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6 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Absurd. Indiana exempts voters age 65+ from the mail voting excuse requirement. 26thAm says: "The right of citizens ... to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of age"

Same logic on race would violate 15th Amendment & lead to Jim Crow if carried to its logical extreme
🚨 I repeat, a federal court just let Indiana GOP ignore the 26th Amendment using logic that if applied to race would no exaggeration bring back Jim Crow policies!

This is a huge attack on the right to vote. 15th, 19th, & 26th Amendments have near-identical language by design!
This is the 2nd federal appeals circuit to make such an outrageous ruling in recent months. The 5th Circuit did the same exact thing over Texas' requirement of an excuse only for absentee voters under age 65. The current SCOTUS could gut the 26th Amendment if it reaches them
Donald Trump is not an abberation but the mere culmination of decades of Republican strategy to restrict voting rights for their opponents. Two of the three federal appellate judges who signed off on this ruling were appointed by Reagan & only one by Trump

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More from @PoliticsWolf

Stephen Wolf Profile picture
6 Oct
Pennsylvania's GOP legislature, which owes its majority to gerrymandering & won fewer votes than Dems in 2018, is effectively arguing that state courts (in this state Dem-run) cannot constrain the legislature from setting federal election law.

They want to destroy fair elections
Earlier this year, Pennsylvania's GOP-gerrymandered legislature passed a constitutional amendment to gerrymander the state Supreme Court (which is currently 5-2 Dem) after it struck down the GOP's congressional gerrymander in 2018. They want to permanently entrench minority rule
This is the logic of Pennsylvania GOP's argument. It's patently absurd, but in 2015, 4 GOP-appointed Supreme Court justices dissented that "legislature" in US Constitution means the literal legislature, which taken to its logical extreme would mean barring state judicial review
Read 5 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
6 Oct
Supreme Court Republicans have ruled in favor of voting restrictions literally every single time a case has come before them this year except in one that had unusual circumstances (RI, where Dem officials settled with challengers)

This will only get worse if Barrett is confirmed
It's possible this ruling was based on the closeness of the election & thus had the liberal appointees on board, but if the federal judiciary weren't already so tilted to the right, a federal court may have suspended South Carolina's absentee witness requirement months ago
Absurd: Over 100,000 ballots have already been mailed out, & if they aren't received by Oct. 7, they'll be rejected for lacking a witness signature. Given the Trump admin's sabotage of the Postal Service, someone could've mailed it days ago & it still not be received by then
Read 6 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
18 Sep
Democracy was nice while it lasted
If Republicans replace Ginsburg, there will be a majority of 5 GOP justices appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote & confirmed by GOP Senate majorities that won fewer votes collectively than Dems.

They will use this majority to further gut voting rights
Republicans have not won more votes than Dems for all 100 senators collectively since the 1994-1998 elections. They've won the popular vote once for president in the last 3 decades. And yet, they're about to gain an even more extreme Supreme Court majority.

How democracies die
Read 5 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
11 Sep
Thanks to Trump's appointees, 11th Circuit just upheld the Florida GOP's racist poll tax barring nearly 800,000 people, 43% of whom are Black, from voting even though FL makes it impossible for many to even find out how much they owe in court fines/fees dailykos.com/story/2020/7/1…
Republican-appointed judges are partisans in all but name. A veritable poll tax in the year 2020 even though the 24th Amendment bans explicit poll taxes AND "other" taxes producing the same effect.

Vote if you can, but the GOP has ensured this will not be a free & fair election
A majority of those subject to the Florida GOP's poll tax owe at least $500, & a many owe even more than that Black voters are disenfranchised by this poll tax at 3 times their share of the population & far more than whites electionsmith.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/jones-…
Read 5 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
16 Jul
A major blow to voting rights. The Supreme Court's GOP majority just allowed the Florida GOP's poll tax to remain in effect, disenfranchising nearly 800,000 disproportionately Black citizens. The case proceeds on the merits, but this guarantees they can't vote in August's primary
Florida uses predatory fines & fees to fund its court system, & they've made it impossible for many people who've served their felony sentences to even find out how much $ they owe. A lower court struck down this law, but GOP judges reinstated it on appeal dailykos.com/stories/2020/7…
I fully expect our GOP federal judiciary to let the Florida GOP's poll tax remain in effect for November, even though the 24th Amendment bans poll taxes & "other" taxes that are barriers to voting based on wealth. John Roberts & Trump's judges are arch enemies of voting rights
Read 6 tweets
Stephen Wolf Profile picture
16 Jul
Texas Republicans have gone to greater extremes to suppress votes & illegally gerrymander than in almost any other state, but now that it’s becoming more competitive, they’re proposing to literally gerrymander statewide elections by picking the winner based on TX Senate districts
Schemes like this have been unconstitutional since Georgia’s county-based “electoral college” was struck down by SCOTUS in 1963. But the GOP has long had it out to undermine “one person, one vote,” Texas GOP especially
Texas' political geography increasingly favors Dems because nonvoters count in redistricting, but TX GOP has long aimed to draw districts based solely on adult citizens. Even if Dems flip the TX House in November, GOP will control legislative redistricting (but not congressional)
Read 5 tweets

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