Voter suppression

Democratic party voter suppression, 1963.

Voter suppression in the 21st century occurs mainly through defective voting machines, polling stations running out of paper, and other means of turning registered voters away from polling stations without voting.

In the 2020 presidential election and Biden Putsch, the Democratic party suppressed the vote of 71 million Americans. In the 2022 Midterm elections voters who showed up at the polls at 7AM on their way to work to avoid long lines in the late afternoon were told the voting machines were not working and turned away.

History

A cartoon threatening that the KKK will lynch scalawags (left) and carpetbaggers (right) on March 4, 1869, the day President Grant takes office. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Independent Monitor, September 1, 1868. A full-scale scholarly history analyzes the cartoonː Guy W. Hubbs, Searching for Freedom after the Civil War: Klansman, Carpetbagger, Scalawag, and Freedman (2015).

The Democratic party exercised voter suppression of the African American vote in the South for the first 100 years after the Republican-controlled Congress and states passed the 15th Amendment. The whole point of a century of Jim Crow laws was to never allow the Republican party to benefit from promoting Black equality and freeing the slaves. In 1964, a near unanimous Republican caucus with a handful of Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act allowing for federal intervention to end Jim Crow laws in Blue States. Since passage of the Civil Rights Act, as the South became less racist it became more Republican, contradicting the DNC/fake news of a "party switch" and "Southern strategy".

Voter suppression occured through discriminatory practices at polling stations and often through intimidation and violence by the terrorist wing of the Democrat party - the Ku Klux Klan.

Origins

See also: Reconstruction

With the defeat of the Democrats and the South, to the victors went the spoils. Republicans immediately stripped white males who engaged in rebellion against the United States of the vote and gave it to Blacks. Newly freed Blacks held local, state and federal elected and non-elected positions as Republicans. The white males who were deprived of the vote were also barred from holding any civil service position and were universally Democrats. This disenfranchisement created enormous resentment among Democrats, so they formed the Ku Klux Klan to engage in voter intimidation and suppression.

On election day, November 3, 1874, an Alabama chapter of the White League repeated actions taken earlier that year in Vicksburg, Mississippi. They invaded Eufaula AL, killing at least seven black Republicans, injuring at least 70 more, and driving off more than 1,000 unarmed Republicans from the polls. The group moved on to Spring Hill AL, where members stormed the polling place, destroying the ballot box, and killing the 16-year-old son of a white Republican judge in their shooting. The White League refused to count any Republican votes cast. But, Republican voters reflected the black majority in the county, as well as white supporters. They outnumbered Democratic voters by a margin greater than two to one. The League declared the Democratic candidates victorious, forced Republican politicians out of office, and seized every county office in Barbour County, Alabama. Such actions were repeated in other parts of the South in the 1870s, as Democrats sought to regain political dominance in states with black majorities and numerous Republican officials. In Barbour County, the Democrats auctioned off as "slaves" (for a maximum cost of $2 per month), or otherwise silenced all Republican witnesses to the events. They were intimidated from testifying to the coup if the case went to federal court.

When Reconstruction ended and federal troops were withdrawn, an amnesty was granted for white male Democrats who engaged in rebellion. African Americans in the South were left to the mercy of increasingly hostile state governments dominated by white Democratic legislatures; neither the legislatures, law enforcement nor the courts worked to protect freedmen. As Democrats regained power in the late 1870s, they struggled to suppress black voting through intimidation and fraud at the polls. Paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts acted on behalf of the Democrats to suppress black voting. From 1890 to 1908, 10 of the 11 former Confederate states passed disfranchising constitutions or amendments, with provisions for poll taxes, residency requirements, literacy tests and grandfather clauses that effectively disfranchised most black voters and many poor white people. The disfranchisement also meant that black people could not serve on juries or hold any political office, which were restricted to voters; those who could not vote were excluded from the political system.

