Friday, March 29, 2024 -
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Are we facing ‘voter suppression?’

President Biden, speaking in Georgia — a state that he takes to be Ground Zero of voter suppression — said:

“This is Jim Crow 2.0.”

To Republicans, “too many people voting in a democracy is a problem.”

Republicans “want to suppress the right to vote.”

“Will you stand against election subversion? Yes or no?”

“Do you want to be on the side of Dr. [Martin Luther] King or [former Alabama Governor and segregationist] George Wallace?”

When the president says “this” in “Jim Crow 2.0,” what is “this?” What is the referent? If the “right” to vote is suppressed, which right is it?

To get behind the generalizations — to know if the right to vote is being suppressed — specifics are necessary.

If it is true that the right to vote is now suppressed, or that legislatures intend to suppress it, must we say that before the pandemic, most of the country systematically suppressed the right to vote? For this right has now come to include voter drop-off boxes.

Before the pandemic, drop off boxes were in use in very few locations. Was, then, the right to vote suppressed in much of the United States before the pandemic?

Now, during that period of the pandemic when society was locked down, drop boxes were devised as a solution. Colorado is one of those places where votes could be dropped off even before the pandemic. I have done it for many years. But if, before the lockdown, this option were unavailable in Colorado, would my right to vote have been suppressed? And now, after the lockdown, if this option is unavailable, is the right to vote suppressed? Yes, but only if no other viable voting option is available.

So look at another specific: the mail-in ballot. It was not addressed when US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer recently enunciated his own generalization: “What motivated the insurrectionists is now motivating these state legislatures to do dastardly things [to suppress voting].”

In Georgia, a mail-in ballot is issued, no questions asked.

In Schumer’s own state of New York, a mail-in ballot is issued only upon a formal attestation as to the truth of the answers to questions; and if the answers are false, this is a felony! Applicants for a mail ballot in New York must attest that the voter is out of town, ill, caring for someone who’s ill, in a veterans facility, or in jail. Either that, or no mail in ballot.

Which state has the more liberal voting law on the specific voting right of mail ballots — Georgia or New York? If Georgia’s law is “dastardly,” what is New York’s law? Why hasn’t Schumer turned his wrath on his own state?

Another specific right: early voting. Is this right being suppressed? The Wall Street Journal says that in Georgia, in the last election, early voting began on Oct. 12 and went all the way up to the election, including two mandatory Saturdays and two optional Sundays. In New York state, early voting was limited to Oct. 23-31. If early voting is deemed to be a right to vote, which state honors this right the most, Georgia or New York? Are Schumer’s New York rules on mail-in ballots suppressing the vote?

I myself never vote early because I want to have all possible information about the candidates and their positions before I vote. If I vote on Oct. 12 or Oct. 23, for example, I deny myself the opportunity to vote on the basis of whatever might come out after Oct. 12 or Oct. 23. This makes my vote less informed.

In any event, another specific: Schumer says that early voting laws in Georgia are designed to suppress the votes of people of color, young people, urban people. Again, the people of Georgia have more two weeks to vote than the people of Schumer’s state of New York, but no matter. Schumer cites an instance of the need to travel 23 miles to vote early in one county in Georgia.

Well, the WSJ reports that the county’s election director is black, someone not likely to suppress minority votes. Moreover, certain precincts in the county are all of 600 square feet, which makes social-distancing difficult, so a consolidation-of-voting-places is under consideration. Moreover, free transportation to a polling place is provided. Moreover, there are Georgia’s no-questions-asked mail-in ballots. So you have this generalization by Schumer, “only one early voting place in an entire county . . . you have to travel 23 miles.” Sounds terrible, but do the specifics substantiate the generalization?

Are the legislators, or the citizens, in Georgia set on suppressing the right to vote? Last November and December in Georgia, the election authorities resisted every pressure from President Trump to alter the results of the election he lost. And today, in New York, a measure to liberalize the felony-threat, many-questions-asked mail-in ballot also lost.

In Georgia, the no-questions-asked mail in ballot remains the law. Is this voter suppression?

True enough, former President Trump’s repeated assertion that the election was stolen from him casts him, and those Republicans who stand with him, as intent on suppressing the vote of those would likely vote against him, or another Republican, in 2024. But intent is not the issue. Specifics are. Voter suppression can only be substantiated based on specifics.

There is a related, underlying issue. Some deem it essential to democracy in the US to make it “easy to vote.” I think this is the wrong message. Of course, all citizens should have the right to vote, but “easily?” Citizenship is a serious matter. I don’t think it should be “easy” to vote; convenient, yes; but easy, no. Citizenship should not be “easy.” Anything that is easy is not worth much. It should take some effort to vote.

Part of that effort is showing pride as a citizen. Although I typically have little patience for bureaucratic delays, I used to relish the long lines that formed outside the voting booth in the fire station near my home. I felt at one with my fellow citizens in arguably the most important act of citizenship: voting. I took the trouble to make sure I was registered, long before the vote. I took the trouble to make sure that my citizenship documents were in order —and to keep myself informed, which is also not easy. This should be the standard, not “easy voting” like same-day registration. This cheapens the significance of voting.

So when I hear the generalization — the right to vote is in danger in the US — it strikes me as scare-mongering contradicted by specific facts obtaining in most places around the country.

When I hear incessant generalizations about voter suppression and American democracy being in danger, I shudder. This kind of language divides the country. As does the incendiary language on the other side of the aisle. I fear that what Jonathan Tobin wrote last week is true: No matter who wins the next election, and no matter the margin, the other side will not accept it.

The only way to prevent such a disaster is for each side, Democrats and Republicans, to credit the good will of the other — to end overwrought generalizations and the incendiary language, such as Biden’s “This is Jim Crow, 2.0” or Trump’s “I won.”

Copyright © 2022 by the Intermountain Jewish News



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IJN Executive Editor | [email protected]


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