Yesterday I once again encountered the insidiousness of conclusory reading obtained at the hands of subtle propagandistic writing. It came from Andrew Sullivan, who, in scoffing at Democrats' overreaction to Republicans' antidemocratic threats, wrote:
"Why have they wildly inflated the threat to election security and engaged in the disgusting demagoguery of calling this 'Jim Crow 2.0'? The WSJ this week tracked down various unsavory GOP bills to suppress or subvert voting in three states ... and found that they had already died in committee."
This is a much-favored trick by that particular publication. (By the way, it wasn't the Wall Street Journal that publicized the presumably deceased bills; it was the WSJ editorial board, which Sullivan failed to note — and that's one helluva distinction.) The Journal's editors are fond of braying about some abnormally offensive piece of Republican legislation that went nowhere, while citing unfounded, Democratic paranoia surrounding it. I'll give the editors credit for further observing, however, that the dead bills ["[don’t] mean legislators won’t call for overturning results after an election is over." Or, for that matter, that legislators won't try to revive the bills before the election is over.
I had already read of the election-subversion bills adduced by the Journal; bills that would allow state legislators to suddenly, single-handedly and shockingly throw out the will of voters, substituting the legislature's will in their place. And it's true that such bills, so far, are going nowhere. What the Journal, Sullivan and others forget or dismiss, though, is that election subversion is about much more than a state legislature deep-sixing an unwanted, popular vote. There are other means — lots of 'em — to achieve that partisan goal.
I consulted the latest, relevant entries from the Voting Rights Lab, whose reporting, unfortunately, is four months old. Nevertheless, here's what the Lab had found by late September. It's important to note that these are bills that states have enacted; they're not merely introduced or pending:
Georgia: "A provision in the omnibus election bill (S.B. 202) enacted in March would allow a partisan majority of the State Election Board to remove and replace local election administrators. The Board has already begun the process of taking over election administration in Fulton County, the state’s most populous and diverse county. Additionally, the law newly empowers the legislature to appoint the chair of the State Election Board, making a majority of the board beholden to partisan state legislators who have a clear interest in the outcome of elections and how they are administered. S.B. 202 also explicitly allows partisan actors to make unlimited frivolous challenges to voter qualifications, forcing counties to allow hundreds of thousands of voters’ registrations to be challenged wholesale."
Iowa: "A provision in the omnibus election bill enacted in March, S.F. 413, increases the Secretary of State’s oversight of local election officials during the 60 days before and after an election.... An omnibus election bill threatens election officials with felony prosecution for 'failing to perform election duties' and a misdemeanor for failing to conduct voter list maintenance as prescribed by law. The new law also permits the Secretary of State to impose fines against local election officials of up to $10,000 for each 'technical infraction' of the state’s election code."
Texas: "The recently-enacted election omnibus bill, S.B. 1 ... increases the likelihood of partisan poll watchers disrupting polling places and ballot verification and counting locations. The bill increased the ability of poll watchers to move freely throughout an election location, including areas containing voters waiting in line, checking in, or casting their ballots. Election judges may not remove disruptive poll watchers from election locations unless the judge first witnesses the poll watcher commit a violation of law, warns the poll watcher, and the watcher then commits a subsequent offense. Voters’ reports of harassment or intimidation by poll watchers, if not witnessed by election judges, will not be sufficient to remove poll watchers.... Local officials will also face greater oversight of registered voter list maintenance that includes the possibility of termination of their employment and civil penalties. Election judges who remove disruptive poll watchers contrary to new, specific requirements in S.B. 1 can also be subject to prosecution for a Class A misdemeanor.
Arizona: "A bill enacted in June threatens local officials with felony prosecution for providing mail ballots to voters who do not first request them."
Florida: "An omnibus election bill enacted in May imposes a $25,000 civil penalty on election supervisors who operate a ballot drop box contrary to statutory requirements."
Along with the exaggerated severity of fines, penalties and potential prosecution of poll workers contained in these enacted laws — all of which are meant, of course, to alienate nonpartisan workers — what's striking is the partisan interference permitted in both the run-up to elections and on Election Day itself.
In reading what is now permissible in various Republican-controlled states, one is reminded of those 19th-century days of corrupt urban machines harassing and intimidating voters into doing the partisan machine's will.
Today's in-place subversion stops only at outright ballot-box stuffing, though in the Age of Trump, neither is that out of the question. And, again, as for Republican state legislatures legalizing brazen election theft via the trashing of thousands of "fraudulent' ballots? There's still time.