Keep! It! Simple! Stupid!
Of course it had to be Texas. After all, what do you expect from a state that turns loose a posse of civilian bounty hunters to rat out women who want an abortion? Texas was one of the first states to pass an uber restrictive voting rights bill to restore electoral integrity, and since they’re the first major state to hold their primary elections, they’re the laboratory rat.
The Texas law made simply getting a mail in ballot more difficult, and made actually casting it even more difficult. Well, Texas is now well into their early voting before a March 1st primary, and the numbers don’t look good. But the question is, who do they look worse for?
Early state election board results show that a whopping 47% of mail in ballot requests were rejected. Score one for the GOP, right? Well, maybe not. And early voting results show that 40% of returned mail in ballots have been rejected. Again, advantage GOP, right? Well, maybe not.
How many times do I have to say it? The Devil is in the details! You’ll notice that none of those figures say that 47% of African American or Hispanic requests have been rejected, nor that 40% of African American and Hispanic returned ballots have been rejected. All it says is the raw number of requests and returned ballots that were rejected.
Personally, I think that the GOP hoist themselves on their own petard again. For example, one of the Texas restrictions to get a mail in ballot is that you use the same identification number, drivers license number, or social security number that you used on your original voters registration application. The thing is that all of these states, Arizona, Texas, and Georgia are requiring all voters to go through this process. How many people in their 60’s and 70’s are able to remember what they put on their application 30-50 years ago? But a mismatch is a reason for automatic rejection.
Likewise, Texas made the ballot too complicated. There is nowhere on the ballot itself to put your identification or social security number. To do that, you have to lift a flap on the envelope. And the place for your actual signature is in the lower corner of the envelope itself.
There is a basic problem here for the GOP. They got too far in the weeds trying to keep out the minorities. It is an established fact that the GOP is older, and lower educated. I turn 65 on Tuesday, and to be perfectly honest, I have no idea if I used my social security number, or my drivers license number, or both when I registered to vote in Illinois! And to be perfectly honest, I really don’t give a shit! I just wanna vote, and I’m more than willing to ride up to the Galleria Mall with Teri to do it. But I’m betting a whole lot of seniors aren’t. And that’s the GOP base.
Polling has shown that in early polls, the GOP has an edge in voter enthusiasm. Here we go again. An older, lower education base. Believe me. I’m a senior, and the last thing I want of for the government, any government, to do something to make my life harder. Fuck ’em, I jumped through their hoops for 40 years, just do your job. And I’m a freakin’ Democrat! Don’t kid yourselves, my frost top GOP brethren feel the same way. We’ve run the race, now you make it easy for us!
African Americans and Hispanics, and Asian Americans have had to fight for their right to vote for generations. It is personal for them, and a matter of ethnic pride and duty. Show them a hoop, and they’ll jump through it, but they will cast those ballots. The same is not necessarily true of privileged white voters like me, who grew up with the franchise as our birth right.
I’m not making any predictions here, but I’m just saying to watch this in the months to come. There is news out of Florida that dishonest vote workers switched their party from Democratic to GOP without their knowledge or permission. There are more than 100 of them reported so far. But while that may screw with their chance to vote in the Democratic primaries, it won’t stop them from voting for Democratic candidates in the general election.
The GOP is clearly in desperation mode to maintain power, and frankly I’m disappointed. With a stunt as cheap as cheap as changing party affiliation on a voter registration card, they are sinking to a level we haven’t seen since Nixon, the CRP operatives would order 15 large pizzas for delivery to a Democratic field office, and make the order COD. But with these new restrictions, the GOP may actually be turning off the very voters they desperately need to show up, by making it more difficult for them to cast their ballots. Don’t touch that dial.
I voted in the republican primary today. Something I have never done in many decades. I reviewed the dem primary and did not see anyone I felt strongly about either way. Instead I thought of old rat fuckers like Roger stone and voted against people I fucking hate. Abbot, Patrick, Roy,. I did vote for Paxton as I think he is the weakest candidate going forward. Not sure what this says about democracy, but fuck you to all the fucktards i voted against.
To paraphrase Kipling, “You’re a better man than I, Old grey dude.”
I absolutely REFUSE to ever cast a ballot for ANY Republicon–even as an exercise in hate. A couple of decades ago (during the 1996 primary season), I got a phone call from someone either with the GOP proper or just the Steve Forbes campaign and I have to admit I got VERY heated with the poor schmuck on the other end. I told him that there wasn’t a Republicon candidate that I would ever consider voting for other than Elizabeth Dole (who wasn’t even a candidate at that time) but that I’d still do that under extreme protest. The reason I’m thinking it might have been the Forbes campaign specifically because I seem to remember the guy mentioning Forbes’ “flat tax” campaign point about being able to file your tax return on a postcard and clearly told the guy that was nothing but a scheme to ensure the billionaires–like Forbes–got away with paying almost nothing because they’d still find a way to get out of paying even that flat tax rate.
Even now, when there’s only a GOPer running for a particular office, I simply don’t vote for the office.
Republicans are scum. I’m not going to participate in voting for scum–even if to winnow out the stronger candidates because, come November, you’re going to have those GOP voters who didn’t bother with the primaries who’ll come out and vote for whatever scum candidate has that (R) beside their name.
Of course, what the Democrats should do–following every primary in every state–is to remind Republican voters that *their* party has been claiming that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged, even for GOP candidates who actually won their races so how is it possible that any of the GOP candidates who won their primary races did so without any rigging? Isn’t it possible that the losing candidates were robbed of their rightful victories because of some kind of fraud?
I took a class on game and decision theory as an undergrad. Prisoner’s delimma and other scenario s. Vote for the option you think you can beat. That is my goal.
” tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered” Thomas Paine