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A thread on the GOP's efforts to subvert democracy, undermine faith in our elections, and suppress the vote in future elections.
How this very deliberate attack unfolded:
How this very deliberate attack unfolded:
While the GOP's attack on voting rights extends back decades (and was helped along by Chief Justice John Robert's decision to gut the Voting Rights Act), one place to start when looking at the GOP's 2020 plan to undermine democracy is in PA, WI, and MI in the summer of this year.
In most states, mail-in ballots are processed before election day. This allows for them to be counted and reported at the same time as in-person ballots are counted once polls close. Republicans in these three key swing states (PA, WI, & MI) had other ideas however...
In PA & WI mail-in ballots couldn't be processed until election day. In MI they couldn't be processed until just before election day. Because of the unprecedented number of people casting mail-in ballots due to the pandemic, it was obvious that this would lead to counting delays.
In PA, county election officials from across the state pled with Republican lawmakers to allow them to begin processing ballots before election day. Republicans, predictably, refused. https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-counting-mail-ballots-election-day-negotiations-stall-20201021.html
Their refusal was rooted in the fact that they knew that in-person voting would skew Republican and mail-in ballots would skew Democrat. A delay in counting mail-in ballots would make it look on election night like Trump & other GOP were leading.
That's exactly what happened.
That's exactly what happened.
The same dynamic played out in Michigan and Wisconsin, two other crucial swing states. Election officials in Michigan warned that it could take until Friday Nov. 6 to finish counting mail-in ballots. The GOP-controlled legislature refused to budge. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/21/politics/vote-by-mail-processing-election-2020/index.html
The plan in the days leading up to election was as follows:
1) Don't process mail-in ballots before election day
2) Election night results misleading skew Republican
3) Have Trump declare victory with millions of ballots left to be counted
(con't...)
1) Don't process mail-in ballots before election day
2) Election night results misleading skew Republican
3) Have Trump declare victory with millions of ballots left to be counted
(con't...)
4) When those ballots are counted in the early morning on Nov 4th and in the days following the election, claim that there's something nefarious.
5) Insist that the vote count must be stopped before all votes are counted.
5) Insist that the vote count must be stopped before all votes are counted.
The "overnight vote shift" that Trump has continued to decry as evidence of fraud of illegality is not only completely innocuous, it is the direct result of GOP scheming to undermine faith in the election.
It was completely avoidable. Republicans didn't want to avoid it.
It was completely avoidable. Republicans didn't want to avoid it.
As it became clear that Biden won the election, Trump refused to concede and stepped up his baseless allegations of voter fraud. What's particularly noteworthy, however, is where Trump has claimed (without any evidence) that there was voter fraud.
Trump's baseless claims almost always focused on Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, and other cities with large Black populations. Tweet after tweet after tweet reference these cities. But there's something odd about this...
These are all places were Trump did slightly better than he did in 2016. Yes, he was still roundly defeated but he actually improved on his margins from 2016 in these cities. Where Trump lost ground was in the suburbs outside the cities. So why claim this is where the fraud was?
The short answer is that it was pure unadulterated racism. Trump used these cities as dog whistles. Every time he brought up imaginary voter fraud the subtext was "Black people voting is inherently illegitimate." That's a view shared by much of the GOP.
By now it's clear that these efforts failed. All the votes were counted and Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, will be President of the United States come January 20, 2020. No amount of complaining or tweeting by Trump will change that.
But that's only the first half of the story...
But that's only the first half of the story...
Trump & GOP's efforts to subvert democracy and overturn the results of the election failed but they're not letting their efforts go to waste. After making completely baseless allegations of voter fraud, Republicans began pointing out that faith in the election was pretty low.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said "a large percentage of the American public does not view the 2020 election result as legitimate because of apparent irregularities."
Well duh! People view the election as illegitimate because you kept lying and telling them it was illegitimate!
Well duh! People view the election as illegitimate because you kept lying and telling them it was illegitimate!
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) took the same approach and said "the integrity of elections must be self-evident ... where no one can plausibly question results."
Yet the only reason people questioned the results is because his party continuously lied & made baseless claim about fraud.
Yet the only reason people questioned the results is because his party continuously lied & made baseless claim about fraud.
Even after Trump's hand-picked far-right Attorney General, William Barr announced that there was no evidence of voter fraud, Republican lawmakers kept the charade up. Even after Trump lost 50+ lawsuits, the lies continued to flow.
"U.S. Sen. Rand Paul continues to falsely claim — without proof — voter fraud played a role in the election of President-elect Joe Biden. The Kentucky Republican said during a Wednesday congressional hearing the election 'In many ways was stolen.'" https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/16/sen-rand-paul-falsely-claims-presidential-election-stolen/3923681001/
Now that it's clear that the efforts to overturn the election will fail it's worth asking why GOP lawmakers continue to peddle lies. Part of the answer is they want to undermine a Biden presidency before he even takes office. But there's something even more sinister going on...
Let's return to the thread posted by Rep. Crenshaw in which he rehashes the lie that there were election integrity issues. What does he propose in response to that?
You guessed it! New voter suppression laws that would disenfranchise voters, predominantly Black voters.
You guessed it! New voter suppression laws that would disenfranchise voters, predominantly Black voters.
Crenshaw isn't alone. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's Secretary of State who has praised for refusing to overturn the election, is also calling for restrictive new voter suppression measures. This month he called for an end to no-excuse mail-in voting and new photo ID laws.
Raffensperger also set up a "bipartisan election task force" to improve voting policies. Today, the president of the Georgia chapter of the NAACP announced he is resigning from the task force, calling it a “farce.” https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/head-of-georgia-naacp-resigns-from-raffenspergers-election-task-force/YUOBHQAGXRCVRNIDW6UY6OQMIE/
Last week Raffensperger told the House Government Affairs Committee that GA should end no-excuse absentee voting. Yet by his own admission, there was no widespread fraud or evidence of irregularities.
What we're seeing is anti-democratic solutions to problems that don't exist.
What we're seeing is anti-democratic solutions to problems that don't exist.
And so that's where we're at now. An entirely engineered problem, followed up my baseless accusations of fraud or irregularity, and voter disenfranchisement proposed as the solution.
There's simply no denying what is obvious: The GOP does not believe in democracy.
There's simply no denying what is obvious: The GOP does not believe in democracy.
