Sign up to get updates from us
Introduction
No voter suppression exists or is planned for anywhere, including the “headline” states of Texas and Georgia.
That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode.
Continuing
In Texas, early voting starts 17 days before the election, and ends 4 days prior. Mail-in ballots can be requested by mail, fax or email. You may vote by absentee ballot in Texas if you are 65 years or older, disabled, or otherwise unable to vote in person. Polls are open 7 AM to 7 PM on election day.
In Georgia, early voting starts the fourth Monday prior to the election, ending the Friday before. The State of Georgia allows absentee voting by mail and in-person; no excuse is required to vote by mail. Absentee ballots may be requested up to 78 days prior to the election. Ballots may be returned by mail, fax or as an email attachment. Polls are open from 7AM to 7 PM on election day.
Flyaway Texas Democrat State legislature members are citing the proposed removal of pandemic voting add-ons like 24 hour voting and drive thru voting for their boycott. They left Texas to stay in motels in DC to deny the Texas House a quorum, hoping to defeat the new voting law they claim suppresses minority voters. Some supporters of the Democrats see them as defending democracy itself, while their critics see their DC jaunt as an exclusive summertime sightseeing tour of Washington, all while being paid for their services as representatives in absentia. Here’s a quote from one of the flyaway legislators, “I left because I am tired of sitting as a hostage while Republicans strip away the rights of my constituents to vote.” Really? Strip away the right to vote? Only people who do not know even the basic facts about voting laws in Texas would believe a word of this. And those crying “voter suppression” know it.
The perspective of the Democrat politicians and media claiming voter suppression is clear: Anything that takes the act of voting from requiring almost no effort and saddles the voter with slightly more, but still minimal, effort constitutes voter suppression. Considerations like vote security, logistics, including the availability of paid and volunteer polling and counting staff (at a time when it is difficult to attract workers), and cost are dismissed as racist. The perspective is clear, now let’s ask why they have that perspective. The answer is equally clear: They want to do anything at all to make certain that no Republican is ever again elected to national office, and that fewer and fewer are elected to state office. Here’s how.
Less interested voters, those who will vote only if virtually no effort is involved, will vote Democrat. That’s well known.
Eliminate the Electoral College. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans; the Electoral College is what levels the playing field, so it needs to go away.
Related to the above is the push to have the Senate apportioned by population as is the House. Voters have selected U.S. senators in the privacy of the voting booth only since 1913. This system of “direct election” was not what the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind when they met at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Article I, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, as written by the framers, provided for election of senators by state legislatures. This created a Senate that could be composed of well qualified, thoughtful people who were not at the direct whim of the electorate. This balanced the directly elected House and Presidency. No, this was in no way elitist; it was another of the well thought out checks and balances in our Constitution. The very best counter to this now missing check and balance is an educated, thoughtful, responsible electorate (What Makes A Qualified Voter? EP. 290).
Supporting de facto open borders, with continuing plans to both allow as many of those here illegally to vote, and find an eventual path to voting citizenship for all who are here illegally. Everyone knows this group will vote majority Democrat. My views on immigration reform (Immigration Redux: The Clear Solution No One Wants. EP. 301) are simple, clear and fair. (But when was the last time our politicians thought that simple, clear and fair was anything that interested them?) BTW, my immigration reform does not include voting rights for those who initially snuck in; that’s a bridge too far.
Let’s look at a current, sweeping, voter suppression lie. President Biden has compared Georgia voting laws with the Jim Crow laws. Here are a few examples of the hundreds of hateful Jim Crow laws.
The term “Jim Crow Laws” is often used, but less often understood. Jim Crow was the name of a minstrel character created in 1828 by Thomas Rice. Rice’s comedy routines and the popular song “Jump, Jim Crow” established the common name for laws that enforced racial prejudice. These laws held sway mainly in the South from the end of the Civil War until the 50s and 60s, with the Supreme Court upholding them in 1896 with the Plessy v Ferguson separate but equal decision. Thanks in large part to the work of NAACP lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, in 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional–effectively reversing Plessy. President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965, officially abolishing all Jim Crow laws.
Today’s Key Point is a question. Q. What part of any state’s voting laws, all of which allow for liberal access to the polls via days and weeks of early voting in addition to election day voting, is at all unfair to anyone with even the slightest real interest in voting, much less bears any resemblance to Jim Crow? A. None, no part. No state. Anyone can vote in any state if they have any real desire to vote. If they are willing to exercise even the slightest responsibility as voting citizens.
But you won’t know that unless you take on the personal responsibility of being informed.
Speaking of personal responsibility, it does not stand alone; the two main and interdependent principles at Revolution 2.0 are:
Where do you stand? What are you going to do? Remember, it does not matter where you stand if you don’t do anything. You can start by subscribing to these episodes, and encouraging others to subscribe with you.
As always, whatever you do, do it in love. Without love, anything we do is empty. 1 Corinthians 16:14
Contact
As we get ready to wrap up, please do respond in the episodes with comments or questions about this episode or anything that comes to mind, or connect with me on Twitter, @willluden, Facebook, facebook.com/will.luden, and LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/willluden/. And you can subscribe on your favorite device through Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts.
Will Luden, coming to you from 7,200’ in Colorado Springs.
