GOP Suppresses Votes, but Americans Fight Back!

Are you interested in knowing how to fight voter suppression? With this article, I introduce some of the individuals and organizations already leading the battle. Please understand that it’s far from an exhaustive list. Nonetheless, the main objective is to outline a roadmap for Americans to thwart the un-American attempts to suppress election votes. Before highlighting these strategic points, I underscore the human reasons for that necessity.

On February 20, I published “How the Culprits Get Away With Voter Suppression” (https://bit.do/linkedin-voter-suppression-culprits-by-greg-williams-ph-d-). Because this article extends that one, you might want to read it first. Before going further, I must establish:

No credible, empirical research exists to support the claim of widespread voter fraud.

My doctoral dissertation provides a scholarly analysis of both sides of the partisan argument (https://bit.do/Greg_Williams-dissertation-voter_fraud_disinformation-), which is not the purpose of this article.

Paul Weyrich, a co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and Reverend Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, suggested in 1980,

“They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote ... As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

My three LinkedIn articles show that their 40-year strategy has intensified. On February 20, 2020, multiple reporting agencies, including the Associated Press, reported,

“Trump’s campaign, RNC to spend $10 million on voting lawsuits.”

For raising the concerns of engaged GOP voters, conservative media outlets spread the propaganda of organized, widespread voter fraud and then argue for the need to implement restrictions. They first invent the problem; then, they broadcast it to their audiences. Finally, they claim that because vast numbers believe it, our elected leaders must act. In describing “the weaponization of lies,” Daniel Levitin (2017) explains the danger of this public-policy method of legislating.

Heroic Secretaries of State

Not all conservatives are complicit in these voter-suppression tactics. For example, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, confronted one culprit, whom I exposed in my recent article (https://bit.do/linkedin-voter-suppression-culprits-by-greg-williams-ph-d-).

Charlie Kirk, the right-wing Turning Point USA’s founder, falsely claimed that several Iowa Counties had more adults registered to vote than they had voting-aged citizens. He exclaimed this as his proof for needing “national Voter ID!”

To disprove that lie, Pate responded to Kirk’s tweet with a link to the actual county-by-county voter registration totals. Exposing a lack of courage, Kirk failed to acknowledge—much less apologize for--contributing to the false public narrative that feeds the Republican Party’s voter suppression strategy.

A divergent example of a state secretary serving its electorate, protecting the integrity of the electoral process and exemplifying democratic (small “d”) leadership, is Pennsylvania’s Kathy Boockvar. In August 2019, she was appointed to serve as the nationwide Elections Committee Co-Chair. Working with her co-chair and secretaries of state across the country, she shares best practices and provides the most secure and accessible elections to all eligible voters. In that capacity, she formalizes and improves information-sharing and communication protocols to ensure that timely information, support, and resources reach all election officials, enabling them to respond to emerging threats.

Fight the Purge

Unfortunately, not all state election officials behave honorably in America’s democratic interests. For example, Georgia Governor and former Sec. of State, Brian Kemp, who I discussed in my previous article (https://bit.do/linkedin-voter-suppression-culprits-by-greg-williams-ph-d-), has earned a legacy of voter suppression. His Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger and he purged 340,134 voters. Thus, they stole Georgians’ voices and votes for Stacey Abrams. As a result of Abrams’s nonprofit Fair Fight Action (FFA) litigation, Kemp was forced to admit to 22,000 “purge” errors. Last month, FFA released an advertisement encouraging Georgians to examine their voter registrations to verify whether they were purged. According to FFA, it had prevented about 26,500 voters from having their voting rights stolen.

Investigative reporter Greg Palast is completing a short film exposing how Kemp “illegally stole the election.” In a February 28, 2020, Raw Story interview, Palast explained how the GOP plans to “steal” this year’s elections. He revealed that Kemp conspired with Kris Kobach, the former Kansas Sec. of State and de facto head of Trump’s failed voter-fraud commission, which I discussed in my two previous articles.

Georgia in 2018 was the test drive for the theft of 2020 by Donald Trump and the Republican Party. All across America -- in 20 states and perhaps more -- there is a new system of purging the voter rolls which will change the 2020 elections. There has been a massive increase in voter purges through an initiative called “use it or lose it.”

Palast is a reporter on a mission. Exploiting Kobach’s Interstate Crosscheck system, Kobach and Kemp further targeted 7 million voters of color in 30 states.

Trump re-election adviser Justin Clark described to the delight of prominent Wisconsin Republicans the 2020 election strategy (https://bit.do/linkedin-voter-suppression-culprits-by-greg-williams-ph-d-). Republicans are striving to remove 237,000 from the voter rolls of this swing-state, which handed Trump the presidency by 23,000 in 2016. Now they want to purge 10 times Trump’s margin of victory.

