If You Can’t Win Honestly …

Posted on by under Election 2022, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary, voting rights

The failure of the United States Senate to pass the two federal voting rights bills that crossed their desks in January has led to nearly every state creating highly restrictive voting laws this year.  Thank you, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, for doing your part to destroy the rights of We the People to have a voice in our government.  In addition to the restrictive laws the states have been passing all year, there is a last-minute scramble to add insult to injury just ahead of the upcoming mid-term elections.  Just a few examples …

  • Just three days after being sworn into office, Wyoming Republican Interim Secretary of State Karl Allred sent a letter asking clerks to remove all drop boxes in the state. “I’m mindful of the fact that there have been no issues reported with the use of the drop boxes in Wyoming, but that does not alleviate the potential for abuse …”  Say WHAT???  There is “potential for abuse” in every single thing in the world, but that doesn’t mean you ban them!!!  There’s the potential that I might throw my coffee cup at someone’s head and give them a concussion, but we don’t ban coffee cups!!!  We don’t ban cars that kill hundreds … thousands of people every year!  Hell, we don’t even ban f*cking guns … yesterday, a 15-year-old child killed five people with a gun in North Carolina, but do you think Congress will act on stricter gun laws?  Hell no!  But this jerk in Wyoming wants to remove all ballot boxes, making it much harder for many to cast a ballot, to use their Constitutional voice in our government, because of the ‘potential’ for abuse!  Ballot boxes are more dangerous than guns???  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
  • Last Friday, the Delaware Supreme Court struck down two recently enacted pro-voting laws claiming they ‘violated’ the Delaware Constitution. The two-page order struck down Delaware’s same-day registration and no-excuse mail-in voting laws. Another blow … a big one … to voting rights, especially for the elderly and the disabled who may have difficulty going to the polls in person and waiting in line, sometimes for hours, to cast their vote.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
  • In Pennsylvania, Republicans are trying to get 242,000 people … nearly a quarter of a million … removed from the voter rolls, claiming they have moved outside the state since the last election. I find it hard to believe that so many have left the state in under two years and have no clue how they have identified those voters, but I’d bet money that most of the 242,000 voted for a Democrat or two last election and that is the actual criteria!  Other states, such as North Carolina and Wisconsin have similar efforts underway to purge voters.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
  • Early in-person voting starts in Georgia next Monday, just three days away. Yet, thousands of Georgia voters have already had their eligibility challenged by right-wing activists, empowered by a provision in Senate Bill 202, Georgia’s 2021 voter suppression law that could challenge the voting rights of some 364,000 voters! I guess those right-wingers know that their ‘man’, Hershel Walker, only stands a chance to win if they keep enough voters away from the polls.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

This is only a sampling of the latest efforts.  Republicans cannot win in a fair fight, so instead they will fight dirty.  Winning is their only goal … if democracy gets in their way, then they will kill democracy.  There was, however, one bright spot in the voting rights’ news from the unlikeliest of sources, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis …

Yesterday, nearly two weeks after Hurricane Ian made landfall leaving behind massive damage to the state, Governor DeSantis issued an executive order allowing Charlotte, Lee and Sarasota counties to implement emergency changes. DeSantis’ order:

  • Allows counties to extend early voting and designate additional early voting locations
  • Gives voters in the three counties the ability to request their mail-in ballot by phone and for it to be sent to an address other than the address on their voter registration
  • Provides for drop boxes to be moved and polling locations to be consolidated as necessary
  • Increases the pool of eligible poll workers to address any shortages

19 thoughts on “If You Can’t Win Honestly …”

    • Fewer dropboxes means more people will have to vote in person, which means more people will just say, “To heck with it all” and stay home rather than stand in line for hours waiting to cast a ballot. Sigh.

      Liked by 1 person

      • At the last line as my daughter and I in my wheelchair were going up to the line about six people literally ran ahead of us to get into the line before us it was funny because they were standing behind and then all of a sudden they just ran up in front of us I couldn’t believe how rude that was. Every day you see more and more of this type of behavior. And of course when we were inside voting, they were in the same lines.🤪. I’m taking a step out today looking into Pete Buttigieg on my blog.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Oh my!!! That is horribly rude!!! Whatever happened to that little word “respect”??? I’m so sorry that happened to you … I would likely have given them a piece of my mind … not that I can spare many more pieces of it! I will check out your post! For some reason, I don’t get notifications of your posts anymore … I’ll look into that and make sure I’m still following. I did a post about Mayor Pete several years ago and I greatly admire him!

          Liked by 1 person

  3. And the beatdown goes on… and on… and on… Who is going to stand up and say to Repughs, “We are not going to let you do this!” You have 24 days left to create a revolution!

    Liked by 2 people

    • Don’t hold your breath for a revolution, especially by the Democrats who are far less violent, far more likely to use words as opposed to sticks. Probably a good thing, else come election day, half the Democrats would be in jail and not able to vote!

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      • Revolutions, as I have said before, don’t have to be violent. In fact, as you probably already know, I suggested a completely non-violent way to start a revolution in my latest post.

        Liked by 2 people

    • I hear your finance minister got the axe today! What a shock … not. Truss isn’t going to take responsibility … quick, blame Kwasi! Sigh. It would all be funny, but … it isn’t.

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  5. These politicians will do ANYTHINIG, to, ensure that they take control of the government, by taking away the given rights of us, citizens to, vote against them, and, if that doesn’t work, then, they will, throw a tantrum, until everyone else, allows them to have their ways, that, is how it is, all around the world right now, and the saddest part of that is, we the people, are, allowing for, this too!

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Jill, any group that wants to diminish turnout to win does not have a good story to tell. Voter suppression is as old as the hills, but is more laser focused now. Yet, those who have been doing the most cheating have justified change by accusing the other side. This cheating precedes Trump, but Republicans have leveraged the Big Lie to the hilt. Keith

    Liked by 4 people

    • Quite so, Keith. And after I wrote this post, after I gave kudos to Governor DeSantis for easing voter restrictions in hurricane-damaged counties in Florida, I read that the three counties where he put those more generous rules in place typically vote Republican, but another, Orange County, was equally damaged but he did no such favours for them … guess what? Orange Country typically votes Democrat. Rather than doing their job, Republicans seem to spend the majority of their time figuring out how to keep their job. Be nice if they worked as hard at the things we pay them to do!

      Liked by 1 person

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