General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I wish a Democratic Senator and Congressmen [View all]pat_k
(9,313 posts)I wish we had been less focused on defending the presidential election as some sort of example of perfection, and more focused on the voter suppression and corruption that resulted in elections that UNDERCOUNTED Biden's support.
I would LOVE to have seen investigations and reports like Conyer's What Went Wrong in Ohio. We need to be FAR more proactive in creating well documented records of suppression that could be grounds for LEGITIMATE objections, like Stephanie Tubbs Jones (RIP) and Barbara Boxer's on Jan 6, 2005.
As far as I'm concerned, we shot ourselves in the foot by failing to counter every right-wingnut claim of "fraud" with REAL examples of unlawfully purging qualified voters from the roles, under allocating resources to create intolerable long lines in urban and AA areas, and other tactics that denied far too many citizens the right to vote.
They will use their claims of massive fraud as grounds for more, and more effective, suppression tactics. We utterly failed to lay the groundwork for mounting a national battle against voter suppression.
As I posted in another thread:
The right to vote means the right to EASILY cast our ballots and have confidence our votes will be correctly counted.
The enemies of free and fair elections are well organized and powerful. We need a massive counter effort. Effective national media and fundraising. On the ground efforts in legislatures. Campaigns to expand universal mail in voting WITHOUT vote suppressing, and utterly unnecessary requirements like witnesses.
Each of us can help by pushing our leaders to act and pushing the organizations we belong to to make battling voter suppression a top priority! We can write letters to the editor condemning voter registration purges and any other tactics at work in our own states. We can awaken patriotic passion for defending our most basic right.