The Latest Voter Purges Might be an Ominous Sign of What’s to Come.
Republicans are beginning to panic, and what’s happening in Wisconsin and Georgia should come as no surprise.
Over the course of recent decades here in the United States, there’s no question that voter suppression has been a commonly used tactic among our conservator legislators. Perhaps the most disturbing and consequential example happened in 2000, when vote counters in the state of Florida were intimidated by lobbyists posing as protestors in to ceasing the counting of the ballots.
As we all know the conservative leanings Supreme Court then stopped the counting all together and declared George Bush the President. In doing so, the court effectively throwing out thousands of votes and handing the election to the Republicans. When media organizations later finished counting the ballots, it turned out that in fact Al Gore had won the state of Florida, thus winning not just the popular vote but the electoral college as well.
It goes without saying that in that instance of voter suppression in particular, the entire world felt the consequences of American voter suppression.
One of the favorite tactics of voter suppression among not only Republicans but more corporate friendly democrats in areas like New York City is to conduct voter “purging”, and remove their names from registered voting lists all together. This practice has been used throughout the country by Republican-led organizations like Crosscheck, which went so far as to remove people from voting lists if they shared a similar name with another voter. While it certainly comes as no surprise, it should also be pointed out that the names more frequently purged were names commonly associated with minority communities.
Ahead of the 2020 election, it appears that Republican officials at the state level are at it again.
Recently, a judge gave the go-ahead for the removal of three hundred thousand voters in the state of Georgia. In Wisconsin, legislators are in the process of doing the very same thing, and sending out letters to hundreds of thousands of voters telling them that if they don’t respond then they will be no longer be registered to vote.
Of course, this devastating move is a clear sign that the Republican Party will grasp on to any shred of power they can by any means necessary, democracy to be ignored. It is infuriating, partisan, and a slap in the face of the American people. That being said, it also serves as a potentially ominous sign of what could be coming in election 2020 and all that follow.
As many of us remember in 2016, Donald Trump’s margin of victory in the key battleground state of Wisconsin was razor thin. With the leftist awakening and activism on the rise, it should come as no surprise that Republicans in the state have felt the pressure to do everything they can to ensure that Trump does not lose this upcoming election. Increasingly, they are being forced to rely on theft of elections in order to win and they are only growing more and more unapologetic and brazen with each passing Election Day. In Georgia (another battleground state) after their infamous theft of the Gubernatorial race from Stacey Abrams in 2018, sentiment among Republicans is the same.
Make no mistake: this is stealing an election before it even occurs, and we could be looking at another four years of President Donald Trump because of it. They have noticed the incredible country-wide gains that Democrats have made, and are geared up to respond in the only way they can. Now, more than ever, it is important for voters in battleground states in particular to pay close attention to the actions of their representatives, and preserve their constitutionally given right to vote. This is the time to organize, get active, and rally our communities to get engaged in the political process and hold our legislators accountable to the best of our abilities.