Civil rights era

See also: Civil rights movement

Republican Attorney General Herbert Brownell originally proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Democrat Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had Judiciary chairman Sen. James Eastland drastically water-down the House version, removing stringent voting protection clauses. The bill passed 285–126 in the House with Republicans providing the majority of votes 167–19 and Democrats 118–107. It then passed 72–18 in the Senate, with Republicans again supplying the majority of votes, 43–0 and Democrats voting 29–18. Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who later became president, voted against it. Kennedy's 1957 book, Profiles in Courage, celebrated the life of Sen. Edmund Ross who voted to acquit Pres. Andrew Johnson, the first step in ending Republican Reconstruction reforms, restoring white supremacy and paving the way for Democrat Jim Crow laws and the segregation era.

The 1957 Civil Rights Act was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Johnson told Sen. Richard Russell,

John Kennedy as Senator voted against the Civil Rights Act.

"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again."

The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 authorized, and in some areas required, federal oversight of elections and election laws. Many (but not all) of these areas were in the South, which was at that time controlled by the Democratic Party. The Act gave the Department of Justice the power to approve or reject any change in a voting law in certain districts where less than 50% of the population were registered to vote in 1964. The Act also outlawed literacy tests.

The Act was passed by the U.S. Congress over strong opposition within the Democratic Party. Republican Leader Everett Dirksen was instrumental in its passage. in breaking the Democratic filibuster. Dirksen spoke on the Senate floor,

The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing of government, in education, and in employment. It must not be stayed or denied. It is here!

Under Johnson, the Senate had not been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a Civil Rights Bill. With Republican support, the final count showed 44 Democrats and 27 Republicans voting to end the filibuster, with 23 Democrats and only 6 Republicans opposed. The formal Senate vote on the bill took place on June 19, 1964. It passed 73-27.

The final Senate vote on August 4 was 49 Democrats and 30 Republicans in favor, one Republican and 17 Democrats opposed. Democrat segregationist leaders who voted against the Voting Rights Act were J. William Fulbright, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton, and Al Gore, Sr., father of 2000 Democratic Presidential princeling Al Gore.

The two numbers in each line of this list refer to the number of representatives voting in favor and against the act, respectively.

Senate: 77–19

Democrats: 47–17 (73%-27%)

Republicans: 30–2 (94%-6%)

House: 333–85

Democrats: 221–61 (78%-22%)

Republicans: 112–24 (82%-18%)

Primary reform

The McGovern-Fraser Commission required state parties to develop written rules and post uniform statewide notification of the date, time, and location of precinct caucus meetings or party primary elections. There was a common practice in some Southern states such as Mississippi were all-white local party bosses held meetings in obscure locations so that Black majorities in a county or district were unaware of the time and place of party elections. Although many provisions the commission brought about were undone in the early 1980s by Walter Mondale and Ted Kennedy, several provisions have remained. Prior to McGovern-Fraser, several states had no written guidelines governing party conventions, caucuses and the delegate selection process at each level and were based mostly on local tradition, which often meant cronyism, discrimination, voter suppression and the boss's rule. The system had been used effectively by Democrats in their voter suppression of Blacks for over 100 years.

After the 1972 election, Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski was asked by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to chair the Mikulski Commission to review and make recommendations on how effective the pre-convention McGovern-Fraser reforms rules were. According to CNN, the commission

replaced the demographic quotas of 1972 with affirmative action requirements to increase participation by women, blacks and other minorities. (However, this specific plan had the OPPOSITE effect, decreasing the proportion of women from 38% in 1972 to 36% in 1976. The proportion of blacks declined from 15% in 1972 to 7% in 1976. After 1976, quotas for women delegates were reimposed.) PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION, the distribution of delegates among candidates to reflect their share of the primary or caucus vote, was mandated by party rules.

The Mikulski Commission did away with the secret ballot and required a public declaration in front of the election judges or on registration forms and a party-specific ballot given to the voter to cast. Now in most states a non-partisan primary voter who wishes to vote for a Democrat for President and a Republican for Senate experiences voter suppression and denial.

Clinton era

See also: Bill and Hillary Clinton and racism

In Arkansas, the Clinton administration was sued several times by blacks and Hispanics for violations of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and lost every case. 10 years into their grip on Arkansas the United States Supreme Court ruled

The Arkansas State Flag. The top star above Arkansas represents the slave holding Confederacy, an Act signed into law by Clinton.

"violations of the fourteenth or fifteenth amendment justifying equitable relief have occurred in Arkansas. In May 1990, the district court turned to those claims, holding that "the State of Arkansas has committed a number of constitutional violations of the voting rights of black citizens." In particular, the court determined that the "State has systematically and deliberately enacted new majority-vote requirements for municipal offices, in an effort to frustrate black political success in elections traditionally requiring only a plurality to win." In 1990...Devotion to majority rule for local offices lay dormant as long as the plurality system produced white office-holders. But whenever black candidates used this system successfully—and victory by a plurality has been virtually their only chance of success in at-large elections in majority-white cities—the response was swift and certain. Laws were passed in an attempt to close off this avenue of black political victory... This series of laws represents a systematic and deliberate attempt to reduce black political opportunity. Such an attempt is plainly unconstitutional. It replaces a system in which blacks could and did succeed, with one in which they almost certainly cannot. The inference of racial motivation is inescapable."

In more than one thousand legislative elections, the Arkansas delta region sent not one black to the legislature. In 1988 the federal district court forced a change to the system in Crittenden County that watered down the presence of a large number of black voters.

The case began when blacks in Crittenden County filed a voting rights lawsuit attacking the county's at-large system for electing two members to the Arkansas House. The suit contended that the system deprived black voters of a chance to elect a black to the state assembly.

The evidence at trial was indeed overwhelming that the Voting Rights Act had been violated. Plaintiffs offered plenty of proof of monolithic voting along racial lines, intimidation of black voters and candidates, other official acts that made voting harder for blacks. A panel of 3 judges ordered Clinton, the Attorney General, and Secretary of State to redraw the boundaries to give maximum strength to black voters.

Robert 'Say' MacIntosh is a civil rights activist whom the Arkansas Democrat newspaper named Arkansan of the Year in the late 1970s for his charitable work with children in Little Rock's housing projects. MacIntosh unsuccessfully ran for public office under Arkansas's racial gerrymandering and minority voter suppression laws of the Clinton era, including running as Lieutenant Governor in 1980. He considered challenging Bill Clinton in the 1986 Democratic gubernatorial primary but backed out when another African-American candidate, former anti-poverty agency head W. Dean Goldsby, filed on the last day.

In 1988 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Clinton wrongfully tried to overturn the election of a black state representative, Mr. Ben McGee, and replace him with a white Democrat Clinton handpicked. The case grew out of the suit against Clinton to win voting rights for the people of Crittenden County.

1992 Presidential election

Clinton/Gore 1992 convention button.

According to Wikipedia, Bill Clinton engaged in voter suppression by appearing at several Massachusetts polling locations, which caused voters hours of delay and inhibited traffic. Clinton was allegedly electioneering within 150 feet of the polling locations, which is also illegal according to Massachusetts state law.

Lani Guiner

Local press reports in Arkansas from the late 1980s paint an ugly picture of the Clinton administration's attempts to intimidate black voters. In her 1998 memoir Lift Every Voice, former U.S Justice Department Civil Rights Division nominee Lani Guinier revealed that Clinton's record on race in Arkansas was so bad she was forced to take legal action. "As a staff lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund [LDF], I had sued Gov. Clinton over Arkansas's deputy voter registration statute." A deputy voter registrar is someone authorized to register voters.

Guinier wrote, "In the late 1980s, in a particularly tense meeting in southeastern Arkansas - a section of the Mississippi Delta region where antebellum social relations are still in many respects the order of the day," Dayna Cunningham, a civil rights lawyer, was "one of a handful of black people there to discuss remedies for a highly contentious LDF voting rights suit. The meeting turned sour when one of the local whites demanded to know why, in his view, the whites were always made to pay for others' problems. Other whites in the group began to echo his charge...Bill Clinton, the lead defendant in the case, took to the podium to respond. In a tone of resignation, Clinton said, 'We have to pay because we lost,'" the inference being the loss of the Civil War as well as the Clintons' loss in the Supreme Court.

