While everyone is talking about the Constitution, here's a 🧵 about why you should listen to/read this week's episode of Movement Memos about voter suppression and how you can fight it. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
Classic voter suppression tactics like voter ID laws, intimidation and mass disenrollment have been bolstered by the pandemic, which has been leveraged as an excuse by some officials to close more polling places and create other barriers to voting. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
A WaPo analysis recently found that more than half a million mail in ballots have already been rejected in primaries in 23 States this year. By comparison, less than 318,000 ballots were rejected in the 2016 general election. So how do we meet this crisis? truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
Some efforts, like @scalawagmag's As The South Votes, are trying to address concerns voters themselves are raising about how to engage with the process. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
"There’s a lot of panic in the air, and we don’t need panicked action or thinking right now. We need strategy, ingenuity and solidarity." truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
"People who have been organizing around voting rights ... have been outgunned by the other side for years, and we saw the consequences of that in 2016, when Black voter participation in Wisconsin dropped about 19 percent in the 2016 election from 2012." truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
.@TheWayWithAnoa: "Here in Georgia, going back to 2010, under then Secretary of State Brian Kemp, there were different measures that were already starting to be implemented ... But in 2013, after the Shelby County v. Holder case, it’s like a dam broke." truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
"Immediately saw a passage of voter ID laws. You immediately saw areas that previously would've had to have their plans for poll location changes or poll closures or consolidations — they would've previously had to have them reviewed — just suddenly making all types of changes."
.@TheWayWithAnoa: "Albany, Georgia and Dougherty County, Randolph County, Georgia, made the news that year because of the attempt to close all but two polling locations in a predominantly Black County ... This has been happening all across the country." truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
Black people today are up against reconfigurations of the same apparatus that suppressed lack votes prior to the VRA, the relentless bureaucratic roadblocks, like needing a license to get a birth certificate & needing a birth certificate to get a license. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
The closure of DMVs and polling places in Black communities, the threat of investigation and prosecution for any misstep, people being removed from the rolls illegally, all while conservatives admit that they don’t want everyone to vote & are also targeting Black communities.
"I read this week that more than 50 percent of Americans are expected to vote by mail this year. And it has me thinking about Maggie Bozeman and Julia Wilder, who were targeted for their efforts to help Black people cast absentee ballots in 1979." truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
.@TheWayWithAnoa: "So with absentee ballots, depending upon the state you’re in, you may have like really extra above and beyond rules." NC requires a witness for example, and used to require two. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
.@TheWayWithAnoa: "Another issue commonly that comes up is signature match issues ... most of us don’t write the same exact way all the time. Or our signatures are being compared to a digitized version from the DMV or whatever." truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
.@TheWayWithAnoa "There are like so many levels to it and each state is completely different. And sometimes within states, different counties do different things, too. So it’s extremely confusing. The system of voter suppression that exists relies, in part, on that confusion."
@TheWayWithAnoa: “One would ask 'Why would a Secretary of State not try to standardize [the] process ... making sure the administration of election is as uniform, consistent, and well supported as possible?' And it’s simple. They benefit from the chaos." truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
Trump’s attacks on Black protesters and Black people are inextricably bound to the arguments he will make to try to invalidate this election. The specter of voter fraud has really always been code for Black criminality. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
Mainstreaming the myth of rampant voter fraud in the 2000s helped propel the deconstruction of the VRA. And it has helped propel every escalation since. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
The Supreme Court’s handling of the presidential recount in 2000 doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, and conservatives have even more power in the courts now than they did then. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
Most people think of voter suppression in terms of a person being turned away at the polls. But voter suppression has historically included the creation of barriers that wear down a person's *will* to vote. These weary nonvoters are often met w contempt. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
.@TheWayWithAnoa: "Know the rules in your own state to make sure that you’re advocating for the most expansive reforms ... we need to have automatic voter registration. New York, Texas are among the States that do not have online voter registration." truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
We also talked about the threat of vigilante violence & how many people will argue for police at polling stations bc of it, and how that too serves the GOP's purpose. Bc having cops at polling stations (and having polling stations in police stations) makes Black folks unsafe too.
The post office is warning us that 46 States have deadlines that are incongruous with postal delivery standards. It is going to take organizing and awareness to make sure ballots get mailed in time. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
Meanwhile, Native people desperately need in person sites, because as few as 18% of us receive mail at home because many of our people lack traditional addresses. There will be no one-size fits all institutional fixes. Organizing is needed. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
.@TheWayWithAnoa talked about what taking action against voter suppression can look like (we made a list of the orgs she mentioned at the end of the transcript) and also gave a shout out to #CopsOutCPS for their inspiring community organizing in Chicago. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
Please read/listen to this episode & bookmark it to share with people who are panicking about the election. Be someone who can give them something positive to do that aligns with their values. This is no time for panic. It's a time for solidarity & action. truthout.org/audio/how-to-d…
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