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Why is it always Republicans who are trying to make it harder to vote?
Always.
Mail-in voting? Republicans are against it.
Same-day registration? Republicans are against it.
No-excuse absentee voting? Republicans are against it.
Assisting elderly and disabled people with voting? Republicans are against it.
Curbside voting? Republicans are against it.
Giving water to people waiting in line to vote? Republicans are against it.
Opening up new polling locations in crowded areas? Republicans are against it.
It’s weird, right?
Or, well, maybe “weird” isn’t the proper term. Maybe shady would be better. Because it’s definitely shady.
Take Alabama’s new absentee ballot law that has been partially blocked by a federal court – the one that makes it a crime to receive payment or pay a person to assist someone in filling out an absentee ballot application.
Pay attention to the word “application” in that sentence. Because we’re not talking about filling out the actual ballot here. We’re talking about filling out the ballot APPLICATION.
Dozens of civil rights groups from around the state routinely pay workers to go into impoverished and historically under-represented areas of this state and educate people on how to go about receiving an absentee ballot. They help them fill out that application and submit it on their behalf.
This is not a nefarious or suspicious act. It’s nothing short of a vital public service that assists primarily elderly and infirmed citizens of this country with participating in our representative government. As is their right. And as is our absolute duty to encourage.
Ah, but if you slap the label “ballot harvesting” on that action and pretend that something sketchy is happening, because, well, you know, they are mostly (*whispers) Black … whoooo boy. Definitely something we need to stop right there.
It’s pathetic.
Thankfully, at a press conference this week, Shomari Figures, the Democratic nominee for Alabama 2nd congressional district, called it exactly what it is: “I think it’s all an effort to suppress the vote,” he said.
“I think they are all an effort to make it as hard for people to vote as possible.”
The “all” in that sentence refers to the application law and also to Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen’s recent move to boot several people from the state’s voter rolls, despite the fact that many are valid U.S. citizens with long histories in the state. Allen’s removed the voters, he said, because they had at some point been assigned a non-citizen ID from the federal government.
The Department of Justice has since sued Allen over the move, citing, among other problems, that he chose to make the removals clearly within the 90-day dead period prior to an election. A group of citizens has also sued Allen.
In response to both the lawsuits and Figures, Allen claimed that he is merely keeping Alabama’s elections “safe” and “secure.” That’s a common excuse from Republicans – that they just want safe and fair elections.
The problem with that excuse is that that’s exactly what we have with all of the things they fight against.
Study after study has found zero evidence that mail-in voting, same-day registration, no-excuse absentee ballots or assisting voters with ballot applications produce any increases in fraud or abuse. Likewise, the requirement to present a photo ID, instead of the myriad options for ID that were once allowed, has done absolutely nothing to prevent fraud – because there was zero voter ID fraud prior to the implementation of that law.
It’s all made-up.
The fact is this stuff is the modern day version of poll taxes and all the other games that white people used to play to prevent and deter Black people from voting. They’ve just gotten smarter about their tactics, and their PR.
Because they know their voter base will gobble up the insinuations that “illegals” are flooding the voting booths (even though such a phenomenon has never, ever been witnessed by anyone in this state) or that “tha Blacks” are doing … something sketchy by just voting. It’s shameful.
There’s absolutely no reason we shouldn’t have these options to make voting easier and to encourage more people to participate. In fact, there’s only one reason you’d be against it.
You know you can’t win if a large, diverse percentage of citizens cast ballots.
