The Supreme Court will review a GOP law restricting early voting in Arizona, Reuters reported on Wednesday, February 24, 2021. Read story here.
The Court’s decision could have broad implications for GOP voter suppression efforts across the board. A slew of restrictive voting bills — more than a hundred — are pending in GOP-controlled legislatures.
This blog contends the GOP is driven by white supremacist ideology and considers voting by black people “fraud” and votes cast by black voters “fraudulent” (see previous article here). All the cities where Republicans falsely claimed “massive voting fraud” occurred in the 2020 election — Detroit, Milwaukee, and Atlanta, among others — have large black populations, and GOP vote suppression efforts specifically target black voters.
Numerous studies have concluded voting fraud is very rare in American elections. When it does occur, it’s often Republicans who are committing it (see, e.g., this article).
Combatting GOP attacks on voting rights is a major priority of the Biden administration and Democratic-controlled Congress,. A major voting rights bill is pending in Congress (read details here), but probably can’t pass the Senate without eliminating the filibuster, posing a major test for Democrats, some of whom want to retain the filibuster or are reluctant to abolish it. (The filibuster is a creature of Senate rules, and can be modified or abolished by a simple majority vote.)
In general, Republicans don’t directly attack voting rights, but rather try to discourage turnout by making it difficult and inconvenient to vote. For example, in Texas a gun permit is accepted as voting ID, but a University of Texas student ID card is not; and Republican election officials often resort to such stratagems as closing polling places, removing ballot drop boxes, and forcing targeted voters to stand for hours in long lines.
They also seek to cement minority rule through such tactics as extreme gerrymandering. For example, in Wisconsin, Democratic candidates collectively won a majority of votes in Assembly elections, but Republicans ended up with two-thirds of Assembly seats. Similar situations exist in other states’ legislatures and congressional delegations.