Suppressing the vote by any means necessary
Another GOP non-solution to a non-problem from frightened men who can’t govern except by making it harder for U.S. citizens to choose their leaders. TFG Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson announced an “election integrity” bill at their Mar-a-Lago meeting on Friday. Their bill would make voting by non-citizens illegaler than it is already.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a bluff that has no chance to get past the U.S. Senate if Republicans even introduce it. Trump and Johnson got the publicity. They stoked the MAGA base’s xenophobia. They fed the voter fraud conspiracy theory. These guardians of the republic further undermined confidence in government of the people in which they themselves no longer believe. It’s a win-win-win-win.
How will they make the illegal illegaler? We don’t know, not having seen the bill (if it exists). People already must swear on penalty of a fine of “not more than $10,000″ or imprisonment of “not more than five years, or both” that they are U.S. citizens when they register to vote (to be verified by boards of elections). If they slip through somehow, it’s still a felony if they vote in a federal election.
Now, having required photo IDs to vote in state after state, will Republicans require citizens to produce at their polling stations their long-form birth certificates, Social Security cards, or passports at the polls? And which Americans might have the most trouble obtaining those and getting over this new barrier to casting a ballot?
That was a rhetorical question.
FYI, Associated Press:
CLAIM: Social Security Administration data shows the number of voters registering without a photo ID is skyrocketing in three key swing states, evidence that migrants who entered the country illegally are registering to vote in Arizona, Texas and Pennsylvania.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Election officials in all three states said the information being shared is incorrect. In fact, recent voter registrations in those states are well below the numbers being cited online. The posts are misrepresenting data from the SSA’s Help America Vote Verification system, which tracks requests by states to verify the identity of individuals who registered to vote using the last four digits of their social security number. Only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections and noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare, as states have processes to prevent it.
THE FACTS: With three months remaining in the presidential primary season, social media users are misrepresenting government data to suggest that the country is seeing a surge in voter registrations by migrants who came to the U.S. illegally.
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