The Facts Support It: The Republican Party Really Doesn’t Want People To Vote
Written By: Anton Sawyer
The Facts Support It: The Republican Party Really Doesn’t Want People To Vote
2022 has been a banner year for Republican legislative nonsense. So much so that it has made the overall balance of articles published here on The Indie Truther being critical of both parties a near impossibility. This isn’t to say that the Democrats aren’t worthy of being excoriated, but rather with them, you have to play the long game and wait until one of their main agendas passes before picking it apart. So don’t fret, they will falter eventually and the balance will be restored.
In an attempt to maintain complete transparency, all research and statistical fact-checking for all articles can be found in the bibliography linked here.
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With that being dealt with, there’s another GOP-infected deception that has recently made the rounds which will be the focus of the piece today: whether through legislation or intimidation tactics in order to maintain a conservative way of life, the Republican party is doing everything it can to minimize the number of voters who stray from the flock. This is all being done while damaging the rights of everyone else when it comes to the ability to vote with relative ease. Before we get too far, a couple of caveats.
First off, I need to kill the idea that the Republicans want to keep the voter turnout lower simply because “history shows us that lower voter turnout favors the GOP.” This is a myth. In the interest of supporting facts—even the ones that I once opposed due to my own personal ignorance—it’s important to note that places like Fact Check.org have debunked this lie previously. There is no clear pattern throughout history that shows a lower voter turnout benefits either party, especially as it pertains to presidential elections.
Secondly, I need to dispel the idea that there was widespread voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. An Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by ex-President Donald Trump has found fewer than 475 incidents—a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election. I’m not going into the specifics of whether these were in favor of the GOP or not; the number is so minute it isn’t worth a complete breakdown (though you can read the full report from the link in the bibliography section if you’re into that kind of thing).
It’s also important while reading this article to keep in mind that there is a very specific reason why so much time and effort is spent with this effort to impact our voting institutions. A quote from early 2021 perfectly represents the main reason why the GOP must keep the laws in their favor. “From a purely partisan perspective, Republican presidential candidates have won the national popular vote only once in the last 32 years,” read the statement from Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ken Buck of Colorado, Chip Roy of Texas, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, Tom McClintock of California, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina. Between the need for Supreme Court intervention in the 2000 election when it came to recounts, to the exposed failures of the electoral college when it comes to the will of the people via popular vote in 2016, this statement is true.
Though the lack of evidence supporting voter fraud claims and the non-need for some kind of backlash seems like a relatively simple concept to grasp, as we’re about to see, it’s been incredibly difficult for a large number of people to “get.”
DeSantis and the Office of Election Crimes
It was announced in March 2022 that Florida will open up the first Office of Election Crimes and Security in the country after the state’s GOP-led House passed a bill authorizing such a thing. The newly approved office, which will be based in Tallahassee, will “initiate independent inquiries and [conduct] preliminary investigations into allegations of election law violations or election irregularities in this state." It’s important to note that in the report, Florida wasn’t one of the voter fraud “hotspots” in 2020.
Once again, the party that prides itself on fiscal responsibility has decided to throw money at an imaginary problem—a problem of their own creation to be more accurate. Though the bill fell short of DeSantis’ original request of $6 million—less than half to be correct—there are still going to be millions of taxpayers’ dollars that are going to fund a non-issue. But the important thing to remember is that all of this pageantry of legislative authority is doing nothing more than helping to convince more people that something is going on. There will always be those who believe, “if the government is putting so much money into it, then it’s something that needs to be investigated.”
What this kind of legislation brought about by DeSantis is going to do is bog down the system both in terms of finances and manpower; but who cares in the name of security? One of those who have supported this kind of oversight in the name of security has been conservative pundit Sean Hannity. In fact, he’s also stated that such measures as a chain of custody for all ballots should be employed. "I often cite several measures that all states should adopt. Voter identification, signature verification, chain of custody integrity, voter rolls being updated for every election, and most states have statutory language that partisan observers be allowed to watch of the vote count, all political sides, they should watch the count from start to finish."
