Voter Suppression & Election Theft by the Republican Party

[LFC]

Jun 3, 2021 3:37:45 GMT LFC said:

Pennsylvania's Republican fascists traveled to Arizona to study what election audit fraud (the "faudit") looks like.

A PA state senator just said out loud that the Arizona faudit was the model for the country on admitted criminal scam artist Steve Bannon's podcast. Republicans everywhere are rejecting reality and democracy and instead will be calling and and clinging to the grifters and liars to hand them power. Josh Marshall called the faudit "shambolic" and that seems to be a pretty good one word description. Prepare to see a lot more of the same.

Arizona’s politicized audit of its largest county’s 2020 election results is a “model” for other states, a Pennsylvania state senator told Trump ally Steve Bannon Wednesday after touring the Arizona operation.

“I think this is really the model, in the future, for any elections that might be in dispute,” State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) said after he took a “fact-finding mission” to Arizona with two other Pennsylvania legislators.

Mastriano also said he “absolutely” saw the Arizona audit as a model to examine the 2020 election results, and added later: “Arizona is here setting a new standard.”

The senator has long amplified Trump’s lies that the election was stolen, including by holding a hearing in November, in which Trump (by phone) complained about the long list of federal judges who’d laughed his claims out of court. Rudy Giuliani appeared in person to urge state legislators to throw out nearly 700,000 votes.

Mastriano also pushed for a review of the ballots in one Pennsylvania county, Fulton. That recount was performed by a contractor that went on to work for the Republican-authorized Arizona audit, and records suggest that the Pennsylvania work was paid for by the fringe pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s organization.

[LFC]

TPM has a piece called Is Joe Manchin Doing The Democrats a Favor? which makes some pretty good points on HR1 - For the People Act. One of the best points is that it's too complex and pushes for too much too fast. This is a repeated failing of Democrats that I've seen at least since Hillary Clinton tried to completely remake the U.S. healthcare system in a single bill back in the 90s. Here are a few things that caught my attention.

The Democrats — and freedom-loving Republicans and independents — should primarily be concerned with the laws that discourage normal non-pandemic era voting; and a bill that directly targeted those measures would enjoy wide popular support and could even garner some Republican support in Congress. But the For the People Act (H.R. 1), which was passed by House of Representatives in March, is not such a bill. Instead, it is an 886-page Christmas tree of progressive election measures. I am not saying Manchin is right to oppose it. I would probably favor 90 percent of the provisions. But it’s very understandable that he does and that other Democrats, in addition to every Republican, would.

These measures include, as I have described before, wide-ranging campaign finance reform, including public funding of elections, the institution of non-partisan redistricting, support for Congress being able to declare the District of Columbia a state, and a panoply of regulations that would govern state elections — elections that are supposed to be the purview of states. Many of these provisions are controversial. In West Virginia, the Association of County Clerks sent Manchin and his fellow senator, Shelley Moore Capito, a letter opposing the bill on the grounds that West Virginia was not prepared to implement many of the new regulations. Of the 54 of 55 clerks who signed the letter, 37 were Democrats.

On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow unveiled a poll staged by “End Citizens United” that showed a majority of West Virginians in favor of the legislation. I have been unable to come up with a copy of the actual poll, but believe me, once the myriad and extraordinarily ambitious details of the legislation were unveiled — and they would be revealed during hearings and debate — voters’ reaction throughout the country would be mixed. The public has not been adequately prepared for the kind of sweeping electoral reform that this bill would attempt. And in this respect, Manchin’s opposition has been entirely understandable.

Democrats would be better off paring down their initiative to several measures that would be readily understandable and popular — making election-day a federal holiday, for instance. And they would be even better off, as Manchin suggested, putting their weight behind the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore the provisions of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court, and permit the Justice Department to block measures intended to curb minority voting. These measures are readily understandable, and would earn some Republican support, and they do address the Republican efforts to rig forthcoming elections. If this bill failed, that defeat could be used against Republican candidates in 2022 and 2024. It would portray the Republicans as captive of Trump’s bigotry and assault against democracy, and this measure’s defeat might also lead some Democrats to reconsider their opposition to filibuster reform.

[LFC]

The Arizona faudit continues to attract other states' Republicans like fascist moths to a fraudulent flame.

If you’re a Republican politician who wants to prove your loyalty to President Trump and his election fraud lies, a stop at Arizona’s shambolic recount has become a must.

