How to Rig an Election: 1876

To settle the 1876 presidential election, Republicans and Democrats agreed on peace in a deal that sacrificed Black Americans’ rights. A Washington Post opinion video directed by Emily Kuntsler and Sarah Kuntsler, animated by Reginald William Butler, and narrated by Tom Hanks.

More:

“How to rig an election — with deadly, racist consequences,” Tom Hanks and Jeffery Robinson, Washington Post

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Alaskans Reject Sarah Palin — Again

Fresh on the heels of August’s loss in Alaska’s special congressional election, MAGA proto-Trump Sarah Palin — former Miss Wasilla, ex-sportscaster, once part-time Temp-Governor of Alaska, losing GOP Vice Presidential candidate, cancelled reality TV star, Arizona homeowner, Masked Singer, and failed Fox News commentator — also lost November’s election to pro-fish Democrat Mary Peltola. Previously, Ms. Peltola was an Orutsararmuit Native Council Tribal Court Judge and 5-term Alaska state legislator before serving the remainder of deceased US Congressman Don Young’s term, then winning re-election to a full two-year term.  A Yup’ik woman from the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, she is the first Native Alaskan to serve in the U.S. Congress. Ms. Palin, on the other hand, had been endorsed by Donald Trump.

These days, Sarah Palin seems a quaint relic of the Republican party she helped destroy.

More:

“Next act for Palin unclear after Alaska House losses,” Becky Bohrer, Associated Press

“Sarah Palin Loses as the Party She Helped Transform Moves Past Her,” Jeremy W. Peters, New York Times

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Alaskans Reject Sarah Palin

In a special election to fill Alaska’s congressional seat for the remainder of this term, MAGA proto-Trump Sarah Palin — former Miss Wasilla, ex-sportscaster, once part-time Temp-Governor of Alaska, losing GOP Vice Presidential candidate, cancelled reality TV star, Arizona homeowner, Masked Singer, and failed Fox News commentator — lost to pro-fish Democrat Mary Peltola. Ms. Peltola, a former Orutsararmuit Native Council Tribal Court Judge, served 5 terms in Alaska’s state legislature.  A Yup’ik woman from the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, she will be the first Native Alaskan to serve in the U.S. Congress.

Sarah Palin has an opportunity to lose to Mary Peltola again in November, in the election for a full U.S. congressional term.

More:

“Peltola wins Alaska special election to fill Young’s House seat,” Jackie Wang and Kate Ackley, Roll Call

“Sarah Palin loses Alaska special election to Democrat Mary Peltola,” Deepa Shivaram, NPR News

“Democrat Mary Peltola tops Sarah Palin to win U.S. House special election in Alaska,” AP via The Guardian

“Wind in Democrats’ sails as Sarah Palin humbled in Alaska special election,” Ed Pilkington, The Guardian

“Republicans Have Only Themselves to Blame for Their Alaskan Defeat,” Adam Serwer, The Atlantic

“Why Sarah Palin’s loss is a warning for the GOP,” David Siders, Politico

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Georgia’s New Jim Crow

Republican Governor Brian Kemp, elected in 2018 after suppressing Georgia’s Black vote, has signed a new voter suppression bill into law. Georgia’s S.B. 202 bans mobile voting, limits secure drop boxes, and prohibits volunteers from giving water to Georgia voters waiting in the long voting lines typical of the state’s black neighborhoods. It cuts the time window when voters can request a mail-in ballot by half, and absentee ballots will now be mailed out three weeks later than before. S.B. 202 also allows the State Board of Elections to overide county election boards and replace them with state-appointed administrators.

The NAACP and ACLU, understandably, have challenged the new law in court as a violation of the First, Second, and Fifteenth Amendments, and the Voting Rights Act. Who else is against the law? Georgia’s biggest employers, including Coca Cola, Home Depot, AFLAC, Delta Airlines and Tyler Perry Studios.

More:

“’Jim Crow In a Suit and Tie’: Georgia Passes Massive Voter Suppression Bill,” Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair

“72 Black executives call on corporate America to fight voting restrictions,” Shawna Chen, Axios

“Georgia-based companies face boycott calls over voting bill,” Chris Isidore, CNN Business

“MLBPA open to discussing moving 2021 MLB All-Star Game from Atlanta after new voting laws pass in the state,” R.J. Anderson, CBS Sports

“Black voter says a painting at Georgia governor’s voter bill signing shows the plantation where her family worked for generations,” Natasha Chen and Theresa Waldrop, CNN

Updates:

“MLB will move its All-Star Game out of Atlanta as backlash to Georgia voting law continues,” Chelsea Janes, Washington Post

“What Georgia’s Voting Law Really Does,” Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein, New York Times

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Two and a Half Months to Inaugurate a New President?

