||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS BY JACKIE BATES |||

World news has been discouraging of late with the Israel-Hamas conflict escalating and probable war crimes in Northern Ethiopia, so I decided to look a little closer to home for cheer. While I did find relief in reported progress against the pandemic, at least in the U.S., if not India, I didn’t find much fun in the political news about voter suppression.

According to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, there is a great deal of state legislation to suppress voter rights since the 2020 election. According to their report, as of February 2021, there were 35 bills introduced in 15 states.

Then by March 24, state lawmakers had introduced 361 bills in 47 states to make it harder for residents to cast their ballots. Some of the ways to make it difficult to vote include restricting early voting by mail, purging voter registration lists for changes of address (using U.S.P.O. data, without checking accuracy of that data), restricting hours polls are open, meaning working people may have to take time off work without pay, challenging signatures, reducing drop off boxes, etc. etc.

Of course such restrictions are hardest on the least well off citizens, including low-wage workers, people without convenient transportation, people with health problems and/or domestic responsibilities which restrict their ability to stand in long lines for hours at the polls, sometimes in brutal heat. In some bills, volunteers are forbidden to offer bottled water and pizza, as that might influence votes.

The highest number of bills have been in Texas (49), Georgia (23) and Arizona (23). By April 3, 2021, only three states had NOT introduced bills: Ohio, Vermont and Delaware. Washing State legislators had introduced fewer than five bills, but my scanty research did not reveal exactly how many bills or their nature.

All this seems to be a result of former President Trump’s dissatisfaction of the outcome of the 2020 election, and his supporters’ efforts to take back the US House and Senate in 2022 by any means. Trump still insists President Biden is in office as a result of voter fraud, in spite of the many investigations that fail to support that claim.

Now, one more harrowing thing: In three minutes of your time you can watch a leaked video showing support of state efforts to pass voter suppression legislation and some of the money that goes into that effort. In the video, you can see Jessica Anderson brag how her group is influencing legislators in several states in developing voter suppression bills, making it seem like ‘grass roots’ action, and in some cases ‘writing the bills for them.’ Really?

 

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