Donald Trump might have lost all the election lawsuits of voter fraud, but the struggle for Republicans to sabotage voting efforts in the United States seems to have no end.
Instead of focusing on their flawed policies, inept candidates, and retrospection, Republicans are more tilted towards suppressing the efforts to vote once again in several states.
Recently, Republicans support voter suppression efforts to make sure that they could get the advantage of the low turnouts in the upcoming elections.
This turns us back to the last century when Jim Crow laws were in action, and the segregation of black people occurred at an unprecedented rate.
Jim Crow laws were a series of laws made against the people of color in the United States to disenfranchise them both politically and economically.
As Republicans are supporting voter suppression efforts once again, they are making sure that these very Jim Crow laws rise again in the US so that a specific faction of the society could be marginalized.
These efforts of the Republican party could allow them to target people of color yet again, as most of these laws could hamper all the hard work done in the previous ages that helped black Americans win the right to vote.
Republicans passed a bill in Montana recently which denies the facility for same-day voter registration. Now, Montanans cannot register to vote on election day, owing to the Republicans’ support of Jim Crow laws.
In Arizona, Republicans are trying to eliminate voters from the early voting lists in bulk so the efforts of early voting could be curtailed.
As Biden won Pennsylvania owing to the mail-in balloting, Republicans are trying to eliminate the provision of no excuse mail-in ballots in the state.
All of these laws are heaping upon their existing voter suppression efforts to tarnish the integrity of the electoral college.
Let’s dig deeper into how Republicans are supporting voter suppression efforts in the United States.
Republicans Attempt to Hijack Montana
Even though Montanans had decided to allow the same-day voter registration process, Republicans eliminated it as all but six of them voted in favor of the bill.
In 2014, Montanans gave a verdict in favor of same-day voter registration in a referendum. However, it seems that the Republican party doesn’t care about the people’s verdict.
Montana had the provision of same-day voting registration since 2005, and this decision to revoke an existing law is a classic example of how Republicans are supporting voter suppression in the state.
Arizona: The Leader in Suppressing Votes, Following 2020 Elections
The state of Arizona is leading the efforts to curb the right to vote of people following the 2020 presidential elections.
Arizona has at least 19 bills that are hindering the efforts for free and fair elections.
Of all these bills, the most dangerous is the Republicans’ attempt to dismantle the existing system of the electoral college in the state.
According to the new proposed laws of Republicans, the state legislatures would be able to appoint their own slate of electors.
If passed, it would allow the legislature to appoint their own electors without considering the results of the presidential elections.
Had this law been present before the 2020 elections, it would have been given all the electoral college votes to the former president Donald Trump instead of the election winner Joe Biden.
Another bill in Arizona is aiming at purging out voters from the early voting list in bulk so that the efforts of early voting could be curbed.
Similarly, Republicans are also trying to introduce a bill that would require early voters to notarize their early ballots before sending them back to the polling stations.
Republicans are Supporting Voter Suppression in Pennsylvania Eating Steroids
In Pennsylvania, a state that finalized Trump’s loss in the 2020 elections, Republicans are trying to make sure that the list of the absentee ballots is shrunk to the minimum possible limit.
The Pennsylvania assembly, which has a Republican majority, proposed a bill that would eliminate the provision of “no excuse” absentee balloting, which was introduced in the wake of the pandemic to curtail the contagious disease.
Not only this, Republicans are pursuing another bill that will allow officials to discard mail-in ballots just because of the mismatched signatures.
This way, Republicans are supporting voter suppression efforts in the swing state.
Georgia: Another Victim of Republicans’ Voter Abuse
Georgia is yet another state which disappointed Republicans a lot, not only in the 2020 elections but also in the Senate runoffs.
After losing both the Senate seats, Republican lawmakers in the state have introduced a series of laws aiming to curtail the efforts of voting freedom.
According to one law, the voters would need to present identification at the time of applying for absentee ballots.
Another bill recommends that the absentee ballots would only be issued to people greater than 75 years old, who have a disability or fall in some other restrictive categories.
It will also impact the scope of absentee ballots, as nearly 1.3 million voters exercised mail-in voting in 2020 elections in the state.
The misery in Georgia does not stop here. If someone changes or renews their driving license information, they would not be considered with the automatic voter registration process.
Final Thoughts
Republicans are on steroids while pursuing their bid of voter suppression, as they have crossed all the limits now. They failed to comprehend that the 2020 election loss was the result of the falsified policies which they pursued during Trump’s tenure.
Donald Trump was probably the one who dropped an axe on his own feet by remaining ignorant of the coronavirus pandemic that impacted millions of Americans who later voted against him.
Republicans are still feeding lies to the masses, as they are unable to learn their lessons despite a miserable fall in the 2020 elections.
It does not matter how many of these proposed laws become law in actuality; the introduction of these very laws is enough to create further bipartisanship in an already divided America.
Most of the time, the reasons for the proposed voting laws are flawed to their core. For instance, instead of eliminating same-day registration in Montana because of long queues, hiring more staff is a better option to carry out the process at a faster pace.
Similarly, instead of having more staff to count mail-in ballots to speed-up the process, Republicans are supporting voter suppression by eliminating mail-in ballots all together.
All of this clearly manifests that Republicans just want to further Jim Crow laws in today’s time, when Democracy is already an Achilles heel in the United States.
Donald Trump failed to prove not even a single voter fraud lawsuit, blamed the Supreme Court, in addition to being impeached for attacking the Capitol Hill on January 6 when Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s win.
Probably it’s time for the Republican party to sit down and think again if they could do a favor for themselves by alienating themselves from the violent ideology of Donald Trump, who left no stone unturned during his tenure to put roadblocks in the progress of the United States.
https://www.thesheel.com/republicans-are-supporting-voter-suppression-in-usa/?feed_id=581&_unique_id=6355ac7c4c067
