"The Empire Strikes Back (Part One): The Largest Voter Suppression Campaign in US History Is Underway"
By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News, 08 February 21
"Election Officials Under Attack", Brennan Center for Justice, June 16, 2021
At < https://www.brennancenter.org/
"Voting Laws Roundup: January 2021", Brennan Center for Justice, January 26, 2021
After historic turnout and increased mail voting in 2020, state lawmakers across the country are pulling in opposite directions by introducing restrictive and expansive voting legislation.
at, < https://www.brennancenter.org/
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
Introduction:
There is an ongoing campaign to impose draconian extreme right-wing socioeconomic policies; that campaign is primarily centered in the U.S. State Legislatures, Governorships, and other organs of state government, in the various reactionary controlled states. A large number of those states are only controlled by the far-right through the use of pervasive voter suppression, computerized election fraud, voter intimidation, extreme gerrymandering, changes in the laws regulating elections that now allow state legislatures to over ride the counting and the results of elections, and other nefarious measures. Most recently bogus audits, conducted by partisan hit groups are being pushed. The most significant and most completely implemented being the faux audit being conducted by the far-right operatives known as the “Cyber Ninjas” in Phoenix, Arizona. This bogus operation has compromised the election machines of Maricopa County, the largest population county in the state where Phoenix is located. It will cost the governmental entities that maintain the voting equipment something around $20 million to replace these compromised voting machines.
Long time election watchdog and Ohio figure Harvey Wasserman wrote the article, “The Empire Strikes Back (Part One): The Largest Voter Suppression Campaign in US History Is Underway”, which is posted here in February, unfortunately I cannot find “Part 2”. He enumerated 25 ways in which the Republican Party is limiting and restricting the vote; targeted at people they don't like (primarily the poor and the young, especially if they are African-American or Hispanic). The Brennan Center posted the article, “Election Officials Under Attack”, about attacks, legal and physical, against election officials in June. At the top of that article there is a link to a more detailed 38 page report on this issue. Earlier, in January The Brennan Center posted the article, “Voting Laws Roundup: January 2021” that features lists and maps of the country that show where restrictive laws and in contrast laws seeking to make voting easier have been proposed and passed. It is telling that nearly all voter suppression measures have been proposed by Republicans. In the hubub about the recently enforced Texas Vigilante Abortion bill and recently passed Voter Suppression law it is pertinent to discuss how the left should view and act on these issues.
Many of the readers and commenters at Leftist Politics feel, and with some justification, that electoral politics is a dead end and not worth any effort, oftentimes of even bothering to vote. It is worth considering the consequences of allowing extremist right-wingers to take so much political power. Electoral politics alone is indeed a dead end, but when combined with a major mobilization of the Left that does not allow itself to be coopted by the Liberals, it could accomplish a significant amount of good.
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