Republican Election Subversion
In responding to Judge Tanya Chutkin’s early October unsealing of the January 6 court records documenting his attempt to overturn to 2020 election, Donald Trump argued that it is the Democrats who cheated in 2020 and are cheating now. This is blatantly false–what most of us would call a lie.
Worse, since 2016 Republican-led legislatures have gerrymandered their states, engaged in voter suppression, and have substantially changed election rules seeking partisan advantage. It is Republicans who have been cheating and subverting democracy, not Democrats.
In August, Texas Attorney General Kenneth Paxton ordered state police to raid the homes of San Antonio Latino Democratic voters and activists, seizing their documents, computers, and voting records to prevent “voter fraud.” The League of United Latin American Citizens is suing them in court and has filed a claim with the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
In Georgia, this fall the MAGA Republican takeover of the Georgia Election Board has set more than a dozen new rules for the conduct and certification of the 2024 election. The Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger and his staff have deemed their changes poorly written, unenforceable, and “illegal.” In mid-October, Georgia won two court cases declaring that state electors must certify the popular vote and that hand-counted ballots would delay state certification and aren’t legal, thwarting MAGA plans to disrupt the election process.
Now, with the election looming, Donald Trump is declaring he will not accept the election results unless he wins. He has coupled that “promise” with the assertion that Democrats have cheated by registering “illegal immigrants,” swelling Democrats’ numbers. Unfortunately, state and federal Republican officeholders are spreading this lie and in a recent NPR/PBS/Marist poll 80 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of Independents believe it.
Although moderate Republicans and Democrats have passed a revision to the 1887 Electoral Count Act (Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022) that addresses the Trump Administration’s worst excesses of January 2021, it might not be enough to secure this election. We have to hope that the Biden administration and the courts will be able to intervene to stop the worst abuses now and will protect the Capitol in January 2025. We have to be vigilant and organize to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA puppets in November and after the election.
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