In recent days, state-level candidates for office from all over the country have descended on the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum to observe the partisan recount of Maricopa County’s 2.1 million ballots that was ordered by Arizona’s GOP Senate.

The most recent pilgrim was Virginia State Sen. Amanda Chase (R) who’s embraced the nickname “Trump in Heels” and unsuccessfully sought the state party’s gubernatorial nomination this year.

“I’ll be bringing this information back to Virginia,” Chase said, according to The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel. Colorado State Rep. Ron Hanks (R) also toured the Coliseum Thursday, Weigel said.

This week also featured visits by state lawmakers from Alaska and Georgia. The leader of Nevada’s Republican Party visited as well. All told, the MAGA stars of at least six different states have flocked to Arizona to observe the so-called “audit.”

“I’m told that every day this week there is some elected official coming in from some state,” the Senate’s liaison to the audit, Ken Bennett, told the far-right website Gateway Pundit Tuesday.

[Traveler]

Jun 11, 2021 17:10:14 GMT LFC said:

TPM has a piece called Is Joe Manchin Doing The Democrats a Favor? which makes some pretty good points on HR1 - For the People Act. One of the best points is that it's too complex and pushes for too much too fast. This is a repeated failing of Democrats that I've seen at least since Hillary Clinton tried to completely remake the U.S. healthcare system in a single bill back in the 90s. Here are a few things that caught my attention.

I pointed this out over in the Manchin thread.  Dems keep falling over their feet. 

[goldenvalley]

Jun 11, 2021 19:14:15 GMT Traveler said:

Jun 11, 2021 17:10:14 GMT LFC said:

TPM has a piece called Is Joe Manchin Doing The Democrats a Favor? which makes some pretty good points on HR1 - For the People Act. One of the best points is that it's too complex and pushes for too much too fast. This is a repeated failing of Democrats that I've seen at least since Hillary Clinton tried to completely remake the U.S. healthcare system in a single bill back in the 90s. Here are a few things that caught my attention.

A number of amendments were proposed and passed while it was in the Senate Rules committee, but then the Republicans that voted for the amendments voted against moving the bill out of committee.   I don't believe any version of it will ever get Republican votes.  The Senators aren't there to do anything but stymie bills introduced by Democrats.

[Traveler]

How can the POG prevent it getting out of committee? Don't Dems have some semblance of control?

[goldenvalley]

Jun 11, 2021 19:30:47 GMT Traveler said:

How can the POG prevent it getting out of committee? Don't Dems have some semblance of control?

the committee is split 50/50 just like the overall Senate.

[LFC]

Michigan Republicans have a plan to avoid the governor's veto for their voter suppression efforts. They haven't pushed it full force yet but I'd be shocked if they didn't.

Republicans in Michigan’s legislature have introduced scores of bills targeting the state’s election rules, just as Republicans have in states all across the country. Some of them would make it harder to vote. Others would overhaul the process of counting and certifying results in a way that appears to nod to conspiracy theories about President Trump’s loss in the state and would make it easier for bad actors to disrupt the process going forward.

But unlike the half-dozen or so GOP-controlled states that have made their restrictive proposals law, Michigan has a Democratic governor who has vowed to veto the partisan bills. Enter a scheme first outlined in March by state GOP chair Ron Weiser. Republicans, Weiser said then, intended to take advantage of a process in Michigan law that would allow the GOP legislature to adopt a measure without it going on the ballot, or getting the sign-off of the governor.

Under the process, such an election overhaul would instead just need 340,000 signatures, and then the legislature could make it law without the governor having a say.

When Weiser described the plan at a meeting with local activists, he said the petition measure would be shaped around bills being considered by the Republican legislature, including a 39-bill package that was unveiled by the Senate the day before his remarks.

A petition drive doesn’t require the legislature to pass the measure first. But Republicans may attempt to do so anyway: they have stated openly that having Gov. Whitmer veto such a package first would energize the petition effort. Outside observers expected the effort to launch in the summer, while the weather was ideal for signature gathering.

The summer break the legislature will take next month, however, is tightening the timeline for that sequence of events. And the state GOP, for all of its big talk in the spring, is now playing down what formal involvement it will have in such an effort.

[LFC]

The Arizona Republic published a full list of fascists coming to the Arizona as they learn more about attempting to overthrow fair elections. OAN has raised money for some of their travel. Here are some but there's more in the RawStory piece. (The Arizona Republic piece is paywalled.)

