'Trump Wants 50 Wisconsins On Election Day' Opinion, J. Bouie, NYT
'Trump Wants 50 Wisconsins on Election Day.' The G.O.P. has turned voting in person into a death threat. By Jamelle Bouie, Opinion, April 10, 2020. EXCERPTS:
The voting debacle in Wisconsin on Tuesday was further evidence of an incontrovertible reality in American politics: The Republican Party does not believe in free and fair elections, where free means equal access to the ballot and fair means equitable rules and neutral procedures...What’s true of Republicans in Wisconsin is true of Republicans nationwide. There is no part of the Republican Party — not its president in the White House, not its leadership in Congress, not its conservative allies on the Supreme Court, not its interest groups or its affiliated media — that has an interest in or commitment to a fair, equal and expansive democracy.
Just look at the last decade. First, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the conservative, Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court opened the door to unlimited campaign spending by corporations, interest groups and wealthy individuals. Then, in Shelby County v. Holder, it swept away the “preclearance” section of the Voting Rights Act, freeing states to adopt new restrictions on voting and ballot access, an invitation they promptly took up. And most recently, in Rucho v. Common Cause, the conservative majority all but gave its blessing to the extreme partisan gerrymandering seen in Wisconsin and other Republican-led states by declaring the issue “nonjudiciable” by federal courts, meaning that they supposedly can’t do anything about it.
...The most prominent Republican voice against free and fair elections is, of course, President Trump’s. As the Covid-19 pandemic forced states to postpone voting and adopt contingency plans, he urged his co-partisans to oppose mail-in balloting, which would ensure that every voter who wanted to could participate. “Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to statewide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.”
...Several states already use mail-in voting, including one — Colorado — with a conservative Republican senator. Millions of ballots have been mailed in during dozens of elections and there’s been no evidence of serious fraud or misconduct. That “tremendous potential” is essentially nonexistent. It seems silly to even argue about this because Trump is not motivated by a sudden impulse toward good government, he’s motivated by partisan advantage. And he believes his side will lose if everyone who wants to vote can cast a ballot.
In this, Trump is no different than most of the rest of his party. Republicans do not believe they can persuade a majority of voters to support their agenda. They’ve practically given up trying. And so they fight to exclude Democratic-leaning voters from the electorate...
Read More, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/wisconsin-primary-2020-election.html
- 'Wisconsin voters wait hours at the few open polling stations,' Arkansas Democrat Gazette/AP, April 7, 2020
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/apr/07/wisconsin-voting-underway-despite-virus/?news-national
- Bridget McDonald, rt, receives ballot from poll worker Patty Piek-Groth, April 7, 2020, Janesville Mall in Janesville, WI.
- Chaos in Wisconsin As Voters In Long Lines Choose Health or Democracy, Assoc. Press, April 7, 2020