It is no coincidence that Hedrick Smith reposted this 3-month-old video this morning. The Pulitzer Prize-winning, former New York Times Moscow bureau chief published his best-selling “The Russians“ in 1976. Russians answering to a dictator in Moscow are attempting to crush a democratic government in Ukraine this morning. Its existence in the former Soviet republic is a threat to Vladimir Putin’s iron grip on the Russian state. More than economic sanctions. More than NATO.
Free and fair elections pose a similar threat to those who reject democracy in our country.
From Smith’s YouTube post:
Heading toward elections in 2022, it’s Code Red for American democracy with Republican strategists in key states moving to take partisan control of the vote count, threatening what has historically been an impartial nonpartisan process.
The media highlights the clash between Trump’s unproven charges of a stolen election in 2020 and Democratic protests that Republican legislatures in 17 states are suppressing the next vote with new restrictions on mail voting, early voting, and voter registration. But the greatest threat to our democracy and the popular vote comes from a stealth maneuver by GOP lawmakers in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin to inject partisan politics into certifying the vote, overriding established procedures and crippling or firing independent-minded election officials.
Hopes seem slim for bipartisan action by Congress to prevent another ugly showdown over the Electoral vote in 2024. But privately some Republican senators agree with Democrats that Congress must act to avoid a repeat of last January 6th that took American democracy to the brink of a breakdown.
This AP article, made me begin looking for a comprehensive, updated list of tactics being deployed by Republicans to rig U.S. elections. Every other day there seems to be a new one or a new twist on an old one. The list is already long. Here is another:
Repeatedly stymied by local courts in their efforts to draw maps that make it easier for their party to win elections, Republicans are trying to neutralize the ability of state supreme courts to interfere in the politically-charged redistricting process.
After setbacks in North Carolina and Pennsylvania’s supreme courts this week, GOP officials said the party needs to invest more in winning races for seats on those bodies. Republicans were particularly incensed in North Carolina, where the Democratic majority on the state court blocked a map drawn by the GOP-controlled state legislature as being illegally tilted toward one party, and on Wednesday approved one with three fewer Republican-dominated House seats.
N.C. Republicans have appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Speaking of Code Red, this popped up while I was preparing this:
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