The U.S. presidential election is on the first Tuesday in November. The winner is sworn in at noon on January 20th (or 21st). Does it really have to take two and a half months to swear in a new president? Madeline Marshall and Jen Kirby explain. A Vox video.

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Well Done, America

American has voted. It hasn’t contained COVID-19, however, and many have voted by mail, so don’t expect election result tabulations tonight. Totals should be in by week’s end, but the presidential incumbent is astoundingly litigious, so the results will be contested in court. Does DC’s pandemic eviction ban apply to the White House?

God Save the Republic.

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There’s No 2020 Republican Platform. There’s Just Trump.

On Sunday the 2020 Republican National Committee announced that the 2020 GOP presidential campaign will not have a political platform, just a pledge of fealty to Donald Trump. Perhaps the Republican Party should now be called a Cult of Personality Disorder.

More:

“The GOP Has No Party Platform. Literally.” Cristina Cabrera, TalkingPointsMemo

“GOP Will Not Write a 2020 Platform, Pledges Undying Trump Support Instead,” Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine

“Why Republicans didn’t write a platform for their convention this year,” Andrew Prokop, Vox

“It’s official: Trump is the GOP. And the GOP is Trump.” Paul Waldman, Washington Post

“The Trump MAGA-verse consumes the RNC,” Tina Nguyen, Politico

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Image (“Trump Triumphalism at 2020 RNC, after an 1885 Varanasi painting”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Wisconsin: Voter Suppression by Germ Warfare

Wisconsin’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order went into effect on March 25th, and the governor tried to delay in-person voting until June, but the state’s Republican-majority legislature, in a session attended by only 2 members, convened for 17 seconds to force voting in person on April 7th, pandemic be damned. The Republican-dominated State Supreme Court voted to overturn the governor’s delay order, and a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision backed that up.

Thus, on April 7th, the GOP compelled a death march of Wisconsin voters to polling places in the middle of the US coronavirus outbreak. Poll workers, largely elderly and at risk of COVID-19, stayed away, reducing the number of polling places and causing hours-long lines of masked voters in the few that were open. Many voters who requested absentee ballots did not receive them before election day.

Why this unseemly, unhealthy haste? It is a truth universally acknowledged that Republicans must be in want of low voter turnout to continue their gerrymandered stranglehold on the Nation’s body politic. If a pandemic can help them, they’re okay with that. Wisconsin votes will be tallied today, April 13th. Perhaps “I Voted” stickers will get civic-minded victims priority in the state’s ICUs.

Due to the pandemic, many states are transitioning to vote-by-mail systems. Republicans are against it, including President Trump, who recently voted by mail.

More:

“Wisconsin: the state where American democracy went to die,” Sam Levine, The Guardian

“The Wisconsin GOP Is Risking Voters’ Lives to Protect Its Minority Rule,” Eric Levitz, New York Magazine

“Wisconsin tracking potential spread of coronavirus from Tuesday’s election,” J. Edward Moreno, The Hill

“Wisconsin health officials step up efforts to track coronavirus exposure from primary election,” Quint Forgey, Politico

“Gerrymandering Meets the Coronavirus in Wisconsin,” Michael Li, Brennan Center

“How Wisconsin’s election disenfranchised voters,” Ella Nilsen and Li Zhou, Vox

Related:

“Trump says Republicans would ‘never’ be elected again if it was easier to vote,” Sam Levine, The Guardian

“Trump Wants 50 Wisconsins on Election Day,” Jamelle Bouie, New York Times

“Republicans Could Use the Coronavirus to Suppress Votes Across the Country. This Week We Got a Preview,” Carol Anderson, Time

Update:

“Thousands of Wisconsin ballots could be thrown out because they don’t have a postmark,” Ian Millhiser, Vox

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College Bowl

The Electoral College doesn’t have much of a football team, explains
John Hudak of the Brookings Institution.

Related:

“How the Electoral College Protected Slavery,” Paul Finkelman, History News Network

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Channel Hopping

“It seems our desire for instant gratification has conquered politics. Voters are channel-hopping, snacking on ideologies and political styles, moving on as soon as they’re bored. In that light, Donald Trump is a political genius: His slippery, shifting positions on just about everything command attention and perfectly reflect the restless mood of the times. People are eager for something—anything—different, and damn any concerns about consistency.”

— Jason Karaian, Quartz

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