Republican Voter Suppression Omnibus Thread

A bipartisan group of fed up Idahoans, including many old-line Republican movers and shakers, are on the verge of getting an initiative on the ballot that would install top four ranked choice voting as well as open primaries. Closed Republican primaries have been great for the batshit faction and they aren't going to give it up without a fight. The party chairwoman Dorothy Moon has issued marching orders for her minions in the legislature.


From a paywalled article in the Idaho Press:

The resolution calling for changes to the initiative passage process was made in response to an initiative proposal that would put in place non-partisan, top-four primaries and implement ranked choice voting.

“They’re kind of sneaking in ranked choice voting, which is the most dangerous part of that initiative,” Moon said.

The resolution calls for a required two-thirds majority to pass an initiative that makes it onto a ballot. To approve an initiative, there currently only needs to be a simple majority of voters in favor.

The announcement of the resolution was met with applause from the audience in the Capitol’s Lincoln Auditorium.

Sen. Scott Herndon, R-Sagle, has agreed to carry legislation to this end, Moon said.

She said if this two-thirds majority requirement can’t be passed, then the party would like to see a state constitutional amendment to remove the initiative process altogether — one person in the audience gasped in response to this.

Just a bit of background: in 2018 Idahoans overrode the batshit faction in the legislature and voted by just over the required 60% to accept Medicaid expansion, which absolutely enraged the Republicans.

So there's the Republican philosophy in a nutshell (see what I did there?): if you're so out of step with the wishes of the voters that they are willing to jump through the hoops to take action that the Legislature won't, make it impossible for the voters to pass an initiative.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68064247

https://x.com/weareoversight/status/1750243226760417406?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

He won with a write-in campaign, so that didn't work.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...-on-the-Voting-Rights-Act-in-Washington-state

https://www.semafor.com/article/02/10/2023/republicans-ranked-choice-alaska-plain

Of course they do.
Paul LePage got kicked in the dick by ranked choice here, and his diaper soaking tantrum was glorious.


If you want to see what a helpless baby Trump would be without his money and goons to protect him, trace LePage's career.

Palin was repudiated by those who know her best in Alaska. Idaho’s Republican Party is desperate to stop it because they know it would mean a return to conservative politics as opposed to batshit buttery.

Trump's RNC officially kills the GOP's mail-in voter effort

I fully support the Republicans shooting themself in the foot.

I think they should go further and convince their base to also avoid early voting.

Oh, they've already pissed off a chunk of their base over the IVF thing - which probably needs reposting in the Roe vs Wade thread but I'm on the whiskey so fuck it.

That GOP reps are now getting the same "baby-killers!!!!" hate mail and counter-campaigning as Dems over this just shows that FF and his gullible ilk were wrong (as always) when they said it was just about returning the issue to the states - it's about nothing less than a total ban to these religious whackjobs.

So for those who haven’t worked on the ground for campaigns I’m not sure y’all understand how monumentally stupid this is.

I mean just on the face of it an early vote is a vote that you can bank. Doesn’t matter if a drunk driver hits them the night before, their kid gets appendicitis or they just get busy or forget on Election Day. That vote is cast.

But banked votes are HUGELY important for campaigns as it allows them to focus resources on folks who haven’t voted. As I have said repeatedly who you vote for is secret but voting is public. Starting two weeks ahead of Election Day voting stats are updated in Washington. Every campaign downloads it immediately and updates their target list. No use wasting volunteer time hitting up people who have already voted.

Trump has already bankrupted the RNC and the Republican Party in general with his grifting and legal bills. They can’t afford to waste a penny hitting up unnecessary voters but by not banking votes they have no idea which of their target voters to concentrate on.

On Election Day when the Ds are focusing on getting transportation to neighborhoods with low turnout Rs will just be looking a giant list of ‘ALL OUR VOTERS’ and silently weeping.

So fucking stupid.

And all just so their emperor can pretend he really did win in ‘20 and really does have beautiful clothes on.

Yep.

For years, Republicans were actually really good at getting their supporters to vote absentee. In addition to all the reasons that getting people to vote early is good for any campaign, it was an especially good fit for the Republican party: their voters skew older, and older people are much more willing to go through the process of sending in a request form, making sure to get their ballot in the mail on time, etc. Ask anybody who sells ... well, pretty much anything. Older customers make up their minds earlier, plan things out earlier, and are more comfortable with sending mail. (How many people under 35 even keep stamps at home?) Younger customers don't plan their purchases nearly as far out, and they are much more spur-of-the-moment. So absentee voting was the perfect tool for Republicans. Their core supporters would actually do it, while Democrats' core supporters would not, which meant Republicans could sit on a nice fat lead while Democrats scrambled to make GOTV phone calls and motivate those lower-propensity younger voters at the last minute.

The only reason this changed is that Trump knew he was probably going to lose, so his people scrambled to find anything they might be able to use to cast doubt on the results. His followers took up the cry, started parroting anti-absentee talking points, started screaming that Election Day voting was the only thing any decent person would do ... and Republican voters listened.

Absentee voting was one of their single best tools for increasing their own supporters' turnout, and they shot themselves in the foot.

Kind of hilarious, really.

You have to assume it’s to try to replay 2020, when the day-of vote was counted first which gave Trump a lead at which point he says any further counting is dishonest. “Look they stole the last election and they’re stealing this election, too”. This gins up popular support for the next Jan 6, or pressure on Republican state legislatures to throw out the vote because it’s “rigged” and appoint Trump electors, on pain of being primaried or subject to violence.

In 2024, there may not be as consistent a pattern of absentee votes being reported last. Michigan has changed its laws to make it possible to count absentee ballots faster; I think a few others may have as well.

It'll be funny to watch the Trumpers tie themselves into knots if Democratic-leaning absentee voters start being reported first, leading to the vote becoming more and more Republican as counting goes on.

There's a bright spot among the gloom in a surprising place: Utah.

Again this year, members of the Republican supermajority in Salt Lake City joined Democrats in rejecting attempts to curb the state’s universal vote-by-mail system. The failed bills would have added a new deadline for turning in ballots and required voters to request mail-in ballots rather than having them sent automatically.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/28/georgia-republican-illegal-voting/

I realize that this is two stereotypes wrapped into one but at least in my experience Mormons being the Jews of the West does track in a lot of ways (focus on family, community, education but in this case collective action [you probably know this but the reason that Utah is the Beehive State is that bees were considered industrious, fruitful and organized in a way that everyone worked for the betterment of the community]).



And while most Mormons tend to be significantly more conservative than I am, I found every one I have personally known to be as decent a person you could ask for. They believe what they believe but they actually BELIEVE it is the best path so are willing to let it compete. They want everyone to vote both because it is the right thing to do but they also believe that their way can/will/should win in a fair fight.

My experience as well. I also think that the fact that their founder was lynched by "good Christians" makes them a little less eager to mix politics and theology.

Texas appeals court overturns Crystal Mason’s conviction, 5-year sentence for illegal voting
Mason gained national attention after she was convicted for voting while under supervised release for felony tax fraud. She said she didn’t know she was ineligible to vote.

https://x.com/heartlandsignal/status/1777405239194251715?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