Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser May 28, 2020 By Joni Ashbrook
During this pandemic that’s taken 100,000 American lives, Republicans have been fighting tooth and nail.
Unfortunately, they aren’t fighting for a “centralized coordinated plan” to take us though this pandemic as a top U.S. health expert, Dr. Rick Bright, testified is urgently needed. Nor are they fighting for more personal protective equipment for all essential workers.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with his cabinet in the East Room of the White House on May 19, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Trump threatened to withhold federal aid for Michigan and Nevada if they allow residents to vote by mail in November’s general election. (Alex Wong/Getty Images/TNS)
Even though Bright warned that without better planning, 2020 could be the “darkest winter in modern history,” Republicans are only fighting to keep people from safely casting their ballots by mail.
Texas Republicans are standing especially strong against this heresy. They find expanded absentee voting so abhorrent that they’ve asked the courts to stop it.
It must have been difficult for Paxton to keep a straight face while making that statement since he recently got caught abandoning his “sacred obligations.”
The Texas Secretary of State, abetted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Paxton, in 2019 attempted to purge nearly 100,000 suspected non-U.S. citizens from Texas’ voter rolls. Thanks to civil rights groups, they were forced to end the purge when it was discovered they were wrongly targeting naturalized citizens.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also opposes expanding this type voting. He mustered whatever shred of dignity he had left after throwing grandparents under the bus to save the economy, and declared it would be the “end of America” if mail-in-voting was expanded.
Patrick wasn’t alone in clutching his pearls over the mere thought of more Texans using this voting method. Trump pulled out his imaginary presidential powers threatening to withhold federal funds from the battleground states Michigan and Nevada for legally expanding mail-in-voting.
Trump claims voting-by-mail is ripe for fraud, but he’s said many things that aren’t true, like millions of people voted illegally for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Also, studies have found all forms of voting have very little fraud.
Republicans fear more people will vote, and that’s what fuels their voter suppression tactics. Blocking the expansion of mail-in-ballots is just another tool in their toolbox.
Other Republicans have also admitted they want less voter participation. For example, in 2011, Florida and Texas passed laws making it harder for Americans to vote, including imposing restrictions on voter registration drives that helped register minority voters.
Former Florida state Sen. Mike Bennett, claimed he liked the Florida and Texas laws saying, “I want people in Florida to want to vote as bad as that person in Africa who walks 200 miles across the desert. This should not be easy.”
Republicans oppose expanded absentee voting not only out of fear it would increase voter turnout, but it could also restrict their other voter suppression tactics that often target minority communities.
The GOP playbook includes purges of eligible (mostly minority) voters off the rolls, voter intimidation, long lines at Democratic leaning polling locations and a Texas voter ID law that a federal judge found “intentionally discriminatory.”
Since Texas has a history of pitifully low voter turnout, you’d expect our political leaders to encourage voter participation, not make it harder. We should demand Congress expand voting-by-mail not only for our safety, but to enhance our democracy.
