That Suppress Black Voters

Following the 2020 census, many Republican legislatures redrew their voting district lines to eliminate minority districts or dramatically dilute Black votes.

There are pending lawsuits accusing Republican lawmakers of illegally suppressing Black voting power for congressional and state legislative seats in a number of red states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

“In a region where as many as 80 percent of White voters support Republicans and about 90 percent of Black voters support Democrats, it is often difficult to disentangle issues of partisanship and race,” The Washington Post notes. “Black politicians and activists say the result is all the same.”

Suppressing College Voters

Cleta Mitchell, a leader of the election deniers’ movement who worked closely with President Trump in his 2020 coup attempt, recently called for Republicans to work to restrict voting on college campuses.

That work is already well underway. Idaho has removed college IDs as a form of voter ID. A new Ohio law makes it much more difficult for college students there to vote. A proposal in Texas would eliminate all campus polling places in the state.

Georgia allows voters to use student IDs from state, but not private, universities for identification. Those private universities include seven of the state’s 10 Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Texas GOP Sets Its Sights On Houston

The Texas legislature is moving to allow its Secretary of State to overturn an entire local election if they believe there was a paper ballot issue at two percent of polling places, despite having other practical ways of addressing the problem.

They can’t overturn just any local election in Texas, mind you, only in Houston, a heavily Hispanic and Black, heavily Democratic city.

Giving a state official the power to negate the will of the voters eerily mirrors the efforts of the 2020 presidential coup plotters. It is anti-democratic, steeped in racial bias, and seems to be part of a pattern.

Last month, the Texas legislature moved to take over Houston’s school system, which would eliminate the current school board that is majority Hispanic, Black, and female.

Florida’s Ever-Growing Voter Suppression

Last week, an appeals court upheld a law passed by Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2021 that places restrictions on mail-in voting and drop boxes, and puts in place onerous new rules for voter registration efforts. That overturned a lower court ruling that the law discriminated against minorities and placed unconstitutional burdens on voters.

The Florida legislature doubled down last week, passing yet another wide-ranging voter suppression measure further limiting mail-in voting and voter registration efforts. Those voter suppression provisions weren’t mentioned much, as the main spotlight was on a small amendment in the bill that allows Governor DeSantis to run for President without resigning from office.

This marks the third year in a row that Florida has passed laws making it harder for many of its citizens, including those in predominantly Democratic communities, to vote.

It’s clear that the January 6 insurrection didn’t end on January 7. The dangers to elections and to our democracy continue.

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Fred’s Weekly Note appears each Thursday in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s and other recent newsletters here. And, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.