It should be no surprise that the Trump regime has zero interest in fighting voter suppression
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The U.S. has a long history of suppressing the votes of people of color. In the Deep South until the 1960s, Jim Crow laws were designed to keep all but a handful of African Americans from voting. West of the Mississippi, even after all American Indians got tIt should be no surprise that the Trump regime has zero interest in fighting voter suppression
The U.S. has a long history of suppressing the votes of people of color. In the Deep South until the 1960s, Jim Crow laws were designed to keep all but a handful of African Americans from voting. West of the Mississippi, even after all American Indians got the legal right to vote in 1924, state authorities kept them from doing so—or tried to—in several states. Voter suppression these days is a bit more subtle than it was in the past, but as we have seen in the past few years, it’s still widely practiced. And since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 gutted one of the key sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that practice has been made easier. The promoters of this suppression won’t publicly say they seek to reduce the number of people of color who vote, but a few of them have slipped up and admitted that their intent is to get Republicans elected. All it takes for a win in some instances is shaving a percentage point or two off the election results by inserting hoops for voters to overcome: cutting back on the number of polling places and the hours they are open, reducing the days of early voting, purging voter rolls to restrict the number of eligible voters. Under the Obama administration, the Department of Justice went after a number of particularly bad voter suppression laws in Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio, rejecting them outright or at least arguing against them in courts. But as Michael Wines wrote Sunday in The New York Times, the Trump regime has little interest in fighting voter suppression. And when the DOJ does get involved in a such a case now, it’s to join the side of the suppressors: During the Obama administration, the Justice Department would often go to court to stop states from taking steps like those. But 18 months into President Trump’s term, there are signs of change: The department has launched no new efforts to roll back state restrictions on the ability to vote, and instead often sides with them. Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the department has filed legal briefs in support of states that are resisting court orders to rein in voter ID requirements, stop aggressive purges of voter rolls and redraw political boundaries that have unfairly diluted minority voting power — all practices that were opposed under President Obama’s attorneys general. The top priorities of every president, congressperson, legislator, governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and city councilmember should include encouraging all eligible citizens to vote, making it easy and straightforward for them to do so, and opposing laws that impose obstacles that keep people from voting via intimidation, unfair placement of polling stations, reduced hours, overly rigid identification laws, and other restrictive legislation or rules. Opposition to such legislation ought to include aggressive action by our alleged public servants at the DOJ. Turning a blind eye to these bad laws, as the Trump regime is doing, and, worse, engaging the tax-paid machinery of the federal government in favor of this suppression, are betrayals of the most fundamental right of a democracy. Read more