 It truly is hilarious whenever you see a Republican claim to care about democracy, because what we're witnessing in numerous states now are Republicans openly, literally changing the rules to effectively rig future elections in their party's favor. I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that. And they're doing all of this under the guise of restoring the integrity of our democracy, because so few people now trust democracy because they believed the lie that the last president told after losing the election that he didn't actually lose, rather the election was stolen from him. So since these idiots believe the lie, well we have to make voting more difficult and literally become less democratic in order to appease these individuals who think every election going forward will be stolen from them if it doesn't go in their direction. It's truly just, it's bizarre, it's insane. And even Republicans like Brian Kemp who didn't play into Donald Trump's hand in 2020, he's not going to waste this opportunity to further crack down on voting rights. He was one of the first governors to sign one of these voter suppression bills into law, effectively Jim Crow 2.0. Now the way that Republicans are trying to rig future elections in their favor is twofold. First, they're trying to consolidate power and make sure that they have more means of challenging election results and controlling local elections and they're doing this pretty brazenly. And when I say brazenly, I mean they're literally packing their high courts in some states. I'm not joking about that. As the AP explains, Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia have signed bills passed by GOP dominated legislatures to expand the number of seats on their state's respective high courts. In Iowa, the Republican governor gained a greater leverage over the commission that names judicial nominees. So in other words, court packing for me, but not the. And it's funny that Republicans even have a leg to stand on when they cry about the Democrats who want to pack the Supreme Court. First of all, Democrats aren't going to do that because they don't have the spine necessary to actually pull something like that off. But they already stole two Supreme Court seats. Gorsuch, Barrett, I mean, what do we call that if not court packing? But even, you know, leaving that instance aside, they're literally expanding the number of seats on courts in some states so they can have more institutional power. So that way, in the event there is a power change and, you know, these laws that they're passing don't actually align with their state's constitution. Well, they have the power, judicially, to strike down the new laws that actually are better for democracy. It's honestly a clusterfuck. It's a mess. And overall, what's happening is effectively going to amount to Republicans having a huge advantage. And when I say a huge advantage, I mean, if some of the laws that are being passed, specifically the one in Georgia, if that were actually in effect in 2020, it would have tipped the scales in Trump's favor, literally. So as Dave Wagle of the Washington Post explains, when it comes to Georgia last year to ease pressure on polling places and on voters who couldn't easily or safely reach them, Atlanta's Fulton County launched two mobile voting units, buses that functioned as fully staffed voting booths. For a cost of around $750,000, the county collected 11,200 votes across both buses, which stopped in different Atlanta locations at times announced by the county in advance. Joe Biden would go on to carry the county with 73% of the vote. The new law grounded those buses, mandating that mobile voting stations shall only be used in emergencies declared by the governor. It also altered the state's provisional ballot rules, requiring voters who show up to the wrong polling place before 5 p.m. to relocate and find their real polling place before 7 p.m. Voters arriving at the wrong precincts tend to cast most provisional ballots, which must be validated after the election. 11,120 valid provisional ballots were cast in the state last year, breaking about two to one for Biden over Trump. Combined, the ballots cast by both methods are nearly double the margin by which Biden won Georgia. I'm going to read that last sentence one more time. Combined, the ballots cast by both methods are nearly double the margin by which Biden won Georgia. So in these states where Joe Biden very narrowly won, they don't have to do very much. They just have to tweak a little bit around the edges, and that'll be sufficient. They tip the scales back in their favor, making sure that in the next election in 2022 and in 2024, the odds are once again stacked against the Democratic Party as they make it more difficult for the Democratic Party's base to come out and vote. Now, when it comes to Arizona, as NPR explains, Republicans in Arizona have enacted a new law that could remove voters from the state's early ballot mailing list if they don't use their early ballot at least once in two straight two-year election cycles. Now, you don't do something like this unless you are deliberately trying to make it more difficult to vote. But there's more. Weigel continues, Republicans initially pointed to Florida as a 2020 outlier, a case of best practices being followed and a result coming out quickly. The state's GOP quickly joined the effort to change election laws. Anyway, targeting drop boxes, which about 1.5 million Floridians used to cast ballots last year. Mobile drop boxes in use last year are now banned. In Wisconsin, through at least January 2023, Democrats controlled the governor's office in Madison with power to veto any new election laws that don't get bipartisan support. The GOP legislature's bills aren't at all likely to become law, but they set out what a new Republican governor could sign before the next presidential election. One bill would prevent ballot collection events anytime before the final two weeks leading up to an election. That would have prevented democracy in the park, a September 2020 event organized by election officials in Dane County. The state's Democratic stronghold where 10,813 ballots were collected. One would prohibit election officials from filling in missing, but known voter information on absentee ballots, which was used to complete more than 5,000 million ballots from Dane and Milwaukee County. We know the total from those counties for a simple reason. The Trump campaign sued to get them disqualified as it sued to get the democracy in the park ballots tossed in Texas. Hours before election day last year, nearly 127,000 people in Houston's Harris County waited to hear whether their votes would count. They'd taken advantage of a new drive through voting system put in place by then County clerk Christopher Hollins, a Democrat, a group of Republicans sued to toss their ballots, arguing that unless stopped illegal votes will be cast and counted in direct violation of the Texas election code at the United States Constitution. A Republican appointed judge throughout that case, but the election bills moving closer to Republican Governor