Shout Outs!

• A rogue State Law Office, Colorado’s District Attorney’s Office - 4th Judicial District (https://bit.do/linkedin-federal-voter-suppression-by-greg-williams-ph-d-), flagrantly advertises its yearning to uncover voter fraud with an actual volunteer-job advertisement. Conversely, the Advancement Project National Office valiantly seeks to hire a legal aid to fight voter suppression.
• In January, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Common Cause together won a crucial New York case. Judge Alison Nathan ordered all inactive voters’ names to be included on lists maintained at each state polling place after finding that voting rights were violated by being removed. This legal organization also is challenging efforts to suppress vulnerable students’ voting efforts. It publicizes that it “has trained volunteers on standby ready to help. If you experience any voting issues, call the @866OURVOTE hotline. https://lnkd.in/eDwKYRF”
• Last month Perkins Coie LLP won a vital battle in Arizona that protects the ballots cast by people of color (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/27/arizona-republicans-intentionally-discriminated-against-minority-voters-court-rules). This also was a significant victory against the Trump Administration, and the law firm continues to fight voter suppression nationwide.
• By increasing civic engagement throughout the historically disenfranchised communities, Steven Montoya and State Voices are strengthening democracy. State Voices helps grassroots organizations nationwide to build political power.
• America Votes, self-described as the coordination hub of the progressive community, seeks young patriots to engage civically to protect every American’s right to vote.
• VoteRiders also is encouraging youth engagement on college campuses. According to Jazlyn Gallego, it also covers the cost of obtaining voter IDs, including the supporting documents necessary for registering. Further, it will assist anyone who seeks assistance.

Tools of the Trade

Virtually any serious endeavor, such as a profession, a sport, a game, or a social cause requires customized toolsets. Battling voter suppression is no different. Such a toolset may consist of human and inanimate instruments. Fortunately, several innovative, progressive organizations and even freelancers are working hard to protect democracy from its enemies.

Voter registrations.

In 49 states, eligible citizens must register to vote before Election Day. The exception is North Dakota. Depending on specific state laws, multiple registration locations may exist:

• local election offices
• Department of Motor Vehicles
• other state agencies that provide public assistance
• third-party voter registration organizations (https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-registration.aspx).

Some states offer additional options, such as online voter registrations, same-day registrations, or pre-registrations.

• Rock the Vote’s Jenna Zitomer recently announced her organization’s 2020 original college-campus Ambassador program. The goal is to teach skills to young leaders. They are learning to mobilize their connections to participate in the civic process. Further, they aim to set a historical precedent with their registration numbers.
• A recently established nonprofit, Count Us IN (CUI), was founded by Jalyn Radziminski, who supports Abrams's work as an FFA Fellow. (Full disclosure: I’m a CUI Board Member.) Similar to what FFA does in Georgia, CUI is combatting voter suppression in Indiana. Also comparable to what Rock the Vote does in its targeted states, CUI is organizing on-campus voter registration drives.
• Citizens with a proclivity for civic engagement and who revere American democracy may desire to obtain registration applications from the appropriate local locations and register their friends, family members, or even strangers. For example, Ken Abraham, the CEO at Get A Pardon and Founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, carries voter registration paperwork for three nearby counties. He engages younger adults in political conversations. If anyone hasn’t registered, he offers them the form, explains it, and encourages them to complete it.

Jenna, Jalyn, and Ken ARE making a difference! They are splendid examples of practicing critical civic engagement and strengthening our weakened democracy—that is, American values. This year we all must step up our patriotic games.

Get out the vote!!!!

When Election Day arrives—or during the Early Election voting period—it’s crucial to get all registered voters to the polls! In popular parlance, this concept is “Get Out The Vote” or “GOTV.” Although intuitively, it might seem that each major political party would see it in its interests to increase turnout among their core supporters, theoretical and empirical evidence both indicate otherwise.

Considering Hochschild’s and Einstein’s (https://doi.org/10.1017/S000712341400043X) Group 1 informed disengaged eligible voters, the GOP has less incentive to GOTV. This group disproportionately resides within the Democratic Party. Partisan environments, changing state-level demographics, and electoral competition condition the demobilization strategy. In a competitive electoral setting, Hicks, McKee, Sellers, and Smith (2015, https://bit.do/voter-groups-peer-reviewed-) argue that the Republican effort to boost its chances relies partly on strict voter-ID laws designed to deter a larger--albeit an often more apathetic--collection of Democratic Party supporters from voting. Kobach’s statewide successes are examples.

