Republican Voter Suppression Omnibus Thread

Republicans having learned the lesson of 2020, that they can’t win if people can easily vote have started ‘fixing’ that ‘problem’.

I expect we’ll see this in every state with a Republican majority in the legislature so here is an omnibus thread.

Florida:

Georgia:

They'll feel it when they start losing the military votes.

Idaho's legislature has pretty much laid off of the heavy handed stuff, however they have taken a different tack: in 2018 voters got sick of the legislature's refusal to accept Medicaid expansion and approved it in a referendum. So the legislature is now trying to ram through a tightening of the rules that would make it damn near impossible to pass another one.

North Dakota: https://www.kvrr.com/2021/01/28/north-dakota-lawmakers-introduce-bills-impacting-voting-rights/

But both sides tho!!!!

I await @Ancalagon 's suggestions for what we who don't live in those benighted states can do on a national level.

Needless to say I'm not holding my breath.

I'm not Anc (or am I? No one has seen us both in the same place at the same time)

But I guess the question of Jimmy Malone from Untouchables is (as usual) apt. "What are you prepared to do?"

People in virtually any state can raise awareness of the issue and hopefully get some of the people who honestly are worried about in-person voter fraud to change their minds.

We can donate money to organizations in key states that mirror the success that Stacey Abrams has had in registering voters and getting them to the polls in Georgia. I have to imagine that for each state that is trying to suppress votes, there is hopefully at least one grassroots organization that is working hard to both oppose such efforts and to minimize the effect of such efforts should lobbying fail. Or you can donate money to national organizations that work against voter suppression.

Now admittedly, I have not personally done much besides complain here on this message board and elsewhere about voter suppression tactics. But maybe between now and 2024, I'll put a little more of me in the mix.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-january-2021

^Thank you for this! Like Anc, I live in a state (CA) where voter suppression is not an issue. If only enough of us were willing to push against those states that are trying so hard to stop some people from voting, we can - perhaps - make a difference.

I'm curious, can anyone defend the Sunday thing?

They're not saying that early voting is a security risk; they're not even saying it's too expensive. They're just identifying a day when voting has become a tradition in many majority-Black communities and saying "no voting on that day."

Of course, you have to remember that YOU'RE the racist for pointing that out.

Make voting mandatory, and automatically sign up everyone for mail in voting, with the option to vote in person if one chooses (provided their state allows in person voting). The Republican Party would be decimated on a scale we haven't seen since 1935-1945. The Republican party is the antithesis of democracy.

The only reason elections are on Tuesday goes back to when people couldn't travel on Sunday in a largely Puritan society. There's no such stigma against travel today, and it's racist crapola.

[Johnny Carson]"I did not know that!"[/]

https://www.britannica.com/story/why-are-us-elections-held-on-tuesdays

It's largely to allow for more voting, as people wouldn't vote on Sunday, and in an agrarian society market day was Wednesday, and that's where most people actually made their money.

But it is certainly an antiquated notion, like so many in our democracy.

See, now, if they'd been smart, they'd have set up voting booths at the markets.

They didn’t have voting booths back then and votes were public.

Can't you pass another Voting Rights Act? Sounds like it's badly needed...

Not as long as there are Repubs, probably.

The old one still exists.

But its provisions were gutted by a conservative Supreme Court.

I usually like to devil's advocate, but I am having a tough time with this one.

I almost think you would have to lean in and say organized activity like Souls to the Polls is a problem and should be regulated. Voting should be an individualized decision and that there is a potential for corruption/fraud with organized efforts. But it's not that these voters are Black or Democratic. "Caucasians to Polling Stations" would be just as problematic.

I suppose one could try to fig-leaf this as a resource decision -- having voting open M-F and most Saturdays is enough of a strain in these tough times. We can't afford to have polls open on Sundays as well? I mean

But overall, it requires a lot of handwaving to try to portray the "nobody voting on Sundays" as anything but an attack on organized voting efforts by black churches that take places on Sundays.

I've looked at a couple news stories on this and have yet to see anything from the backers of the bill talking about why they are seeking to have voting not take place on Sundays. Which may speak to poor media practices or the notion that the Republicans are refusing to defend the nearly indefensible.

Not my field, but I assume Civil Rights era VRA does not adequately address the sorts of issues that we are facing today.

I don't think, though, that Congress could really legislate its way out of individual states trying various voter suppression tactics. The current judiciary would likely rule that the states generally have the right to pass whatever mechanisms for and restrictions on voting as long as they don't run afoul of the Constitution.

About the best that Congress could go is give grants to states that have a given set up favoring as open a system for voting as reasonable or threaten federal funding for states that engage in certain practices.

@oldfella1962 is gonna try.

The Supreme Court will just decide that its key provisions are not needed, as they did with the old one.

Yes. It’s called the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and it has already passed the House.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/4263/all-info

However it can’t pass the Senate w/out getting rid of the filibuster.

Correction, @oldfella1962 will tell us Hypatia he totally could explain it but we are all a bunch of liberals so won’t believe him anyway.

[edit] I have no idea why the fuck Hypatia jumped into my post but the world needs more Hypatia so I’m leaving it.