Greg Abbott's desk would have prevented Harris from ever setting up the drive through sites. So they know what they're doing. They're deliberately making it more difficult to vote because if that happens, then you decrease turnout and then you have a better shot at winning because Democrats, they fare much worse when turnout is low. Republicans are aware of this. They're savvy enough to acknowledge the reality and what they're doing is very deliberate. They might claim they're trying to protect the integrity of the vote, but it's really curious that they're specifically targeting the things that drove up voter turnout in the 2020 election. And they're trying to stop that before the next election takes place so they can secure the stronghold that they have in their respective states. And it's incredibly transparent, but a lot of people still fall for their bullshit. And look, if they if they had their way, they would just outright ban people from voting if that were legal, if that were constitutionally permissible, but since they can't, they try to just make voting as difficult as possible. I mean, it's the same thing that they do with abortion. Since they can't outright ban abortion, well, what do they do? They just put a lot of regulations on abortion, make it more difficult to actually have an abortion, make sure there's less clinics available for women to have abortions and effectively you accomplish what you wanted to accomplish without having to ban abortion itself. That's what they're applying, but now to voting. And it's not like state Republicans are uniquely terrible. National Republicans are in lockstep with the effort that we're seeing take place in all these states. In fact, just this week, all nine Republican senators voted against Senator Ossoff's amendment that would prohibit states from placing restrictions on volunteers ability to offer food or water to voters waiting in line. And of course, that includes Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate. Now, why would they be against something seemingly insignificant? I mean, they claim that they care about the integrity of the election, but yet they're trying to make it so people can't deliver food and water to folks waiting in line. Well, it's because this was never about election integrity. This is about them beating Democrats by any means necessary, including rigging elections, eroding the democracy that we have. What's left of our democracy, I should say, because our democratic institutions have already been hollowed out by capital, by getting commodified with super PACs, Citizens United. And so what's left of democracy, they're trying to kill it by disincentivizing voting. So even if, you know, somebody wants to bring you water, they're making it so that's not acceptable. They are shameless, but I've got good news and also bad news. The good news is that there is a fix for this, that fix is HR one. It's the For the People Act, which would override all of these undemocratic bills popping up across the country. But the bad news is that it is overwhelmingly likely to die singlehandedly at the hands of Joe Manchin, who is seemingly in agreement with these 11 states that have passed voter suppression laws, saying, I believe Democrats and Republicans feel very strongly about protecting the ballot boxes, allowing people to protect the right to vote, making it accessible, making it fair and making it secure. So he's buying into two separate narratives here. He's accepting the narrative that this is about making elections safer, and he's also buying into the narrative that widespread voter fraud is a thing that happens when that's not actually the case. Widespread voter fraud is not a thing. Voter fraud is statistically insignificant. These Republicans are trying to create a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. But I shouldn't say that because the problem for them is that too many people are coming out to vote, especially people of color and people of color overwhelmingly vote against Republicans because Republicans have policies that fuck over people of color. But Joe Manchin says, yeah, I see that and it's fine. I agree with that. Joe Manchin might just unilaterally kill the one thing that could save democracy. And it's not like HR1 is perfect. There are provisions in it that disadvantage third parties that I disagree with that I want amended. But overall the bill itself is intended to stop voter suppression efforts. And if Democrats want a chance, then they can't allow these laws to stand. Otherwise, come 2022, 2024, these voter suppression laws are going to hurt them and they're going to hurt them pretty badly. So if you disagree with Joe Manchin, let him know his DC office phone number is 202-224-3954. I'm going to send him a quick message and let him know that he needs to support HR1. Thank you for taking time to call my office. We apologize that we aren't able to answer at this time. However, your call is important. So please leave a detailed message with your name, address and phone number. And we will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you for calling and have a great day. Hello, Senator Manchin. I just wanted to call to let you know that you need to stop being a coward and stop cowtowing to the Republican Party and actually support the For the People Act. It passed in the House of Representatives and now you are the one individual, I believe, who's holding it up. And so you're buying into the Republican Party's lies about widespread voter fraud being a thing. And it's not a thing. It is statistically insignificant. So this isn't something that you actually have to be a coward on. Like on this issue, you're not really going to offend your corporate donors by just doing the right thing. Like I understand why, you know, you don't want to pass other types of legislation like the infrastructure bill or God forbid Medicare for all, because you're big pharma donors, you're, you know, big business buddies who pull your strings like the puppet that you are. Won't like that. But for the People Act, this is about democracy. So if you care about democracy, then pass the bill, you coward, OK, grow a spine, pass the goddamn bill. Do what's right for once. I mean, Jesus Christ, with Democrats like you, who needs Republicans? Just terrible. I bet you love all the attention that you're getting. You just love this. You just love having so much power to screw over working Americans. Shame on you. I don't know how you sleep at night, but I'm assuming it's on a very large bed of money that you cover yourself in. You should be disgusted with yourself. And now I sure am. I know millions of Americans across the country are too. Shame on you, mansion. You suck. And we'll leave that there. If this is not stopped, then I'm telling you, democracy as we know it is finished. Because the more you suppress the vote, the less people turn out to vote. The more that democracy is eroded and ceases to exist altogether. So if Democrats don't act and do something about these efforts across the country, it's not going to be good for the future of America or the planet as a result.