The Republican Party audit of 2020 election ballots and machines has spurred an influx of GOP members from other states to come to learn how to conduct their own partisan audits. Now, The Arizona Republic has the full list and who paid for it.

Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Doug Mastriano is among those eager to bring a partisan audit to Pennsylvania.

"Specifically, I like this approach in Arizona because it is scientific," he falsely claimed to the press. "I mean, what I saw there, there is no way that they can be accused of slanting or bias because it's just counting votes, looking at ballots, and then doing the forensic analysis."
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Rep. Rob Kauffman and state Sen. Cris Dush also joined Mastriano, as did Rep. Seth Grove, the chairman of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Government Committee.

Alaska state Rep. David Eastman, another Republican eager to conduct an audit in his red state, also appeared in Arizona, but not until after he traveled Jan. 6 to Washington for Donald Trump's "stop the steal" rally. Members of his own party have criticized him for the move.

"I am grateful for the efforts that those in Arizona are making to increase confidence in their elections and hope we will be able to increase the confidence that Alaskans have in our elections as well," he told the press.

A whole crew of Wisconsin Republicans flocked to Arizona last week, "including state Rep. Janel Brandtjen. Brandtjen is the chairwoman of the Assembly Elections Committee, which is helping oversee a review of Wisconsin's election," said the report. She was joined by state Reps. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, David Murphy and Chuck Wichgers.

In that case in particular, it was revealed that Christina Bobb and Chanel Rion of the OAN network helped raise money for their trip.

Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens was also among the group of Republicans who came to Arizona. He was forced to resign in 2018 after allegedly blackmailing a woman with whom he was having an affair. He's now running for the U.S. Senate.

Georgia Republicans joined as well, with state Sens. Burt Jones and Brandon Beach, who attempted to nulifiy all of the votes in his state with a lawsuit even the GOP attorney general called "constitutionally, legally and factually wrong." State Sen. Marty Harbin also joined them.

[LFC]

The Arizona AG is defending the faudit calling legitimate criticisms of the farce as "hysterical outcries of leftist pundits on cable television." If you're going to be a corrupt lying fascist you might as well be aggressive about it.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) told the U.S. Justice Department Monday that that DOJ was “supporting the hysterical outcries of leftist pundits on cable television” when it sent a letter last month inquiring about the state’s partisan recount of the 2020 election.

The May 5 letter, sent by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, raised examples of where the so-called audit may be running afoul of federal law. On Friday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland referenced the letter in a speech that promised the federal agency would scrutinize post-elections audits to “ensure they abide by federal statutory requirements to protect election records and avoid the intimidation of voters.”

Brnovich, in his Monday letter addressed to Garland, said the U.S. Attorney General’s comments were “troubling.” He accused Garland of displaying “disdain” for state sovereignty.

“My office is not amused by the DOJ’s posturing and will not tolerate any effort to undermine or interfere with our State Senate’s audit to reassure Arizonians of the accuracy of the elections,” Brnovich wrote. “We stand ready to defend federalism and state sovereignty against any partisan attacks or federal overreach.”

Brnovich’s swipes at Garland escalate the tensions between state and federal governments as the Biden administration ramps up its efforts to protect voting rights. When Arizona’s Senate President Karen Fann (R), who is spearheading the audit, responded to the DOJ’s May 5 letter previously, her tone was far less combative than Brnovich’s, who announced a U.S. Senate run last week.

Aaaaaahhhhh. Federal law doesn't apply to Arizona. What a great position for an AG to take.

[LFC]

From TPM's Morning Memo.

An auditor at the clown show that is the Maricopa County vote “audit” flagged a ballot as suspicious because “every single oval was filled out perfectly, without a single stray mark,” according to a Newsmax report at the scene that heaped praise on the shady operation.

Apparently OCD is now evidence of fraud.

[pnwguy]

Jun 16, 2021 14:01:54 GMT LFC said:

From TPM's Morning Memo.

An auditor at the clown show that is the Maricopa County vote “audit” flagged a ballot as suspicious because “every single oval was filled out perfectly, without a single stray mark,” according to a Newsmax report at the scene that heaped praise on the shady operation.

Apparently OCD is now evidence of fraud.

