Republicans have a choice: Keep suppressing the vote -- or improve their product
WISCONSIN REPUBLICANS tried to exploit the covid-19 pandemic to manipulate a key state supreme court race last week. They failed. The credibility of the November elections and many Americans health depends on Republicans across the country taking the right lessons from this first chaotic experience of voting in the age of social distancing, rather than doubling down on voter suppression.
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In last weeks marquee race, liberal challenger Jill Karofsky beat conservative state supreme court incumbent Daniel Kelly by 10 points, narrowing the courts right-wing majority just as it is likely to hear some big cases, including on redistricting Wisconins highly gerrymandered legislative maps. With thousands of poll workers choosing not to show up and many polling places closed, turnout was only a bit more than 30 percent, and the vast majority of votes came in by mail. Nevertheless, thousands still risked their health to vote in person, their only option after Wisconsin Republicans refused proposal after proposal to make voting more accessible in light of the pandemic. They refused to extend mail-in ballot deadlines, relax voter ID requirements, send absentee ballots to all voters or move to an all-mail election. They litigated to the U.S. Supreme Court efforts by Gov. Tony Evers (D) to ease the process.
Though they failed to swing the race for Mr. Kelly, Republicans voter suppression strategy was hardly victimless. More than 11,000 voters asked for but were not sent absentee ballots. The U.S. Supreme Court declared that mail-in votes had to be postmarked by Election Day, but hundreds came in with missing or marred postmarks, leaving election officials to argue about what to do with them. Untold numbers of people understandably declined to vote in person. Others may have contracted covid-19 from staffing or waiting in line at polling places. Further litigation is a certainty.
Led by President Trump, who has railed recently against mail-in voting, Republicans may conclude that their best hope lies in suppressing turnout even further than they tried to in Wisconsin. That would be a mistake. Many states still require residents to have a valid excuse in order to obtain an absentee ballot, cumbersome witness signature requirements or strange deadlines by which mail-in votes must be received. GOP leaders should join in removing these barriers. If people cannot vote safely in person, the only reasonable option is to let them vote by mail.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-have-a-choice-keep-suppressing-the-vote--or-improve-their-product/2020/04/14/1084df12-7e82-11ea-a3ee-13e1ae0a3571_story.html
Improve their product? Yeah, like that's going to happen.
SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)Is diametrically opposed to their mantra of "starve them out."
Senseless imo.
If I were uber wealthy I would prefer to live in a society where people have jobs, can afford homes, decent cars, food, medical care, vacations, etc. Because in that scenario, all would be winners & crime would be much lower.
But they want every crumb for themselves.
mitch96
(13,905 posts)Who has benefited the most when repukes are in power... That's what they are all about..
YMMV
m
The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)"When conservatives realize their views cannot prevail in an election, they will not give up their views. They will give up democracy."
Kaiserguy
(740 posts)You got that right they will destroy America before they change their evil ways.
chriscan64
(1,789 posts)they wouldn't even get all the rich people to vote for them. The pro-life and gun stuff was always about padding the numbers (plus immigration and tacit approval of racism). When that wasn't enough to stop Bill Clinton, they resorted to vilification via talk radio. With all that, they still came up short against Obama and Hillary Clinton in terms of the sheer number of votes.
The fork in the road about whether to increase support by modifying policy to appeal to more people or suppress votes only exists in theory. The policy is carved in stone and voter suppression was inevitable. Their dilemma is that everything that could get them more votes would make the wealthy slightly less wealthy. They have exhausted the low hanging fruit, everything left has a price tag like better schools in minority neighborhoods or health coverage. The process of adding republican votes has ended and the job of subtracting ours is in full swing.
RussBLib
(9,019 posts)Although, at the time, that seemed like a bad joke too.