We remember the 2000 presidential election, don’t we? Al Gore conceded to George W. Bush that night, winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College by just three votes. But then strangely late votes from Florida started filtering in from Democratic-leaning counties, and suddenly the vote in Florida became closer, and closer. Gore angered Bush by rescinding his concession. Then we discovered that thousands of ballots had been thrown out, many because of “hanging chads”--meaning the chads had not been completely removed from ballots when punched through. We also discovered that the location of the punch holes in the “butterfly” ballots from at least one county, Palm Beach, could sow possible confusion determining whether one was indicating a vote for Gore or Pat Buchanan.
We know what happened. A mandatory machine recount was ordered, which narrowed Bush’s lead to 327 votes. Gore sued for a manual recount in four counties, which would the following month be halted by the U.S. Supreme Court. We learned later that the Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, had arbitrarily expunged from the registration rolls tens of thousands of black voters for allegdly being felons, without attempting to clarify whether mistakes were made in those determinations. In Duval County, 21,000 ballots from predominately black precincts were thrown out for allegedly having “multiple markings” for president; yet in mainly Republican districts, re-counters were allowed to make “corrections” on ballots in favor of Bush. It was discovered that many precincts with predominately black voters were not “equipped” to handle large numbers of voters, and many voters claimed to have been harassed by police and poll workers.
Who was responsible for all of this, besides Harris? Bush’s brother Jeb, who just happened to be the governor of Florida at the time.
The Bush campaign and its state Republican enablers didn’t stop in 2004, where the election hinged on Ohio’s 20 electoral votes. An RNC document obtained by the BBC revealed that swing states controlled by Republicans employed “caging,” with the intent of disenfranchising hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Democratic-leaning voters:
At whatever point registration in the state closes, a first class mailing should be sent to all new registrants as well as purged/inactive voters. This mailing should welcome the recipient to the voter rolls. It is important that a return address is clearly identifiable. Any mail returned as undeliverable for any reason, should be used to generate a list of problematic registrations. Poll watchers should have this list and be prepared to challenge anyone from this list attempting to vote.
130,000 such letters were sent to Philadelphia residents, and 35,000 to those in Cleveland. Ohio also saw 105,000 voters in Cincinnati purged from the rolls in this way; why is this “strange”? Cincinnati has a population of about 300,000--meaning as many as half of the voting age population was stripped of their right to vote. Also purged were 28,000 in Toledo. This was reported in local newspapers and in Washington Post; no doubt many other predominately Democratic cities in Ohio saw similar purges. While such purging is technically “legal,” the fact that Democratic-leaning districts were specifically targeted, and the fact that many, and likely most, were legally eligible to vote showed that this was a deliberate attempt at voter suppression.
Those whose were denied their right to vote at polling stations because of this purging could still use provisional ballots, but Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (who was black) directed that provisional ballots could only be counted if cast in the correct precinct, and not, as before, in the correct county. Blackwell had reorganized precincts in the state, leading to confusion among voters where to cast their ballots. In the end, at least 46,000 provisional ballots were never counted. Yet another 92,000 ballots were rejected as “unreadable”; all told there were at least 300,000 voters in Ohio whose vote was potentially suppressed, and who knows how many more voters were kept from voting in places like Franklin County, where the Post reported that while there were plentiful voting machines in strongly pro-Bush districts, there were significant shortages in pro-John Kerry districts.
Today, we received this news, courtesy of the Franklin Board of Elections:
The Franklin County Board of Elections is conducting an analysis of all absentee ballots mailed out. This afternoon the Board was made aware that some voters were mailed the incorrect ballot for the voters assigned address. It was determined that a high-speed scanner used to proof ballots for accuracy was not working properly. Not all ballots mailed are incorrect. The board is researching when the error occurred to determine the number of impacted voters. We are actively working on solution and will provide further details when available.
Here we see the kind of “mistakes” that can invalidate the vote of a legal voter through no fault of their own. What chance does the average voter have when confronted with disenfranchisement from above? We saw where the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court stands when it was a choice between the right to have one’s vote counted and Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters in 2000, and we saw it again when it “unanimously” allowed the reinstatement of patently irregular rule for a “witness signature” on mail-in ballots in South Carolina (where Lindsey Graham is facing a tough reelection battle), a rule that had been blocked by the 4th Circuit Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, speaking for himself, did not question the legality of the requirement, or if it violated the Voting Rights Act, insisting that it was “too close to the election” for the rule to be changed.
