Republicans looks to win elections with voting suppression, gerrymandering

Editor:

The new voter suppression law in Georgia was ostensibly passed to prevent voter fraud. However, the evidence of massive voter fraud is missing.

In over 60 court cases no evidence was produced. Every state certified their election as fair and free of fraud that would overturn the election. Mr. Trump’s Attorney General William Barr and the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Christopher Krebs, both stated that there was no massive voter fraud.

In Georgia, News station WDEF reported: “After a day of hearing evidence of election fraud in 63 cases, Georgia officials have decided to pass 24 of them on to prosecutors,” (2/18/21). There were over 4 million votes cast in the Georgia presidential election and only 24 allegations of voter fraud serious enough to be considered for prosecution. Voter fraud is minuscule; (.0006% of the election). Furthermore, the law that was just passed does not address those cases of voter fraud.

The real rush to push voter suppression laws is because when voters turn out they rejected the policies of Republicans who control of the Georgia state government. The New York Times (4/3/21), reporters Nick Corassaniti and Reid J. Epstein, went through the Georgia law and found 16 “provisions that hamper the right to vote for some Georgians, (principally people of color), or strip power from state and local elections officials and give it to legislators.”

For example in the new law there will be fewer drop boxes. NYT reports: “For the 2020 election, there were 94 drop boxes across the four counties that make up the core of metropolitan Atlanta: Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett. The new law limits the same four counties to a total of, at most 23 drop boxes based on the latest voter registration data.”

Instead of trying to appeal to voters, Republicans want to win elections by suppressing voting and gerrymandering. This is the very definition of Jim Crow laws and it diminishes and damages our democracy.

William Fine

Brockport