By now, Dear Readers, you may have heard of the effort by Georgia Republican electeds not only to eliminate Sunday “Souls to the Polls” voting promoted in Black communities, but to prohibit volunteer efforts to help people stay in line to vote when wait-times run long:
Limiting Sunday voting would affect Black voters beyond losing the assistance of the church. It would inevitably lead to longer lines during the week, especially in the Black community, which has historically been underserved on Election Day.
The bill would also ban what is known as “line warming,” the practice of having volunteers provide water, snacks, chairs and other assistance to voters in line.
That particular food-and-drink provision (based on my quick scans) seems to have been dropped in the legislative sausage-making (maybe shame still holds somepower). Still, it was there in the original Republican bill. Anything to make voting more of a burden for voters who tend to vote Democrat. Or even for Republican voters, for that matter. The GOP treats its own as acceptable casualties when laying land mines and erecting barbed wire to hamper its opponents. They play the percentages. So long as barriers to ballot access hurt their opponents more than their own, it’s all good.
Especially if their own are women, as I noted before, in the case of photo IDs:
The Republicans’ argument is since voting restrictions in their majestic equality prevent rich and poor, Republican and Democrat alike from participating as full citizens without presenting IDs, nothing is amiss in passing and enforcing them.
But in professing concern for “election integrity,” fearful, white Republican politicians are playing percentages, displaying scorn not just for their opponents but their own supporters. They are willing to sacrifice the franchise of thousands, potentially, as acceptable casualties in elections, if that is what it takes to win, including their own sisters, wives, and daughters.
It’s simply a matter of fine-tuning people’s ability to exercise their rights.
Kentucky Republicans are preparing for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s eventual retirement (or death) if he does not serve out his full term (he was reelected last November). McConnell, 79, has prepared a short list of “heirs.”
But there is a snag. Under Kentucky law, naming a replacement under the circumstances above would fall to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. Republicans can’t have that. So it’s time for the GOP-controlled legislature to rewrite the law, the Intercept reports:
The new legislation, Senate Bill 228 — dubbed by some inside the state Legislature as the Daniel Cameron Election Bill — was filed on February 10, 2021, during the Kentucky General Assembly’s 30-day “short” session. The bill alters current state statute that allows the governor to appoint a replacement in the event of a vacancy to the U.S. Senate. If the bill becomes law, the appointment to fill a vacancy will be selected from a list of three names submitted by the state executive committee of the same political party as the senator who held the vacant seat. According to the bill, the appointee from that list will then serve until a successor has been elected by voters. The legislation goes on to list instructions on when elections take place in the event of a vacancy.
Republicans in North Carolina leading the charge on this kind of thing, that is how it works in my state now. The GOP-controlled legislature in charge here since 2011 made those changes in steps between 2013 and 2018, with the “list of three names” provision passed into law in 2018 without Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) signature.
It’s how they roll.