Democrats are working onerous to get out the vote. From Vice President Kamala Harris visiting rural Georgia, to Gov. Tim Walz hyping up a union crowd in Milwaukee, to 34,000 Taylor Swift followers becoming a member of a Zoom fundraising name and coming into their “Swifties for Kamala” period, the efforts are paying off. In distinction, former President Donald Trump and Gov. JD Vance stayed off the marketing campaign path for Labor Day, and Trump has no upcoming occasions on his schedule till Sept. 7.
As an alternative of making an attempt to get their supporters to the polls, the GOP is falling again on acquainted ways: voter suppression and unsupported claims of voter fraud.
Main the best way, as regular, is Texas—although they’re not alone. However earlier than diving into simply how dangerous issues are getting, it’s vital to do not forget that whereas voter suppression is actual, voter fraud on any significant scale is totally not. It’s been debunked and debunked and debunked. Even should you simply take a look at swing states, or use the breathless reporting from the hyper-conservative Heritage Basis, the numbers actually don’t add up.
Nothing about these uncontroverted info means a factor to Texas Legal professional Basic Ken Paxton, who’s overseeing an virtually comically evil assault on voters in his state. Paxton is satisfied that President Joe Biden solely gained the 2020 election due to widespread voter fraud. Now, Paxton’s “Election Integrity” unit is making certain the integrity of the 2024 election by having a number of armed officers execute a search warrant and seize the possessions of individuals like 87-year-old Lidia Martinez, whose ostensible crime appears to be registering folks to vote.
Tuesday, the League of United Latin American Residents, of which Martinez has been a member for over 35 years, known as a press convention asking that the Division of Justice step in. The group, which is the oldest and largest Latino civil rights group within the U.S., additionally despatched a letter to the DOJ late final month after Martinez’s residence was raided. LULAC mentioned that 4 different members of the group have been equally focused by Paxton.
Based on Paxton, LULAC members are being investigated for “allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting that occurred during the 2022 elections.” There’s quite a bit to unpack there. First, election fraud is just not a factor. Keep in mind the way it was a lot not a factor that even Trump’s handpicked “voting integrity” fee couldn’t discover proof of it?
Subsequent, “vote harvesting” is only a scary-sounding time period for the completely banal act of gathering absentee ballots and bringing them to polling locations or election places of work. It’s solely within the GOP world, the place extra voter turnout equals much less of an opportunity they win, that making certain extra folks get to vote is a foul factor.
Lastly, these allegations date not from efforts throughout this election however from the 2022 midterms. It takes quite a bit to consider that Paxton spent two lengthy, cautious years investigating and solely simply managed to wrap it up in time for the 2024 election. As an alternative, it seems to be quite a bit like what LULAC calls it: voter intimidation. Many individuals are going to suppose twice about serving to to register voters if the following step is a daybreak raid by armed officers.
Paxton can also be threatening to sue Bexar and Harris Counties—each of which went handily for President Joe Biden within the 2020 election—over their efforts to ship voter registration playing cards to everybody. So, to recap: Paxton doesn’t need personal teams to assist folks register to vote. He additionally doesn’t need the federal government to assist folks register to vote—nicely, a minimum of the federal government in blue counties.
Paxton can’t do all of this voter suppression alone, nevertheless. Fortunately for the GOP, Texas additionally has Gov. Greg Abbott, who’s busy bragging about eradicating over 1 million voters from the state rolls since 2021. Cleansing up voter rolls is a traditional course of, and states need to take away individuals who transfer or die. Certainly, the variety of voters Texas faraway from its rolls this time isn’t uncommon in comparison with earlier elections.
However by highlighting this massive purge so near the election—and only some days after the LULAC raids—Abbott is insinuating there’s something nefarious that he’s working to cease. Truly, he’s simply coming proper out and saying that, for instance, 1000’s of noncitizens have been suspected of voting.
If this sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of in 2019, Texas made a loud splash when it flagged a staggering 95,000 voters for “citizenship review,” alleging that “tens of thousands of noncitizens” weren’t simply registered to vote, however had beforehand voted. It took only some days for this to start out falling aside, with the state having to virtually instantly admit that 25,000 folks have been on the record by mistake, and plenty of have been residents. Your entire affair ended with a whimper, with Texas agreeing to rescind the advisory as a part of a settlement in three lawsuits introduced towards the state.
Ohio can also be getting in on the motion, with Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose additionally flagging alleged noncitizens. Very similar to Texas, although, this falls aside, with among the alleged noncitizens really being lately naturalized residents who’re subsequently absolutely eligible to vote.
LaRose retains sending voter fraud referrals to investigators, however the state has seen solely 13 convictions throughout a number of elections. Because the Ohio Capital Journal put it, this could imply Ohio’s voter fraud charge is about .0001%, as over 14 million state ballots have been forged in that point.
In states that don’t have a authorities prepared to assault its personal residents for making an attempt to vote, there are personal right-wing teams like United Sovereign Individuals inflicting bother. The group has introduced lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Maryland, alleging these states have mismanaged their voter registration and rolls. Explicitly stating its objective is to problem voter rolls in a number of states, hoping to get totally different rulings from totally different federal courts, the group is thus forcing the Supreme Courtroom to step in.
It isn’t shocking that Republicans are having to resort to improper voter purges and rancid, long-debunked allegations of voter fraud. When Trump took full management of the Republican Nationwide Committee earlier this 12 months, certainly one of his first acts was to shift assets away from Financial institution Your Vote, a 50-state RNC effort to encourage early voting. This echoes Trump’s 2020 rhetoric, the place he stored trashing his personal social gathering’s GOTV efforts by attacking mail-in voting.
Couple that with the truth that Trump has spent over $80 million in tremendous PAC cash on his authorized charges as a substitute of on working for president, and it’s straightforward to see why the GOP’s finest path ahead is stopping folks from voting.
