GOP Wave of Racist Voter Suppression
Using the cover of the Big Lie, Republicans have introduced hundreds of bills in 47 states to limit voting rights for millions of primarily black and brown voters. After 4 years of Trump’s “American Carnage” the Republican base has become smaller, but more radicalized. GOP leaders are counting on anti-democratic measures and targeted voter suppression to win future elections.
By Michael Wines
“Republicans who echoed former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims of rampant fraud are proposing to make it harder to vote next time — ostensibly to convince the very voters who believed them that elections can be trusted again. And even some colleagues who defended the legitimacy of the November vote are joining them.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, state legislators have filed 106 bills to tighten election rules, generally making it harder to cast a ballot — triple the number at this time last year. In short, Republicans who for more than a decade have used wildly inflated allegations of voter fraud to justify making it harder to vote, are now doing so again, this time seizing on Mr. Trump’s thoroughly debunked charges of a stolen election to push back at Democratic-leaning voters who flocked to mail-in ballots last year.”
Indivisible groups protest in support of federal voters rights in California on 5 April 2021. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters