Thread by @DavidPepper

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NEW WHITEBOARD

Frank LaRose’s shameful attack on @staceyabrams inspired today’s whiteboard. Which is:

Don’t define the battle for democracy as only being about “Never/For Trump.”

OH’s LaRose provides a case study of how its broader than that.

(Receipts follow)

WATCH:

Point 1: Here’s a story on the stunning error rate in Ohio’s purging process.

But that didn’t stop LaRose from moving forward with the purging process, only to make more errors.

2/

nytimes.com/2019/10/14/us/…

Here’s LaRose promising, in 2018, that “I want my party to win elections because we have better candidates and better ideas - not because we use modern GIS mapping software…to draw district lines better than the other party.”

3/

cleveland.com/opinion/2018/0…

Then he voted for a map rigged, apparently w that software, to exceptional effect, months ago, which was later found to violate the Ohio Constitution.

4/

amp.dispatch.com/amp/6447740001

When it came to drop boxes, while LaRose publicly said he wanted more of them (but wasn’t allowed to by law—a lie), his team privately consulted with a notorious vote suppressor as they came up w an arbitrary rule of one drop box per county.

5/

propublica.org/article/before…

Even when courts ruled he COULD add drop boxes (against his and Trump’s absurd argument that he couldn’t under Ohio law), LaRose broke that broken promise and only allowed one per county—at the same location of early, in-person voting.

It led to the outcome you’d expect:

6/

LaRose spews disinformation at the drop of a hat, when asked to or when it helps him.

Early in the 2018 cycle, he smeared veteran and House candidate @HillaryMueri based on a GOP allegation that she’d voted twice in an election:

7/

cleveland.com/open/2020/02/c…

LaRose said it was “the exact type of violation I would refer to the Atty Genl for investigation…[L]aw breakers who demonstrate this level of poor judgment devalue that right when they abuse the process.”

He said this as the chief elex official

8/

It turns out, the allegation was completely false. A result of government error.

LaRose has never apologized for his disgraceful, partisan attack against a woman who put her life in the line for this nation.

9/

google.com/amp/s/www.clev…

And he has amplified the Big Lie—subtly, as in his re-election kick-off video, or not subtly, as in a tweet a few days ago where he says Trump is right about voter fraud, especially “in other states where laws & leaders are weak”

10/

Bottom line: we have to go way beyond Trump when it comes to discerning who supports democracy and who doesn’t

LaRose is a case study of officials all over the country who may not sound or act like Trump, but who are willing to violate the law to attack democracy or voters.

11/

I’m so inspired by LaRose’s behavior today, I’ve decided to provide free copies of the introduction of my book, which walks through his outrageous drop box behavior in more detail, to anyone interested.

Text pepper to 33777 to get the intro sent your way.

Carry on!

END