Voting Rights Under Attack in all fascist states

March 7, 2021 / Posted in  Blog

Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, Selma, Alabama

Biden and Congressional Democrats have sought ways to blunt the Republican push in Congress and state legislatures to make voting more difficult. Biden unveiled his plan of action on the anniversary of the 1965 Bloody Sunday civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. “Those torches and burning crosses, the batons, tear gas, fire hoses, attack dogs, and unfair laws and trials could not stop progress,” Biden said in his remarks.¹

Iowa, like Ohio and other Republican-controlled states, is putting restrictions on voters, limiting early voting, setting criminal charges on county auditors helping Iowa voters. There is an overriding fear that if all Iowans have the opportunity to vote, Republicans would lose control of the state House, Senate, and Governorship. Iowa, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida are making it especially hard on elderly voters, those with disabilities and those who have transportation issues.² In Iowa early voting has been cut by 11 days and the time to request an absentee ballot has been cut by 50 days from 120 and will cause longer lines to vote.

Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig,who has made it his career going after SNAP, Medicaid, elderly and low income Iowans.

Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, an arch conservative and white supremacist like Iowa US Rep. Steven King (R-4th Congressional District) said he believes that Iowans were disenfranchised in 2020 “by some shady dealings in five cities around the country” and that “I think that shows what happens when you don’t strengthen your election system.” He did not provide evidence.³

In Florida, it is no secret that new restrictions will make difficult for Democrats to win races.⁴

Matt Gaetz (R-FL) Trump’s top ally in FL.

Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), worried allowed that if voting restrictions are eased then no Republican would ever win an election.⁵  Gaetz is trying desperately to blunt the scandal of his sex game played by among lawmakers in the Florida House a few years ago. When he went after Al Sharpton Chris Latvala responded by accusing Gaetz of having “created a game where members of the FL House got ‘points’ for sleeping with aides, interns, lobbyists and married legislators.” The scandal  was brought to public light in 2013 by Politico reporter Marc Caputo, then working for the Miami Herald, who tweeted, “Hey ladies! Source: young male FL Reps have point-system contest for having sex: 1=lobbyist 2=staff 3=other legislator 6=married legislator.”⁶

Thirty-three states have introduced 165 bills this year to restrict voting access, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, compared to 35 bills introduced in February 2020. Many of the bills would limit voting by mail, enact stricter voter ID requirements and make it easier to remove people from voter rolls, according to the Brennan Center.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf

Pennsylvania was one of the few states to modify its law and provide a “no-excuse” mail in voting option.⁷ Wolf rejected the Pennsylvania Republicans call that there was voter fraud in 2020 as there was no proof except for one man, Bruce Bartman,

Bruce Bartman voted for his dead mother casting an illegal vote for Trump.

who voted for his dead mother for Trump.⁸ Two other cases in Pennsylvania were found to be men who voted for their dead relatives (two women  who had been dead for several years) and in each case admitting to casting the illegal ballot to “further the campaign of Donald Trump.” Trump.⁹

Christi Jacobsen, a rabid supporter of Trump, with the support of the KKK and American Nazi Party in MT, became the Secretary of State of Montana in 2020.

Montana has joined other fascist-controlled states to restrict voting. Christi Jacobsen, Montana’s newly elected secretary of state, a radical Trump supporter, has swiftly called for a raft of “election integrity” measures that add restrictions, including shaving voter registration hours and increasing voter identification requirements, despite the Montana voters delivered every statewide office to Republicans like her and the state’s three electoral votes overwhelmingly to then-President Trump. Republican elected officials in Montana are currying favor with Trump’s base and display their loyalty to the former president. Any Republican who has publicly doubted his lies about a fraudulent election was branded disloyal. Now, Trump may well be setting a new bar for loyalty: supporting restrictive voting measures that he claims would have helped him win in 2020.¹⁰

Trump has called open voting a crime, and screamed about a “stolen election” in Georgia. Now, Georgia prosecutors are opening a criminal investigation into Trump’s three calls to Georgia secretary of state trying to get them to “find” 11,780 votes he needed to throw their electoral votes to him.¹¹

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis

The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has sent a letter asking state government officials to preserve documents, including those related to the then president’s call to the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, pressuring him to “find” more votes: “This matter is of high priority, and I am confident that as fellow law enforcement officers sworn to uphold the constitutions of the United States and Georgia, our acquisition of information and evidence of potential crimes via interviews, documents, videos and electronic records will be cooperative,” said the letter dated 10 February.¹² Willis  is the first African American woman to hold the job in Georgia’s most populous county, the New York Times further reported, and has promised reforms. Willis is tackling high homicide numbers in Atlanta as well as a review of the handling of the police killing of Rayshard Brooks, last June.