"Clinton had irresponsibly pandered to the backwards feeling of the white constituency," said Cunningham.

No good deed goes unpunished of course, so Guinier was not without her own problems for having unfortunately crossed paths with the Clintons, beginning at Yale. Three years after the ruckus in Arkansas President Clinton nominated her as Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights. But the Clinton surrogates were lying in wait for her. A media smear campaign not only distorted her views, but in many cases presented them as the exact opposite. The New York Times, which ordinarily presents the Clintons as the wonders of an age, ran an op-ed highly critical of Clinton's appointment, alleging Guinier was in favor of “segregating black voters in black-majority districts.” The Washington Post, again no friend of conservatives, twisted Guinier's advocacy of proportional representation into a vision of “a society in which a minority can impose its will on the majority.”

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting says of the ambush and firestorm that surrounded Guinier's nomination:

"there was also an ideological agenda at work: promoting Clinton’s media-celebrated shift “back to the center.” ... To make her a proper sacrificial offering, however, the establishment media had to reinvent Guinier — transforming a sophisticated advocate of racial reconciliation and participatory democracy into a sinister, race-baiting enemy of the American Way."

The Democrats held both Houses of Congress and the presidency. Guinier's nomination, if the Clintons were serious about it should have been easy. She had been Hillary and Bill's classmate at Yale. It was classic Clintonism: destroying the life of a friend who was an advocate of racial reconciliation, painting the American people as racist, and promoting themselves. George Will, it has been said, was too stupid and too lazy to actually read her writings. As Mike Klonsky noted, when the liberal lions of the Democratically controlled Senate, such as Ted Kennedy and even Carole Moseley Braun stepped away, now the Clintons could turn a message of reconciliation into repudiation in front of the whole nation.

What's a little misunderstanding among friends? Guinier said she felt betrayed by Clinton, whom she considered a friend since their days together at Yale Law School, and was angered when he called her "anti-democratic," - the person who protected voting rights of African-Americans despite Clinton's fight against it - in a nationally televised address announcing he was scuttling her nomination.

2008 Presidential election

When ACORN was questioned regarding their tactics, they replied with a classic Alinsky attack of their own, flipping the narrative. Teresa James, an attorney for ACORN affiliate Project Vote says, "they don't have the resources," to catch all fraud. However, ACORN has the money to air commercials nationwide. In it, blaming racism and voter suppression, not ACORN.

Obamagate

See also: Obama administration, Tea Party, and Russiagate

Obama meeting with John Brennan in the early days of the Obamagate scandal to spy on, harass, and suppress the opposition.

During President Obama's IRS scandal, Rep. Elijah Cummings attacked the Texas True the Vote organization in a letter. He wrote that "some have suggested that your true goal is not voter integrity, but voter suppression against thousands of legitimate voters who traditionally vote for Democratic candidates." He added that: "If these efforts are intentional, politically motivated, and widespread across multiple states, they could amount to a criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights." He also decried True the Vote on MSNBC and CNN.

True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht said she believes that because she worked against voter fraud, she was targeted. The Engelbrechts continued receiving harassment by the Obama administration and after three years their non-profit status remained unapproved.

True the Vote won its lengthy court battle against the IRS. Catherine Engelbrecht and her organization True the Vote's case is connected to the political surveillance operation used against presidential candidate Donald Trump. The 2010 program to weaponize the IRS (Obama IRS scandal) was the precursor to the 2012 program to weaponize and abuse the NSA's FISA database. The Secret Research Project originated as a term in the Obama team. It involved the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder and the FBI under Robert Mueller. Eric Holder requested over 1 million tax records via CD-ROM: The IRS sent the FBI “21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The transaction occurred in October 2010. The evidence within this sketchy operation came directly to the surface in early spring 2012.