Among the much faster growing minority electorate, the Republican Party has been unable to expand its appeal. Therefore, it relies on a two-prong strategy to win elections--mobilize the base and advocate electoral reforms that demobilize Democratic supporters (https://bit.do/voter-groups-peer-reviewed-). That minority constituency reveals visibly lower turnout rates relative to the shrinking non-Hispanic White electorate that’s more supportive of GOP candidates. Facing this reality, Republicans depend on coalition maintenance instead of expansion. By approving suppressive voting laws, which--even if marginally--would intend to restrict the participation of voters aligned with the Democratic Party, the GOP achieves that goal. 

According to NGP VAN’s website, it’s

the leading technology provider to Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations, as well as nonprofits, municipalities, and other groups, offering clients an integrated platform of the best fundraising, compliance, field, organizing, digital, and social networking products.

Laura Green, NGP VAN’s Political Marketing Strategist, emphasizes that the campaign mindset should maximize the strategist’s influence and minimize resource expenditures. In January, NGP VAN users had 20,000 unique canvassers, which the organization underscores comprised 89% of the nation’s door knocks (https://blog.ngpvan.com/5-gotv-tools-you-need-0). For 2020 GOTV, it has developed four specific tools that all canvassers need.

• With MiniVAN, organizers can decrease both the time and resources necessary to assemble packets and the amount of time to train volunteers.
• Minivan Manager is a supplementary accountability tool that explains the crucial measures of all canvassers. Having the complete story as it develops helps adapt to real-time adjustments.
• The Predictive Dialer automatically dials numbers and screens phone calls to bypass “answering machines.” By saving both time and money, this instrument can increase phone banking efficiencies threefold over hand dialing.

By investing in engineered tools such as NGP VAN’S MiniVAN, MiniVAN Manager, Predictive Dialer, and Live Calls, canvassers reach more voters, while doing less data-entry.

Next, I spotlight the Voting Rights Lab's recently developed instrument. Anyone interested in one location for accessing voting laws and proposed legislation for every state and D.C. in nearly real-time must check this innovation:

the “State Voting Rights Tracker” (https://lnkd.in/gx-Z-Nr). #voting #votingrights #legislation #policy #laws

Certainly, it would serve the interests of policy and research analysts, activists, academics, journalists, and lawyers.

Recommended Call to Action

This article itself is a call to action. Nonetheless, a complete strategy to eradicate voter suppression requires a more intensive plan that I can achieve in this LinkedIn article space. My passion focuses on this mission, but it requires rigorous contemplation.

 The GOP election strategy exposed: they’ll spend millions of dollars to make it harder for Americans to vote–and that’s un-American!

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced a proposed fine of nearly $13 million against a robocaller that targeted minority voters of communities in California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, and Virginia. I argue that democracy’s advocates should demand our elected leaders to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine (https://bit.do/linkedin-voter-suppression-culprits-by-greg-williams-ph-d-). That policy would enable the FCC to restrict irresponsible influence peddlers from manipulating the media into spreading their disinformation. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights was one of the first civil-rights groups to actively urge the FCC to launch an investigation into the fearmongering and hate-fueled robocalls that spread misinformation and cause harm. 

We also should demand the major news outlets to start covering these critical issues of voter suppression and the allegations of widespread voter fraud as the disinformation that they are. They need to include Palast’s findings! He has vowed that his team of experts will continue to examine the purge list name-by-name.

Palast and Abraham have vast LinkedIn networks. Andrew Beckwith also has a massive following of 21,000 and frequently posts comments about democracy. They attract numerous LinkedIn reactions, and many followers share those posts. Indeed, I share all their voter-suppression posts with my network, and Abraham and Beckwith (among others) have shared mine. 

What more can we do? Without help from Senate Speaker McConnell and Trump--both of whom realize personal benefits from electoral chaos--the Democratic campaigns should focus on voter registration, early turnouts, and maximizing absentee voting (along with GOTV). Let’s render as many ballots on paper as possible in as many states as possible. 

I suggest you invite each individual to your network named in this article. Additionally, you may follow each organization identified. Google them to learn more about their missions. For the nonprofits to which you feel the most profound connections, donate (often tax-deductible) to their noble causes to help strengthen their results. In this article’s “comments” section, give other groups the recognition they deserve. While you’re at it, briefly explain their contributions to fighting voter suppression.

I desire to strengthen our weakened democracy, and I keep current on matters relevant to voter suppression and voter-fraud disinformation. I frequently share my comments to correct the disinformation. I try to speak daily with others involved in related issues, and I would be delighted if you consider me your primary resource.

FOLLOW ME, AND PLEASE CLICK THE "THUMBS-UP" ("LIKE") ICON, AND SHARE MY ARTICLE WITH YOUR NETWORK.