MAGA Election Deniers Continue Their Voter-Roll Purging Spree
MAGA Election Deniers Continue Their Voter-Roll Purging Spree
Check your registrations, everybody!
MAGA election-denying forces have been on a nationwide spree to get voters’ registrations purged from rolls since their Lord Emperor Donald J. Trump got his ass handed to him in 2020.
Latest development: North Carolina has purged 747,274 voter registrations from its rolls over the past 20 months, which is almost 10 percent of all the registrations in the state. Dang, that’s a lot of Tarheels! And election deniers would like to remove even more, if a judge would be so kind as to let them. The Republican National Committee and North Carolina Republican Party also have a pending lawsuit wherein they bitch that 225,000 people were allowed to register without providing a drivers’ license or Social Security number, so therefore these people are probably three George Soroses in a trench coat, and another lawsuit wherein they gripe that the state didn’t cross-reference its voter registrations with people who asked to be excused from jury duty because they were not citizens, so probably Joe Biden will be busing them in to vote from their day jobs working for a Mexican cocaine cartel.
In 2020, Trump won North Carolina with 74,481 votes. But with his poll numbers dwindling there, putting him ahead by the finest frog hair, Republicans are not taking any chances.
North Carolina’s mass purge is not necessarily as alarming as it sounds, though. The NC board of elections has a breakdown of why these registrations were removed, and most are routine and reasonable: dead people, felons, duplicates. But a big chunk are people who didn’t vote in the past two elections, which could come as a surprise to the recently invigorated who show up on election day expecting to be able to vote. Also “people who have recently moved,” who perhaps didn’t realize that entering a USPS change-of-address would get them kicked off the rolls. The good news is that it’s easy to check one’s voter status, and people can still register or re-register until October 11. Here’s the breakdown from the NC elections board:
The voter-rolls colonic is all part of a nationwide push by election-denying groups, largely spearheaded by pruny bigot Cleta Mitchell, that Trump coup lawyer who was on Trump’s “find me 11,780 votes” phone call in Georgia. She was recommended by a grand jury for indictment there for her meddling efforts, and for whatever reason DA Fani Willis didn’t include her in that RICO case, and so she got right back to it, popping up just about everywhere that some voter-roll-purging bullshit is going down.
A-Hole Trump Coup Lawyer Sick Of Gross Youngs Voting, What If We Just Made That Totally Impossible?
Mitchell-affiliated groups, plus other groups of election deniers have also targeted Georgia, and since July have challenged about 45,000 registrations, though they’ve only succeeded in removing about 50 of them.
Then there’s Michigan, where thousands of registrations have been challenged. And Wisconsin! Right-wing cheeseheads have been fighting early voting sites, voter registration efforts, and drop boxes. The mayor of Wausau, Doug Diny, is now under investigation by the attorney general for dressing up like Bob The Builder to haul away a absentee ballot drop box. Look at how this weenus seems so pleased with himself!
There’s Texas, where Ken Paxton has been terrorizing abuelas for the horrible crime of trying to help voters register, among his many other shenanigans.
And Nevada, where a group calling itself the Pigpen Project combed voter rolls went door-to-door to “confirm registrations.” Also New York, where a group called NY Citizens Audit got slapped with a cease-and-desist after going door-to-door, falsely claiming that they were state election officials and baselessly accusing people of committing voter fraud.
Nebraska! A bipartisan legislature voted to let felons have their right to vote reinstated, but two Republican officials in Nebraska—Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Secretary of State Bob Evnen— simply refused to implement it.
Arizona! Republicans tried to get 41,000 voters who didn’t show the right papers kicked off of the rolls entirely until SCOTUS shot them down, and then the Republican state Supreme Court decided NOT to kick 97,688 Arizona voters off the full-ballot rolls, coincidentally after it turned out those voters were mostly Republicans.
Which might lead you to ask, how can these right-wing election-deniers be so sure that the people they’re disenfranchising aren’t actually their own people? Oldster Fox-watchers in North Carolina who forgot to re-register when they moved to the nursing home? Some of it is by using AI programs, like EagleAI, where they can try to pinpoint who to target and challenge, even if they might accidentally get a life-long Democrat who’s fallen down a YouTube rabbit hole and decided to go for Trump this time. And another part of it is, they just don’t care. Making people question election integrity is the point, and the chaos is the point, so should their Super Duper Couper lose, there’s something to complain and play victim about. Should he win, SHUDDER, Trump has an excuse to “have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
Scary shit! Wherever you are, check your registration, check it twice! Verify your requirements for the polls so you don’t show up without ID, only to find out the law has changed and now you need one! Vote early if you can, so you can check that your ballot was accepted, and “cure” it if it was not. Tell your friends who are not Wonkette readers about what’s going on. Make a TikTok, so the youths will be informed. Write a postcard to a voter in a swing state!
Only 38 more days!
[Democracy Docket / New York Times gift link/ Atlanta Journal Constitution archive link]
Thank from my Wisconsin absentee ballot went in the mail yesterday. Let's get this done.
Good thing I checked my registration! Checked the local website and I was not there! Have continuously voted by mail for many years. Called them and had to re-register. Not a big deal, but vigilance is needed now. I am in a solid blue state no less.