The enforcement mechanism used for targeting included the DOJ and various other government agencies (ATF, OSHA, EEOC, EPA Banking/Finance). Cause of Action (CoA) made a FOIA request to the IRS for documents shared between the IRS and the White House. The request was to gain documents illegally shared between the White House and the IRS. Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew blocked the FOIA request from being released, an apparent conflict of interest. Lew was White House Chief of Staff in 2012 when the Secret Research Project was conceived. FISA chief judge Rosemary Collyer determined illegal Obama FISA abuse of the NSA database by the FBI, and Fourth Amendment violations began in 2012, and were the result of "deliberate decision making."

2012 Presidential election

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the New Black Panther Party engaged in voter suppression. This was videotaped and placed onto YouTube. Obama's wingman, Attorney General Eric Holder, refused to prosecute them for violating the Voting Rights Act.

2016 Presidential election

See also: Presidential Election 2016

It was discovered Google was manipulating autocomplete search engine results to favor Hillary Clinton. Autocomplete returns the most popular trending search queries. When a user types in Hillary Clinton cri to query about the criminal investigation into Mrs. Clinton for example, the Google results do not match at all popular trends on all other major search engines. Dr. Robert Epstein of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology testified before Congress in 2019 that Google bias and meddling had shifted "between 2.6 million and up to 10.4 million votes" to Hillary Clinton.

Supporters of Bernie Sanders complained throughout the 2016 primary season Google had inflated Hillary's delegate count by adding unelected Superdelegates who, by rule, were to remain unpledged until the convention. Some in late primary states considered this another form of voter suppression.

In an article titled How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election in August 2015 Politico warned Google "can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more—up to 80 percent in some demographic groups—with virtually no one knowing they are being manipulated... In the United States, half of our presidential elections have been won by margins under 7.6 percent".

2020 Democrat primaries

See also: 2020 Democrat primaries and 2020 Democratic party issues

Iowa Democrat caucus

Main article: 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses

Shadow, Inc. is the company that developed the Iowa and Nevada Democratic caucus app. FEC records show Buttigieg for America paid Shadow Inc. $42,000. Former Clinton campaign chairman Robby Mook vetted the app for the Democratic party. Shadow, Inc. was launched by a dark money SuperPAC called Acronym, headed by CEO Tara McGowan, a former journalist and Obama for America operative who is married to a senior advisor of Buttieg's presidential campaign. Acronym was founded by billionaire oligarch Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn. Hoffman funded Project Birmingham, a covert voter suppression and fake news campaign based on the Russian model during dirty the 2017 Doug Jones/Roy Moore Alabama Senate race. Obama crony David Plouffe sits on the board of Acronym.

On election night the Iowa Democratic party stopped counting when 98% of precincts were counted and Bernie Sanders was ahead by 2,500 votes. Only the precincts that would likely help Buttigieg were recounted, and the remainder of precincts were weighted to Sanders. Under the apportionment system Buttigieg was awarded two more delegates and claimed victory, but Sanders won the statewide popular vote. Seven of the last nine winners of the Iowa Caucus went on to win the Democratic nomination, and the DNC rigged the election to prevent Sanders from gaining momentum from a victory. Of Buttigieg's 2 delegate margin of victory, 3 were awarded by coin toss. Due to Democrat corruption and election rigging, the Associated Press refused to recognize Buttigieg's claim of victory.

New Hampshire primary

See also: 2020 New Hampshire Democratic primary

Klobuchar appeared the big winner, running third ahead of Biden, Warren, Bloomberg, Steyer, Yang, Vermin Supreme and others. Sanders and Sanders fanboy Buttigieg appeared to run 1 and 2, assuming one has confidence in Democrat vote counters. Sanders 2020 ‘Win’ netted a loss of 80,000 votes from his 2016 victory. Pelosi tearing up the President's Constitutionally mandated annual report to Congress on national television seemed to form a negative impression with New Hampshire voters. President Trump outpolled any candidate of either party in the history of the New Hampshire primary - a remarkable feat considering the GOP primary was uncontested, and voters had no reason to brave cold weather to go out and vote. Meanwhile, leftist violence and attacks to suppress and intimidate Republican voter registration drives continued.