When I worked in a specimen testing lab for a sister company of the University of Utah, we would get samples of urine or the like for drug testing, and those required a chain of custody. We would have to give them to our manager, who would then have to contact the manager of another department to hand the sample over. This manager would have to oversee the test itself being run and then verify the results out to the proper recipient.
This is what your voting experience would look like: You go to a poll and are being watched by someone who would then have to take your vote to the manager of another part of the voting machine/polling location to verify it. This would be followed by your vote being handed out to yet another election authority who … you get the point. The level of additional people and bureaucracy added to the voting process would exponentially increase the probability of the vote being lost, along with a massive increase of taxpayer spending (depending on how each state would write the law).
Trump Leftovers
Also in early March of 2022, Trump’s minions lost another court case that had the intention of stifling voters. Wyoming legislators failed to advance a bill barring so-called crossover voting in state primaries, a measure ex-President Trump backed as he pushes voters to oust one of his most vocal Republican critics, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming. The bill would have prohibited voters from changing their party registration on primary Election Day, barring last-minute changes that would allow them to choose the party primary in which they wanted to participate.
Supporters of the bill said making the change would prevent Democrats or independent voters from casting a ballot in the Republican primary—presumably, voters who would be more likely to favor Cheney. Trump has made it clear that he doesn't want to muddy the waters by allowing a liberal taint to the outcome. "This critically important bill ensures that the voters in each party will separately choose their nominees for the General Election, which is how it should be!" Trump said in a February statement.
To be honest, out of all the different methods presented here today, this is the one that I feel is the most beneficial to the GOP based on reality. Because my voting history has been one that has mostly favored the independent candidates (like Nader in 2000 and Sanders in 2016 during the primaries), I know that if I were allowed into the Republican primaries, I would do everything I could to remove the conservative darlings from whichever office I were allowed to impact. With the use of the word “primary” as a verb being followed by names like Kirsten Sinema (2022) and Joe Manchin (2024) on the Democratic platform with Mitt Romney (2024) joining them on the opposite side of the fence becoming increasingly popular, I could see the possibility of an open primary for the GOP decimating most of their “blue chips.”
When All Else Fails, Boots on the Ground Will Work
In the spring of 2022, a lawsuit was brought about in Colorado that alleges the US Election Integrity Plan—led by Shawn Smith, an ally of former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell—has been using intimidation tactics in an attempt to suppress voters of color.
In it, the lawsuit cites the "County & Local Organizing Playbook" used by the group, which instructs members to "undertake citizen audit activities to either refute or confirm serious allegations of election malfeasance" in order to "support future legal action" as evidence. The group, some of whose members are armed, had been going door-to-door in El Paso, Mesa, and Weld counties in Colorado, using public voter lists to identify areas where they believe ballots were fraudulently cast, the Colorado Times Recorder reported last year. Also, the lawsuit claims that the "voter intimidation" campaign violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a post-Civil War law aimed at preventing white vigilantes from terrorizing Black people to stop them from voting.
To me, this is the scariest of all scenarios. It’s a gross misinterpretation of the ideal of “civic duty” taken to violent ends. It’s something that needs to stop and to stop now. It’s important to recall that the GOP likes to refer to themselves as “anti-terrorist” and the “party of law and order.” These actions described by US Election Integrity Plan fit neither of those descriptors.
Though both parties like to wrap themselves in the American flag and tell people they’re for that which it stands, I can’t see how any of these legislative and/or borderline violent methods embody what the American ideology is. Sure, we all have different ideas of what it means to be an American, and there are always going to be various constitutional amendments, court cases, or philosophical ideals espoused by our nation’s founders that are going to resonate with each of us on a different level. But I can’t see how showing up to someone’s house with an AR-15 while questioning their political affiliation/intentions is remotely close to anything that would make old glory proud.
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