Because too many MAGAts are amped up on meth to make clean marks, they project that on Democratic leaning voters.  "Must be Chinese filling in these fake bamboo ballots"

[Deleted]

Do you not know that only those who have mastered Chinese calligraphy with years and years of strenuous practice can blacken an oval with impeccable precision? No other reasonable explanation exists.

[LFC]

TPM has an interesting piece called How The Roberts Court Laid The Groundwork For 2021’s All-Out Assault On Voting Rights. He created a brand new "doctrine of equal sovereignty" out of nothing other than intentional half attributions and unicorn farts. Here's an idea of just how awful this concept was viewed by legal scholars.

Scholarly disapproval was swift. One scholar said the doctrine prompted “savage criticism not only from the left, but also from the right.” Stanford Professor Michael McConnell, who had been a court of appeals judge ap­ pointed by President George W. Bush, said of the equal sovereignty concept, “This is a nice idea; it might be on my list of desirable constitutional amendments. But it is not in the Constitution we have.” Richard Posner, a conservative appeals court judge appointed by Ronald Reagan, joined in:

“This is a principle of constitutional law of which I had never heard — for the excellent reason that . . . there is no such principle.” If his point had not been clear, he added, “It rests on air.”

[LFC]

The Arizona faudit gets even weirder.

Election data from the politicized “audit” of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 election results has made its way across multiple state lines to a secure “lab” — or maybe a cabin — in Montana.

The purported lab location, CNN reported Wednesday night, is the residence of the founder of an audit subcontractor who lives off of a Montana highway.

The Arizona Republic first reported the story two weeks ago: Ben Cotton, the founder of the audit’s tech contractor CyFIR, made copies of Maricopa County’s election server and other data and drove them to what one audit spokesperson described as a “secure lab” in Montana. The spokesperson, Ken Bennett, told the Republic he didn’t have any details on how Cotton was keeping that data secure.

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ (D) office had earlier noted the Montana twist on its website: “Observation: On May 24, 2021, Senate Liaison Ken Bennett confirmed that copies of voting system data was sent to a lab in Montana. He did not specify what security measures were in place, or what the lab in Montana will do with the data or how long it will be in possession of the copies.”

The Republic reported that Ryan Macias, an elections expert who’s observing the audit for Hobbs’ office, asked Bennett about the data traveling to Montana after hearing a rumor about it.

The Republic and CNN noted that Cotton, in addition to being the founder of CyFIR, is also CEO of its precursor company CyTech. CyTech’s website, which lists Cotton as CEO, also lists a Montana address off of Montana Highway 83 in Bigfork, not far from Flathead Lake. Records indicate Cotton is the property owner, the Republic and CNN reported.

It’s not clear what data traveled to Montana. Neither the audit, CyTech nor CyFIR responded to TPM’s requests for comment.

[LFC]

TPM asks a pretty important question concerning the For The People Act: "Could the Court Toss a Ban on Partisan Gerrymandering?" With the Roberts Court being hostile to voting rights even before it went 6-3, with a transparently ridiculous justification for allowing gerrymandering, I can easily see them consistently helping Republicans at the expense of the majority of Americans.

Last week I noted that even if Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is watering down the For the People Act, his somewhat diminished version is still very much worth fighting for. Part of my argument is that the ban on partisan gerrymandering is likely the most important part of the legislation. And Manchin appears to be saying that he supports that part of the bill.

Now, a number of you have written in to ask how excited we can be about that given the GOP majority (yes, intentional usage) Supreme Court which is often inclined to use the most facially absurd arguments if they advance conservative ideology or the present interests of the Republican party (yes, this is definitely still true). Or to put it more directly, how likely are those provisions to withstand the scrutiny of this Supreme Court?

This was precisely my question earlier in the year. But speaking to a number of election and constitutional lawyers gave me the strong impression that these provisions are pretty likely to withstand such muster.

Now, as we’ve said, the 6 member majority on the Court can do anything it wants. So, no guarantees. But from the experts I spoke to I would say that the constitution is about as clear as it can possibly be on Congress’s authority to make such rules.

Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1 places state legislatures in charge of administering federal elections. But it says clearly that Congress can overrule and change those rules at its discretion. Here’s the text: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators [emphasis added].”

There are other ambiguities about this clause or rather ones members of the Court have now claimed are ambiguous. But there’s really no ambiguity about Congress’s ability to make regulations for the administration of federal elections which override those of the states.

[LFC]

Another piece on how Republicans are systematically assaulting voting rights.

