RECLAIMING AMERICA: CRIMINALIZE ELECTION FRAUD

RECLAIMING DEMOCRACY:  ELECTION FRAUD

CRIMINALIZE ELECTION FRAUD & DISENFRANCHISEMENT

By Jack Random

     

“The range of voter suppression efforts has been more widespread, intense, and brazen this cycle than in any other since the modern-day assault on voting began.”

Zachary Roth and Wendy R. Weiser

Brennan Center for Justice, November 2018

The year 2000 and the subverted election of George W. Bush reactivated my outrage at social injustice and motivated a barrage of political commentary.  Before then my political consciousness had all but gone dormant.  I was aware but not engaged.  Until then, politics served only as backdrop and undercurrent for my written works. 

For me that election changed everything.  I was incensed at what happened in the state of Florida.  I witnessed the stealing of a presidential election and the spectacle of media belittling criminal activity as the “shenanigans” of the political class.  It was far more than shenanigans.  To anyone who believed in the democratic form of government it was nothing short of treason. 

And the closer we looked the worse it got. 

Not only did an army of political operatives subvert the recount in Florida with staged demonstrations and orchestrated disruptions, not only was the democratic process preempted by the judicial branch, but the story of a deliberate and massive disenfranchisement campaign was ultimately revealed.  Yet no one outside the far left seemed to care.  We didn’t have time for a valid election.  We didn’t have time to right the wrongs of the partisan political operatives who stole the election.  Instead of going to jail those same operatives went to the White House for the next eight years, reaping the rewards of their misdeeds.   

The modern age of disenfranchisement had begun and virtually no one noticed. 

But I noticed.  And others like me noticed.  We did what we could.  We sounded the alarm.  We pleaded with the American public to demand electoral change. 

Then came September 11, 2001.  President George W. Bush proclaimed it the day that changed everything.  It was the day that transformed an illegitimate president into a self-proclaimed war president.  On false pretenses he launched the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the pro-democracy movement – along with the environmental movement and every other progressive cause – receded into the backdrop as we turned our attention to war. 

That is the nature of war.  It tends to dominate public consciousness and overwhelms all other issues and concerns.  Maybe that is one reason our presidents are so inclined to engage in war.  Any war will do. 

Nearly twenty years later the so-called “global war on terror” goes on and the problem of mass disenfranchisement remains.  In the election decided by the Supreme Court an estimated four to six million legitimate voters were disenfranchised – many in the deciding state of Florida.  At that time Florida prohibited those convicted of felonies from voting in perpetuity.  The state of Florida used that law – recently repealed by referendum – to purge the voter rolls in predominantly minority communities.  They hired Database Technologies to compare the list of felons and ex-felons with the list of registered voters.  It was ingenious.  The operatives knew that the felon list included a disproportionate number of minority names.  If your name was identical to or even similar to anyone on the felon list you were eliminated from the voters list and denied the right to vote. 

There are many methods of disenfranchisement, including unreasonable identification requirements, inadequate voting facilities in minority districts, changing the polling place at the last moment and failing to notify voters, providing false information and providing an inadequate number of ballots as well as purging the voter rolls.  Were it not for disenfranchisement it is highly probable that Bush would have lost not only in 2000 but in 2004 as well.  Those who are old enough might recall the long lines of African Americans in the critical state of Ohio in 2004.  That was not a coincidence.  It did not happen in the precincts where the white upper middle class voted.  It happened in the poor neighborhoods where minorities voted. 

After the debacle of 2000 you would have thought there would be a wave of reforms to prevent disenfranchisement.  The reality was precisely the opposite. [1] Political operatives realized they could steal elections and get away with it.  Even if they were caught with their hand in the ballot box – or on the voter roll – the worst that could happen would be a scolding by the talking heads on CNN or MSNBC.  In short, the rewards far outweighed the risks. 

As the 2020 election looms the operators deserve kudos for creativity in denying the right to vote.  In North Dakota Republicans passed a requirement that voter identification include a residential mailing address, knowing that Native Americans often lack that requirement.  Texas and Wisconsin also passed new identification requirements designed to repress the minority vote. 

An appellate court temporarily struck down a sweeping voter suppression law in North Carolina but the authors and sponsors of that legislation faced no real consequences – or rather no negative consequences.  Thom Tillis, the speaker of the state house responsible for guiding the bill to passage was elected to the United States Senate.  Moreover, provisions in that law will be in effect during the next election cycle. 

In New Hampshire the legislature passed a bill designed to suppress the student vote by prohibiting student voting in the precincts of their college or university.  In Georgia the senate passed legislation cutting voting hours and restricting early weekend voting. 

It seems the battle for voting rights has become strictly partisan and is being waged on a state-by-state basis.  Is this any way to run a democracy? 

We have no recourse at present but to continue the battle in the state legislatures.  But the goal and the only long-term solution is to pass federal legislation that upholds voting rights and criminalizes attempts to obstruct those rights. 

What would happen if the operators who design and promote disenfranchisement schemes were subjected not only to severe financial penalties but also to criminal prosecution?  The executives that ran the great disenfranchisement in Florida should have faced prison sentences for defrauding the election of a president.  Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris should have faced criminal conspiracy charges. 

How different our electoral system would look today if those who attacked the very heart of the republic had paid the consequences.  The Karl Rove’s and Corey Lewandowski’s of the world should have lost their livelihoods and fallen into the pit of disrepute where traitors, cheaters and frauds belong. 

Instead of looking for ways to cheat the system, the Republican Party would have been forced to expand its franchise to include minorities.  Who knows?  Maybe they would have passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill.  Maybe they would have sacrificed some small fraction of their loyalty to the wealthiest of Americans to help the little guy.  Maybe they would have found a way to throw an occasional crumb to workers – like passing a $15 minimum wage. 

But who needs to expand the voter base when you can manipulate the voter roles, suppress the minority vote, harvest and alter absentee ballots, promulgate false information through election day robocalls, hack voter registration lists, alter ballots or find as yet untried ways of winning elections without a majority of votes. 

Until there is a stiff price to pay for defrauding democracy, disenfranchisement and voter suppression will continue to be accepted practices in the fine art of politicking.  As long as political operatives face minimal consequences for cheating the ballot, we will continue to have illegitimate representatives in both congress and the White House.  Until we stop rewarding anti-democratic practices, American democracy will fall short of the mark. 

“How the 2000 Election in Florida Led to a New Wave of Voter Disenfranchisement.”  By Ari Berman.  The Nation, July 28, 2015. 

“This is the Worst Voter Suppression We’ve Seen in the Modern Era.”  By Zachary Roth and Wendy R. Weiser.  Brennan Center for Justice, November 2, 2018.