GOP Defies Courts To Suppress Democratic Votes

When John McCain entertained the possibility of never voting for a Supreme Court justice who would be nominated by Hillary Clinton, it became clear that the GOP is a revolutionary, reactionary party that is no longer interested in governing under the rule of law. Trump, of course, reinforces this view daily with his insistence that the election is rigged and there is massive voter fraud. Of course, the massive voter fraud that is actually occurring is the rampant disenfranchisement of minority voters in Republican states. And, in another example of the GOP’s unwillingness to live under the rule of law, Republican election officials are now flouting the rulings from courts around the country in order to restrict minority voters in this election.

The Nation reports that, in Wisconsin, voters are systematically being denied IDs that would allow them to vote. For voters who do not have the full slate of documents required to get a formal voter ID card, state law says they should receive a different voting credential within six days that would still allow them to vote. Instead, those people were directed to an ID Petition Process (IDPP), but the process took six to eight weeks. The IDPP was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge and said thee state must “promptly issue a credential valid as a voting ID to any person who enters the IDPP or who has a petition pending.” Instead, voters who go to the DMV without sufficient documentation for an official voter ID are still being told that they must go through the IDPP process which will take six to eight weeks to complete. And most of the DMV offices did not have IDPP forms easily available. An ACLU representative says flat out, ” Wisconsin has promised the court that voters would be able to get an ID with whatever documents they have. They’ve completely failed to live up to that promise.”

In Ohio, Secretary of State John Husted has purged over 2 million people from the voting rolls over the last few years. And, in a study that surprised no one, the majority of those purged came were low-income minority Democratic voters. Unfortunately, a federal court has ruled that over 1 million of those purged were removed illegally. Negotiations over a settlement have apparently broken down and the state is now offering a compromise that would block from voting anyone who had been purged before 2015 and would those who were purged in 2016 and wished to vote by mail or had changed their address. Some compromise. The federal court has still yet to rule on this compromise but at this point so close to the election it is hard to see that it will matter.

In Texas, a federal judge ordered the state to relax its strict voter ID requirements and allow those without one of the seven valid forms of ID to sign an affidavit that would still allow them to vote. The judge further ordered the state to spend $2.5 million to educate the public that “the opportunity for voters who do not possess [a valid photo ID] and cannot reasonably obtain it to cast a regular ballot.” Instead, Texas removed the word “reasonably” from their education materials (in violation of the court order) and subsequently threatened to prosecute voters who signed the affidavit if they could prove that they could have obtained the valid ID. Needless to say, the judge was not happy that his words were not correctly used and has ordered the state to revise all its materials.

Finally, federal courts have already ruled North Carolina’s legislative maps as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. But that still won’t keep the Republican Boards of Elections from reducing early voting hours in districts across the state in an openly partisan process.

And this does not even cover other states where courts have yet to rule on some voting restrictions. In many of these states, early voting has already begun and the process is still not working correctly. And the courts are not going to be able to straighten anything out and until after the election is over. In addition, any court rulings just add to the confusion about what is or is not needed to vote which in itself reduces turnout. But more importantly, the refusal to quickly comply with court orders is yet another example of how the Republican party is destroying the norms of governance and threatening the rule of law. This has been an undercurrent in the party for many years, but it has culminated and emerged from the background with the Trump campaign. The threat to throw political opponents in jail, the denial of legitimacy of the vote, and the refusal to say whether the outcome of the election will be respected are simply the hallmarks of a reactionary, revolutionary movement that is no longer interested in the democratic process but solely in the continuation of its own power.