America’s democracy is imperiled, and as we approach a coming crucible with a vote on the For the People Act in the Senate, we would all do well to remember: when someone tells you who they are, believe them.

“The idea of democracy and Majority rule really is what goes against our history and what the country stands for,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) recently said.

Paul is only the most recent Republican politician to call into question the very democracy that governs the American way of life. The Republican Party is telling us who they are. From Donald Trump’s big lie about the election, to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on down — they are telling us that they do not believe in our democracy. We should listen to them.

Republicans are not alone in their ignoble anti-democracy status. They are joined by Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), whose commitment to preserving the filibuster puts them on the same side of history as Jim Crow. We call on them to join the side of history bending towards justice.

[goldenvalley]

In other words, Senator Paul...your party is in favor of majority rule when they hold the majority of seats in Congress and statehouses, but are completely opposed to it in any other circumstances. Why? Because power is the goal and the only thing worth having (except for money of course).

[LFC]

Michigan Republicans found no evidence of fraud. The only part about that is surprising is that Republicans are actually willing to admit the obvious and factual.

An investigation spearheaded by Michigan Republican lawmakers did not find evidence supporting falsehoods of widespread fraud in the 2020 election that have been peddled by former President Trump.

A 55-page report by the GOP-led Michigan Senate Oversight Committee released Wednesday debunked efforts to delegitimize the election results in the battleground state.

“The Committee found no evidence of widespread or systemic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election,” the report said.

“Citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan.”

The report also refutes false claims of dead voters as well as claims of voter turnout being more than 100 percent in any of the state’s precincts contributing to President Biden’s win. Additionally, it debunks talking points by Republicans who have pushed for an “audit” of election results in Michigan, which include baseless claims of voting machines manufactured by Dominion contributing to a “stolen” election.

Bogus claims of voting equipment leading to election fraud remain in Cheboygan, Michigan, a largely rural county of about 25,000 people where Trump won by 30 percentage points over Biden.

The Michigan Senate Oversight Committee’s report comes as the rural county has pushed to get its hands on its election machines requested state permission on Tuesday to launch an independent “audit” to probe whether “any unauthorized computer actually manipulated the actual presidential election vote tally.”

[LFC]

The percentage of people who think voter fraud in America is a problem (paywalled) aligns almost perfectly with the percentage who approved of Donald Trump. It's good to see that the insanity at least hasn't spread. Most Americans know that the Republican screeching is all bullshit.

The majority of Americans can see right through the intentions of the ongoing and impending “audits” of the 2020 election springing up around the U.S.

But a decent chunk — 37 percent — also think that voter fraud is a major problem in the United States.

A new Monmouth University Poll conducted earlier this month dug into Americans’ views on various voting rights issues and produced an interesting mashup of results. Pollsters reached people between June 9 and 14, during a peak time for headlines on voting rights in the U.S. — from the spread of “audit” mania to the battle over S.1 in the Senate (which, as you know, reached a crescendo last night as Republicans filibustered the measure, blocking the For the People Act from proceeding to debate on the Senate floor).

Most Americans polled, 57 percent, said they view the various audits, including the increasingly sketchy one in Maricopa County, Arizona, as “partisan” attempts to sow doubt about valid election results (though, alarmingly, about one-third, 32 percent, also think that President Biden’s victory was due to voter fraud). Additionally about 40 percent indicated that the ongoing sham audits will weaken American democracy — 20 percent said it would strengthen it and 35 percent believed it would have no impact.

Of course, when separated by political party affiliation, the belief in the legitimacy of the audits was especially high among Republicans, 60 percent.

The poll comes as the highly politicized, shambolic Maricopa County audit begins to wind down. But the impact of its existence in the first place will linger — we covered the various manifestations of this audit bug and the ways it has spread across the country here. The effort has also served as a breeding ground for the big lie and a pseudo MAGA world tour for Trumpy Republicans hoping to replicate the effort in their states.

Perhaps the most interesting results of the Monmouth poll are the various, almost conflicting beliefs Americans have about voting rights and restrictions in general. For example, while half of those surveyed (50 percent) indicated they view voter disenfranchisement as a “major” problem in the United States (37 percent said that voter fraud was a “major” problem), a large majority (80 percent!) said they were in support of people having to show a photo ID in order to vote.

Additionally, 69 percent are in favor of there being national guidelines for vote by mail and in-person early voting in federal elections that’s followed by every state. There was also majority support for making vote-by-mail and in-person voting easier for Americans.

