Election Turmoil

I have been voting since 1960. I have voted in North Carolina. I have voted in South Carolina, and I have voted absentee while in the military, first in Alabama and then in Vietnam.

I have voted for Democrats. I have voted for Republicans, and I have vote for candidates who belonged to neither of the two major parties.

I have been a poll worker. I have been a poll watcher. I was the voting officer for my Army unit, and I have been an unsuccessful candidate.

In all those years, in casting all those votes, and in participating in the electoral process in various ways, I have always felt that my vote was secure. My candidate did not win in every case, but I never doubted that my vote had been counted.

In 2020, that sense of security has been undermined.

Now I am not so naïve as to believe that every voters in the Carolinas in the 1960s felt the same as I did at the time. African Americans were still subject to all sorts of voter suppression tactics.

The country began to address that problem in 1965 with passage of the Voting Rights Act. It required preclearance by the US Department of Justice of any regulation, policy or law which might impact access to the ballot in states with a long history of discrimination against minorities. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, in the twenty years following passage of the act the disparity in registration rates between white and black voters dropped from nearly 30 percent to only eight.

Despite the obvious evidence of the act’s success in combating discrimination, in 2013 the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision ruled the preclearance requirement was unconstitutional because data on discrimination had not been updated. The defect cited in Shelby v. Holder can be repaired quickly through legislation, but Republicans in the US Congress have resisted any such measures.

As a result, in state after state, Republican state legislatures have implemented new laws and strategies targeting specific groups, generally those that tend to vote for Democrats. Voter rolls have been purged under dubious circumstances, photo id requirements have been imposed with deliberate intent to exclude certain citizens, efforts to gerrymander election districts have been intensified and a raft of other low level inconveniences have been implemented, such as moving or closing polling places in neighborhoods with significant minority residents and limiting time and places for registration drives, for early voting, and for mail-in voting.

A notable example of the extremes to which Republican governors have been willing to go, the Texas chief executive, Greg Abbott has limited mail-in drop boxes to one per county, regardless of population. This represents a significant hardship for voters in the state’s most populous counties, which are mostly Democratic. That his action has been upheld by the US Fifth Circuit Court reflects the effectiveness of the collusion between Trump and GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in remaking the federal judiciary.

Added to the assault on voter rights, has been Donald Trump’s persistent ranting about voter fraud and “rigged” elections. Without any evidence of meaningful violations in previous elections and without any sympathy for voter fears about the pandemic, he has labeled anticipated mail-in voting this year a “disaster” and “a whole big scam.” Trump also has encouraged mail-in voters to go to polling places on Election Day and cast an in-person ballot if poll workers cannot confirm their mail-in ballot has been received. Even after being warned there are laws against voting twice, he continues to offer that advice.

The new postmaster general, a wealthy Trump supporter, tried to complicate the mail-in voting issue by imposing drastic budget restrictions on the US Postal Service, raising questions about its capacity to handle the likely increase in mail-in voting. In addition, the US Department of Justice, under William Barr, has already begun investigating possible election fraud cases. There is no indication DOJ is pursuing any cases of discrimination under the remnants of the Voting Rights Act.  

With characteristic bombast Trump also has assailed peaceful protesters as “thugs” and “anarchists,” and given a greenlight to private militia groups, like the “Proud Boys.”  Trump’s rhetoric and his unwillingness to condemn violence and unlawful behavior by his supporters is heightening the danger that mayhem could occur during the 2020 campaign and afterwards. His refusal to state a willingness to concede peaceably if he loses November’s election simply adds fuel to the fire he’s laid.  

It’s not only Democrats who are concerned about the atmosphere in which the 2020 election is being held. Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a recently retired attorney with a long track record of representing Republican Party groups, wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post in September stating:

The president’s rhetoric has put my party in the position of a firefighter who deliberately sets fires to look like a hero putting them out. Republicans need to take a hard look before advocating laws that actually do limit the franchise of otherwise qualified voters. Calling elections “fraudulent” and results “rigged” with almost nonexistent evidence is antithetical to being the “rule of law” party.

I will still vote in this year’s election, but not by absentee as I originally intended in view of the pandemic and my age. Instead, I will take advantage of early voting to insure that my vote will not be endangered by mail problems or the continuing changes related to absentee voting.

It’s regrettable that our nation’s current leadership has created an environment in which respect for my right to vote, and yours, is in doubt. Democracy cannot survive under those conditions.