This perfectly illustrates right-wing hypocrisy on the subject; only a few weeks ago Texas Gov. Greg Abbott--who had blocked sending all voters absentee ballots--issued a state-wide rule that only allows only one drop-off location for absentee ballots in each of Texas’ 254 counties despite the increase in requests for such ballots as the positivity and deaths from COVID-19 skyrockets in the state--including Brewster County, which with an area of over 6,000 square miles is larger than the state of Connecticut. Why would Abbott’s action so close to the election be any less “objectionable” than the effort to stop the suppression of votes in South Carolina so close to the election?
In 2016 a study determined that 1.7 million people, or 10.4 percent of Floridians, were being denied their right to vote because they had been convicted of a felony, and 21.6 percent of Black Floridians were thus denied the vote, despite having served their time. A statewide referendum overturned the law, but then the Republican-controlled legislature passed a new law the required former felons to pay off court-related fines before they could vote again, which was little more than an illegal poll tax. Despite the voice of the people having already spoken on the matter, appeals courts dominated by Trump appointees have upheld the new law.
All over the country where Republicans hold sway in swing states, they are attempting to disenfranchise and suppress voters. Isn’t this supposed to be more typical of Russia, former eastern-block countries or Third World dictatorships? Mother Jones noted other methods in which the Trump administration and its allies are trying to disrupt the vote:
Blocking mail-in ballot requests: The Trump campaign has filed numerous lawsuits attempting to block states from sending mail-in ballot request forms to voters. In Iowa, a judge found in favor of the campaign and voided more than 150,000 forms sent to voters in two of the state’s most Democratic counties and a Republican-leaning one, forcing them to request a new ballot in order for it to count.
Blocking universal mail voting: Though states have conducted elections by mailing all registered voters a ballot since the 1990s with few problems, the Trump campaign has sued New Jersey, Nevada, and Montana to block them from doing the same. Trump has denounced the mailing of “unsolicited” ballots to voters on a near-daily basis.
Requiring an excuse to vote by mail: While 44 states will allow all voters to obtain mail ballots during the pandemic, six GOP-controlled states are still requiring a reason other than COVID-19 to vote-by-mail. In Texas, voters under 65 cannot cite fear of contracting COVID as a reason to vote by mail; those that are older can.
Preventing drop boxes: States with a long history of mail voting like Oregon and Colorado, along with relative newcomers like Maryland and New Jersey, allow voters to return their ballots at drop boxes across the state, but the Trump campaign has sued to block them from being set up in swing states such as Pennsylvania. In Ohio, the Republican secretary of state issued a directive limiting drop boxes to one per county (in defiance of a court order), ensuring unequal access for voters living in more-populated counties and forcing some to travel up to 90 minutes to drop off their ballot.
Throwing out ballots with mismatched signatures: In 2018, more than 100,000 mail ballots were rejected because of a mismatched or missing signatures on return envelopes; in Florida, young voters and voters of color were far more likely to have their ballots thrown out for a mismatched signature than elderly and white voters. Republicans have gone to court in states including Arizona, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to preserve this requirement.
By the way, these signatures all belonged to Richard Nixon, who probably would not have been allowed to vote if he was just an “average” voter:
Requiring a witness signature: In eight states, including the swing states of Wisconsin and North Carolina, voters must find a witness to sign their mail ballot, which can be difficult at a time of social distancing; Alabama’s GOP secretary of state went to the Supreme Court to keep a law requiring two witnesses or a notarized affidavit for a mail ballot to count.
Throwing out “naked ballots”: In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign recently won a court order requiring the state to throw out ballots that are not enclosed in a special secrecy envelope, a move election officials warn could disenfranchise more than 100,000 voters in the state.
Prohibiting the collection of ballots: The Trump campaign has sued states including Maine, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, trying to force a on ban third- party voter engagement groups collecting and returning mail ballots.
Sabotaging the Postal Service: This year, Democrats are more likely to cast mail ballots, and the USPS’s well-publicized major mail delays have led to widespread concern that votes will rejected because they arrived too late. The delays stem from changes made under Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor who was made Postmaster General earlier this year, and soon reduced overtime, cut post office hours, and forced trucks to leave before they can be filled with mail.
While Donald Trump and his Republican allies have been wailing about voter and ballot fraud, the reality is that not only are those issues vastly over-blown with only anecdotal evidence involving a handful of ballots, Republican efforts at disenfranchising and suppressing Democratic votes involve numbers in the millions nationwide. This is the true voter fraud, and there seems little that can be done to stop it, unless Democratic voters simply go out enmasse and stop the madness that is Trump and his Republican enablers in crime.
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