The Monmouth poll surveyed 810 U.S. adults, with a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points.

[Deleted]

Jun 23, 2021 20:42:00 GMT LFC said:

The percentage of people who think voter fraud in America is a problem... 

...strongly correlates with the percentage of people showing up in hospital ERs with strange objects stuck in difficult to access bodily orifices... for inscrutable reasons.

[LFC]

Jun 24, 2021 12:58:59 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

...strongly correlates with the percentage of people showing up in hospital ERs with strange objects stuck in difficult to access bodily orifices... for inscrutable reasons.

Coincidentally that aligns with what I want Republicans to do with their votes. Paper ballot wrapped around a brick, of course.

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2021 13:25:46 GMT LFC said:

Jun 24, 2021 12:58:59 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

...strongly correlates with the percentage of people showing up in hospital ERs with strange objects stuck in difficult to access bodily orifices... for inscrutable reasons.

Coincidentally that aligns with what I want Republicans to do with their votes. Paper ballot wrapped around a brick, of course.

My preference is them rolling the ballots up in to a wick, inserting and lighting... with abundant supply of methane and a little bit of luck... come to think of they aren't strangers to this practice...practically a hobby in itself.

[LFC]

AG Merrick Garland's DOJ announced that they're going after Georgia's new voter suppression law as unfairly targeting black residents. TPM has live coverage of the announcement.

The federal government is reportedly planning to sue the state of Georgia over its new voting law, which takes power away from local elections officials and adds new voting restrictions.

Mother Jones first reported on the suit, citing an unnamed source familiar with the litigation, and adding that the effort was being overseen by DOJ Civil Rights Division leader Kristen Clarke and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, both experienced civil rights litigators who’ve specialized in voting rights issues in the past. Other news outlets soon confirmed the news.

In addition to a string of new voting restrictions — fewer ballot drop boxes, stricter ID requirements for absentee voters, shorter timelines to request an absentee ballot, and much more — the law made it a misdemeanor for non-poll workers to pass out food or water within 150 feet of a polling place building, or within 25 feet of any voter waiting in line.

The law also changes the dynamics of election authority within Georgia, allowing the state election board to take over counties’ election management, and removing the secretary of state from that same board and replacing the position with a legislative appointee.

Assistant AG and Civil Rights expert Kristen Clarke had this to say:

“The right to vote is one of the most central rights in our democracy and protecting the right to vote for all Americans is at the core of the Civil Rights Division’s mission. The Department of Justice will use all the tools it has available to ensure that each eligible citizen can register, cast a ballot, and have that ballot counted free from racial discrimination. Laws adopted with a racially motivated purpose, like SB 202, simply have no place in democracy today.”

Garland is creating a task force to directly take on the threats by the fascists who are threatening poll workers and election officials in an effort to destroy fair elections in America.

In addition to the Georgia suit, the DOJ announced Friday morning that it is launching a task force to address the surge in threats against election officials and administrators.

Garland credited the news media during his press conference in bringing the seriousness and vastness of the threats to his attention, which helped the department conclude that the task force was necessary.

[LFC]

Before anybody thinks that Georgia SoS Raffensberger is a decent Republican rather than a partisan hack who is 100% in on voter suppression to win elections just look at his reaction to the DOJ coming after the Georgia voter suppression bill. Also remember that this clown signed off on one of the voter purges which was, as they all are, heavily skewed to tossing Democrats off the voter rolls.

We have a statement from Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, one of the named defendants in the lawsuit in his official capacity.

“The Biden Administration continues to do the bidding of Stacey Abrams and spreads more lies about Georgia’s election law,” Raffensperger said. “Their lies already cost Georgia $100 million and got the President awarded with four Pinocchio’s. It is no surprise that they would operationalize their lies with the full force of the federal government. I look forward to meeting them, and beating them, in court.”

For what it’s worth, the federal lawsuit mentions Abrams — both her effect on Black voter turnout in 2018, and on the racism employed against her. From the suit:

This overall rise in Black political success occurred against the backdrop of virulent racial appeals. Two years earlier, during the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial contest, a racist robocall referred to candidate Stacey Abrams as ‘Negress Stacey Abrams’ and ‘a poor man’s Aunt Jemima.’

The morality bar is so low for Republicans now that this guy is held up as "one of the good ones" simply because he refused to outright blatantly break the law. Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations.