The Attack on Our Voting Rights

Deep Dive

Jun 16

Today's MAGA political movement has deep roots in US.history. A significant fraction of our population has always held that America is, and must continue to be, a white, Christian, native-born nation. And that those who are not white, or not Christian, or not native-born, or whose lives do not conform to their religious views, do not deserve to wield any share of political power or to direct or influence the policies of government.

Ever since the 15th Amendment decreed in 1870 that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," the political forces now calling themselves MAGA have striven in a multitude of ways to deny voting rights and political power to those they do not see as 'real Americans.' And ever since the Republican Party adopted the 'southern strategies' of Nixon and Reagan, they have incited and fomented those beliefs and electorally benefited from voting restrictions designed for partisan purposes. Which has resulted in significant partisan racial-polarization in voting patterns.

Today the MAGA-dominated Republican Party controls all three branches of the federal government and twenty-three state governments. And they are politically dominant in additional states. At federal, state, and local levels, they are using their state-power to wage a ruthless, partisan assault on the voting rights, political influence, and very lives of those who do not fit their definition of 'real Americans' or those who vote for Democrats.

The MAGA/Republican assault on voting rights takes many forms, strategies, and tactics, all of which fall into three broad categories:

Restricting and limiting who can cast ballots based on racial and economic factors. For example, targeted voter-ID and registration requirements, limiting vote-by-mail, and illegally purging legitimate voters from registration lists.
Diluting and diminishing the political influence of nonwhite, non-christian, and non-affluent, senior, and student communities at federal, state, and local levels. For example, gerrymandering to prevent those communities from electing representatives who understand and sympathize with their interests.
Criminally indicting, litigating against, and intimidating elected officials, political organizations, and non-partisan election workers who do not conform to MAGA regime policies and ideologies, refuse to carry out illegal orders, or who dare to publicly dissent.

This broad assault includes these recent actions:

Long-term destruction of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Recent Supreme Court ruling in the Callais case enabling racial gerrymandering that could reduce the total number of Black and Latino elected representatives at all levels of government by 50% within a few years.
Ongoing Red state voting restrictions targeting Democratic constituencies by race, income, age, and student-status.
Current attempt to impose similar restrictions nationwide via the SAVE Act.
Executive Order targeting mail voting nationwide. Eliminating or restricting vote-by-mail is a form of economic voter suppression that makes it harder for hourly-wage workers and other low-income voters to cast ballots.
Criminalization and restriction of voter registration efforts by churches, labor unions, civil rights organizations, and League of Women Voters because those voter registration drives sign up more Democrats than Republicans.
Law enforcement, harassment, intimidation, and criminalization of civil rights and community organizations such as the Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC).
Indictments & investigations to intimidate and silence elected officials.

As the mid-term elections heat up, defending our voting rights will become increasingly important to Indivisible as an organization and to us as individuals. It is up to us to take action to defend our democracy and reclaim our America.

Saving our American democracy requires our direct and sustained personal participation in ongoing work. Join and become active with Indivisible SF or one of the many other groups and organizations that are actively opposing and resisting the MAGA regime. Their voter mobilization efforts include the following:

Communicating with and personally lobbying elected officials about voting rights.
Organizing nonviolent direct action protests and acts of resistance and courage.
Providing election- and issue-education, advocacy, voter registration, and get-out-the-vote campaigns.
Raising public awareness around voting rights and democracy defense issues.
Supporting organizations defending voting rights where they are under attack.

When Dr. King told us, "Nobody can do everything, but if everybody does something, everything will get done," his key point was to do something.