See also my essay “Voting in America” dated August 20, 2020 for background material in this blog.
The 2020 presidential election, which saw record voter participation despite the existence of a pandemic, should be celebrated as a great victory for democracy. It was the highest since the election of 1900 with 66.3% of eligible voters voting. Yet, since the election through February 27, 2021, the Republican Party has either introduced, pre-filed, or carried over more than 253 bills in 43 different states that would suppress the right to vote in America (Brennan Center). Most of these bills are designed to limit access to vote by mail while others impose stricter voter ID requirements and limit voter registration opportunities. Some of the specific bills include making it easier to purge voting rolls; reducing the number of voting sites in urban areas; eliminating mail-in voting; reducing the time period for voting early; eliminating early voting on Sundays; making it difficult to establish satellite voting centers on college campuses; preventing one from registering to vote at the department of motor vehicles; requiring a witness signature for mail-in ballots; eliminating drop boxes for mail in ballots; eliminating no-excuse mail-in and absentee ballots; and closing the polls on election day at an earlier time.
After the largest voter turnout since 1900, the most important right in a democratic republic, the right to vote, is actively being suppressed by the Republican Party. Why? According to Republican Secretary of State in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, who was called an “enemy of the people” by Donald Trump, it is a “reaction to a three month disinformation campaign that could have been prevented.” In other words, it is in reaction to the “Big Lie,” the lie that states that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and that Trump actually won the election. Despite no credible evidence to support the “Big Lie,” it continues to be propagated by Trump and congressional leaders of the Republican Party. It is still believed by a majority of Republican voters.
The “Big Lie” is still being spread so as to create the opportunity to engage in the current efforts to suppress voting rights. The reason for the dramatic increase in voter suppression legislation is the knowledge of the dramatic demographic changes that are taking place in America. Minorities or persons of color are increasing at a much greater rate than “whites” and “whites” will represent a minority in the US by 2040-45. The essentially “white” Republican Party finds it more and more difficult to win a national election when voter turnout is extremely high, especially among people of color who vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party. Democrats win in more populous urban, metropolitan areas where the majority of persons of color reside and Republicans win in less populous rural areas where the overwhelming majority are “white.” As long as the suburbs were overwhelmingly “white,” Republicans could still win national elections but suburbs are now populated by many peoples of color and that makes it problematic for Republicans to continue to win national elections. The essentially “white” Republican Party, which does not even attempt to appeal to persons of color and is overtly racist with Trump as its leader, will have increasing difficulty in defeating the multi-racial Democratic Party in a national election unless voter turnout, especially in people of color dominated urban areas, is limited. Thus, the real goal of the Republican-led voter suppression movement is to limit turn-out by persons of color in urban areas. The current Republican led voter suppression effort is racist and is no less than an attempt to replay the establishment of Jim Crow which effectively eliminated the 15th Amendment to the Constitution after Reconstruction.
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