While we watch (post below) Sen. "Moscow Mitch" McConnell's open jury tampering for the Senate trial of lying extortionist Donald "Impeachable Me" Trump, we see a different form of tampering -- voter suppression -- being led by Republicans in states across the nation intended to benefit them in 2020.
In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that that state's Republican leadership has closed numerous polling stations that serve minority and rural communities, making voting more difficult:
"The AJC’s analysis, vetted by two nonpartisan statistics experts, showed a clear link between turnout and reduced voting access. The farther voters live from their precincts, the less likely they are to cast a ballot.
Precinct closures and longer distances likely prevented an estimated 54,000 to 85,000 voters from casting ballots on Election Day last year, according to the AJC’s findings.
And the impact was greater on black voters than white ones, the AJC found. Black voters were 20% more likely to miss elections because of long distances.Without those precinct relocations, overall Election Day turnout in last year’s midterm election likely would have been between 1.2% and 1.8% higher, the AJC estimated." (our emphasis)With Georgia having automatic voter registration, Republicans had to find a way to cut into the African American vote, and making elderly black people trudge miles to the polls fits their style.
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin a Republican circuit court judge has ordered the state to immediately purge voter rolls of 234,000 voters, a move that will impact voters in Democratic strongholds such as Milwaukee and Madison. This past October, letters were sent out to those voters to verify their current addresses; 60,000 were returned as undeliverable. The Republican judge ordered the rolls purged immediately, denying a request by the state's election commission to stay the ruling pending appeal, eager to dump the voters from the registration lists before a verification could be made. The objective is clear:
"Wisconsin is perhaps the most heavily targeted state in the 2020 presidential election. Republican Donald Trump narrowly won the state in 2016 after it went to Democrats in presidential elections for decades.The cheaters are pulling out everything in their voter suppression bag of tricks next year, including enlisting like-minded judges to tip the scales. They need to be stopped and get out the vote efforts need to be redoubled.
The letters went to about 7% of Wisconsin's registered voters, but were concentrated more heavily in some parts of the state than others.
Milwaukee and Madison – the state's Democratic strongholds – account for 14% of Wisconsin's registered voters but received 23% of the letters.
Across the state, 55% of the letters went to municipalities where Democrat Hillary Clinton out-polled Trump in 2016." (our emphasis)
