Only Congress Can Save Our Democracy

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.democracydocket.com/2021/03/only-congress-can-save-our-democracy/

Attorney Michael Carvin, representing the Arizona Republican Party, had almost finished his argument to the U.S. Supreme Court when the newest Justice, Amy Coney Barrett, asked him why Republicans have an interest in stopping Arizona from counting otherwise valid votes when the voter mistakenly cast her ballot in the wrong precinct. The pair of consolidated voting rights cases were brought on behalf of Latinx, Native American and African-American voters because the refusal to count wrong precinct ballots unequally affected people of color. Carvin’s answer was jaw-droppingly shocking, not because it was untrue, but because he let the cat out of the bag, admitting the widely known truth about voter suppression that Republicans have denied for decades. Carvin responded: “Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game…It’s the difference between winning an election 50 to 49 and losing an election.”

For decades, the Republican Party has been trying to win elections by making voting difficult for racial groups likely to vote for its opponents. We are intimately familiar with the modern Republican Party’s voter suppression playbook, which creates rules and requirements that seem neutral but make it harder for people of color to vote and have their votes counted. As President of the North Carolina NAACP, Dr. Barber filed a federal lawsuit, for which Ms. Hair served as lead counsel, challenging the Republican majority’s passage of a 2013 North Carolina “monster” voter suppression law that added numerous obstacles more harshly impacting African American and Latinx voters. Like the Arizona case, the North Carolina law banned the partial counting of valid votes cast out-of-precinct in federal races such as for President, Senator and Governor that are not tied to living in a particular precinct. It also adopted the nation’s strictest photo voter ID requirement, cut early voting, and eliminated same day registration, among other suppression measures.

We proved racial motive using the Supreme Court’s framework to analyze direct and circumstantial evidence to determine whether the Defendants’ stated motive—preventing voter fraud—was actually a pretext for partisan-inspired racial targeting. After years of painstaking investigation and weeks of trials, we were able to prove, as the Court of Appeals found, that the North Carolina General Assembly had targeted African American voters “with almost surgical precision.”

Years later, Carvin’s candid response confirmed the real reason for Republican-led campaigns across the country to make voting harder based on race, ethnicity, gender and class status: to gain a “competitive advantage relative to Democrats.” That is exactly what the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found in our North Carolina case. Refreshingly, Carvin did not trot out the usual playbook used to defend voter suppression—that it is needed to address voter fraud. Until Carvin’s admission, Republicans routinely cited voter fraud, almost with a wink and smile, as the justification for erecting barriers to voting. Study after study has found that no election fraud of the type that these barriers could impact exists.

*snip*

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Congress may be the mechanism to secure voting rights, but it will take an uprising of the people

To convince enough in congress to do the right thing.

Millions will be able to safely March in the streets, especially the streets of WV and AZ, to demand passage of HR’s 1&4 by this fall.

Manchin and Sinema are in for a long hot summer...

[stopdiggin]

2. The term 'uprising' -- given recent events

gives me somewhat of a pause. I think perhaps I'm more in line with what went down in Georgia. Rush the polls (if you're going to rush anything) -- in numbers that overwhelm any efforts to suppress.

The answer to voter suppression -- is to turn red statehouses blue. The idea that they are 'listening' to anything else (protest, activism) -- I think misreads the situation entirely.

Edit: (this should probably be a response to post#1. messed it up.)

[abqtommy]

3. It's good to remember that the U.S. was founded and established by a violent insurrection

against the lawful government of the time. Certainly in these days every part of our
Federal, State and local Governments have an important part to play in maintaining and realizing the positive potential of our country.

The recent fascist attack on our country's capitol was supposedly meant to achieve the same result but it was a process built on fraud and lies. It could've been worse but it was
bad enough.

Our founding fathers were true patriots as were all who died to make us a nation. Let's keep the faith with them and not allow these fascists to spread their lies that they've succeeded or may succeed in the future. They've doomed themselves and it's up to all
the rest of us to make sure they're done.