As Sanders rose in the polls, leftist violence escalated.

• Bernie supporter tried to burn down GOP HQ in California.
• Leftist attempted voter intimidation and suppression at Trump registration event by deliberately driving his vehicle through it.
• Leftist wanted to "Slit Republican throats" at a voter registration table.
• GOP Headquarters vandalized in New Mexico.
• Retired cop punched in the face when red hat triggers leftist.

Michigan Democrat primary

Once again, long lines appeared at certain select precincts where many frustrated voters gave up and returned home. Sanders accused the Democrat party of voter suppression. As a committed idealist, which anyone who knows the man or followed his career since he entered politics in 1981, these events explain clearly why Sanders never joined the Democratic party - because the Democratic party is not democratic. Democratic party insiders and office holders do not hold to the fundamental belief in one man, one vote. This was true when the Democratic party's forebearers inserted the 3/5 rule into the U.S. Constitution; it was true in the decade-long court battles ending with the Dred Scott decision, and after the Civil War it was the basis for, first lynching white carpetbagging Republicans, then secondly turning on recently freed Blacks and imposing a century-long era of segregation and Jim Crow. Winning, and holding power at all costs, are the core principles of Democratic party leadership since its founding, and those core beliefs have repeatedly compromised any notion of freedom, equality or human rights to attain their objectives. Few contemporary, ordinary Democratic party voters understand these basic facts of the history of the Democratic party as well as Bernie Sanders does. By running from outside the party, Bernie Sanders attempted to reform it. Sanders is the living embodiment of the 38% of Democratic party voters, who identify as socially conscious liberals or progressives, whose valuers and beliefs may be high-minded and noble, but are systematically mocked behind their backs as dupes and stooges by party insiders. In Sanders' case, Sanders has simply been honest with himself by not wearing the party label. Very few of his staff, supporters or followers can make the same claim, or excuse.

Michael Bloomberg

See also: Michael Bloomberg 2020 presidential campaign

In an article published in Rolling Stone, entitled, Enter Mike Bloomberg, Exit Black Voters, author Jamil Smith observed that Stop and Frisk

"increased exponentially under [Democrat presidential candidate Mike] Bloomberg, going from 97,000 in 2002 to more than 500,000 in 2006 and 700,000 in 2011. And the federal judge who declared stop-and-frisk unconstitutional in 2013 found nearly 90 percent of the people stopped hadn’t done anything illegal....NYPD officers disproportionately stopped black and Latino New Yorkers — 83 percent of the stops from 2004 to 2012, per ProPublica — despite their comprising about only half of the city’s population. ....I wouldn’t put it past the Wall Street oligarchs to be counting upon this, a forced compromise that will eject a charlatan wrecking their profits with trade wars and install someone who will be more friendly to them — but who will largely leave the most vital Democratic constituencies in the cold, possibly with their hands up and getting searched. This all may be a moot point. Democrats will only win the White House, or the Senate, when they can properly protect voters of color from suppression and give those voters reasons to choose them. That seems like too tall a task for a party hanging its hopes on the likes of Bloomberg. If defeating Trump really is his goal, then his cause is likely lost."

California

California's Democrat governor Gavin Newsom and its state legislature illegally enacted voter suppression legislation aimed at denying citizens the right to vote for the candidate of their choice. The legislation unconstitutionally demanded President Trump release private information, defined by law, to the State of California. The authoritarian legislation violates the basic civil, constitutional, and human rights of 4.5 million opposition party voters who wish to vote for the nominee of their party and denies them participation in the political process.

See also

• Civil Rights movement
• Essay:An analysis of another misleading poll
• Voter intimidation
• New Black Panthers