Originally published at: Republican State Officials Do Trump’s Election Denying Prep Work For Him - TPM – Talking Points Memo
State-level Republican officials have been making a big show of the work they are doing to boot alleged non-citizens from the voting rolls — an emphasis that echoes the efforts by presidential candidate Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to stoke pre-election panic about the false and dangerous narrative that non-citizens are voting en masse for…
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When all you’ve got are lies ….
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The only reason anyone cry’s “foul” before the first pitch is thrown is because they expect to lose.
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Republicans consider anyone who won’t vote for them an ineligible voter, because they have come to think that the only patriotic American citizens are Republican voters. That’s what happens when things become a religious war…the rest of us are not political opponents, we are pawns of Satan who want to force them to renounce their religion and participate in unholy rites. I know, it sounds stupid, but that’s the perspective of the extremists, so they have no problem dehumanizing the rest of us and forcing their will onto us, as they think we are not their equals and don’t deserve the same rights. It’s also not Christian behavior, but they really don’t seem to believe any of the things that Christ did…none of that healing the sick or caring for the weakest.
When that’s the framework, then taking away fundamental rights like voting or body autonomy is easy, and anything done to advance their power is right. Even if they’d scream bloody murder if it was done by Democrats, it just doesn’t matter…winning is the only thing for them. Combatting this is going to be hard, but it’s work that has to be done for the next decade if we want to keep our nation from falling into a Christian theocracy. It means every citizen who believes it our democracy has to make their voice heard and confront these lies, and vote out the people trying to undermine our nation for their own ends. It also means not giving up when things don’t go well…getting back up and fighting harder is the only answer. We do this, and the next generation will hopefully have a stronger union to take into a brighter future.
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Landslide is the only way past this. Otherwise the fuckery has been well planned and in place for a while now and the Democrats know this, so no excuses. Nibbling around the edges to squeak out a win isn’t gonna work this time.
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“The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.” – Maximilien Robespierre
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And Mike Johnson is certain that this is what God wants
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Ugh. Smiling GOP is always hideous.
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If they steal it for Trump, no worries about the backlash, because he’ll use the insurrection act to brutally put down the inevitable protests. He won’t have to ask His Generals “why can’t we just shoot them” because his hand-picked Generals will just do it.
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If Harris wins by big enough numbers much of this will be moot but she has to win really big. It’s absolutely possible. I don’t agree with those that say only close elections can be expected now because the country is so divided. I really believe there are WAY more of us than them, it’s just a matter of registering voters and getting them to actually vote. It’s hard work but Democrats have done it before. If they have to drag people out of nursing homes to vote so be it. Do whatever it takes. The way the courts are packed and how tRump has people in place to fuck around and massage numbers in close races is a losers game for Harris to play in.
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The suggestion, in this story, is that Republican leaders are making a big deal out of the normal process of retiring people from the voter rolls as they die or move or whatever. Maybe this is so in the case of Alabama and Virginia, but isn’t there justified concern that eligible voters are being dropped in Georgia on the say-so of certain white citizens who can arbitrarily claim that one or more people are non-citizens or voting in two places, etc.?
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These announcements are intentionally vague
Good jobs, Allen and Youngkin!
You’ve wasted people’s time and your taxpayer’s money over a non-problem that your job description says you shouldn’t have allowed to get out of hand. You also haven’t said who’s getting fired over this incompetence or what you plan to do to make sure your citizens know what the hell they’re supposed to do.
In addition, you’ve dumped on the integrity of your own state and its inability under your tenure to perform the basic functions of government.
Damn good job. What’s next? Wanna ban more kiddie books?
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I wonder how all of these non-citizens ended up being added to each state’s voter rolls to begin with. Don’t citizens need to submit substantial documentation to prove they are citizens when they register to vote? Are these state’s voter registration systems that lame that they allow just anyone to sign up to vote without any verification of citizenship status at all? Who allowed these non-citizens to register to vote? Is that person still employed?
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It’s all a Big Lie. As you have pointed out, there are requirements to register to vote; the first and foremost is to establish that the voter is a citizen. And how many of those struck from the rolls have become citizens since the last time someone checked?? Just more GQP BS…and they are still weird.
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This article doesn’t even address the question of whether these names were accurately matched. Immigrants with Latino names, and their descendants, are much more likely to share a common surname, and given names also typically come from a relatively limited set of traditional names. So, for instance, there are probably several hundred people named Juan Garcia in Virginia, and the odds are overwhelming that some of them share a birthdate. Some might be citizens, some may be legal residents, some may be undocumented. But without a common universal identification number, it’s impossible to be sure whether the Juan Garcia registered to vote in a particular town is the same Juan Garcia who is suspected of being a non-citizen.
The book Disproven by Ken Block contains some good information about just how difficult the process of name disambiguation can be.
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No, actually citizenship status is not normally verified when registering to vote. Usually, you need proof of age and residency. The application often contains a statement like “I certify that I am a citizen of … and that I am eligible… etc” which must be initialed or marked. The county clerk or sec of state may do additional cross-checking, but the applicant’s statement under oath is generally enough.
AND, there are some states that do allow non-citizen residents to register to vote in local and municipal elections, but not federal ones. So in that case it’s OK that they are on the voter rolls, but they are identified as non-citizens.
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That alludes to Republican rule #1: “When the truth just won’t do, lie”
A corollary, Republican rule #2 is “When you can’t win fairly, cheat.”
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Hitler and Mousilini also smiled.
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The new GA system that basically allows anyone to file a complaint is an issue, but mostly because it will overwhelm the system. The voters still have to be checked by election officials for eligibility, and they have to inform voters they are being removed and give them a chance to show it is wrong. The vast majority of people on the rolls are citizens, so it’s going to have basically no effect…at most it will find the few mistakes that get through the system, and the vast majority of those are non-citizens who don’t vote because they know they aren’t citizens.
The point is just to cast doubt on the entire election system first, and cause enough trouble to wreck the machinery second. It’s what you do if you can’t win an election fairly, which is where Republicans have gotten at this point…if Americans were encouraged to vote and there weren’t roadblocks then Republican policies would lose out.
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That depends on the state.