Voting Problems in the US in 2020 PDF

a). State of U.S. Democracy in 2020 1. Voting Problems Besides the existence Electoral College, serious voting problems exist today. Indeed, voter suppression – the pressure to make it harder to vote – is an old phenomenon in the United States: despite the constitutional novelty of the 15 Amendmen...

a). State of U.S. Democracy in 2020 1. Voting Problems Besides the existence Electoral College, serious voting problems exist today. Indeed, voter suppression – the pressure to make it harder to vote – is an old phenomenon in the United States: despite the constitutional novelty of the 15 Amendment, disenfranchisement after th Reconstruction was widespread in the South. Voter suppression took perhaps a novel dimension on election night in 2000 when Americans realized they were a ridiculous situation where it was tie in Florida. People on both sides understood you could win an election by suppressing the vote or by turning out more voters. Progressively, voter suppression became a strategy of the Republican Party. To a large extent, the GOP has deliberately make it hard to vote in order to keep minorities, immigrants, young people and other groups from polling stations. Generally speaking, lower voter turnout benefits Republicans. The existing system became so easy to abuse that people had an incentive to try their hand, through determined and well-funded campaigns to push for new laws to make it harder to vote, putting forth widely exaggerated claims of “voter fraud” , or expressing concerns over having the federal 333 government run elections. Voter suppression may take different forms: purging voter rolls, passing voter-identification requirements, and understaffing or closing polling stations. Besides wreaking havoc with global health and the global economy, the Covid-19 pandemic also affected democratic practices because of its potential to prevent people from going to the polls in person by reason of continued lockdowns or shelter-at-home actions. Six months before the presidential elections of November 3, 2020, fears were expressed that the Trump administration would use the virus as an attempt to suppress voter turnout. As a result, Democrats – in particular, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) – started pushing for the entire country to have access to postal ballots well before the November 2020 election. (especially of activities) morally bad The nefarious democratic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic came to light in much- heated elections that took place in Wisconsin on April 7, 2020 when concerns were raised about state residents going to the polls in the middle of the crisis, effectively forcing them to choose between voting and staying safe. The day before the elections, the Democratic 334 governor of state of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, invoked emergency powers and issued an executive order that attempted to suspend in-person voting until June and to allow eligible voters to continue to cast mail-in absentee ballots until the new election date. Within hours 335 voir ça of this action, the Wisconsin state legislature, dominated by the GOP, sought to enjoin the veut dire Governor’s executive order. The controversy between the Governor and the state legislature quoi went directly to the Wisconsin Supreme Court which entered an order in favor of the 336 GOP? 333 The myth of voter fraud obsessed the Trump administration from the outset. Absent any substantiation, Donald Trump attributed his failure to win the popular vote in the Presidential elections of November 2016 to millions of illegal votes. The issue of voter fraud is developed below. 334 The election included the Democratic presidential primary in addition to races for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court (pitting the sitting state supreme court justice – Daniel Kelly – against a lower court judge supported by progressives – Jill Karnofsky), and other state and local judgeships. 335 For the text of Executive Order No. 74 of Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, see https://www.wpr.org/sites/default/files/eo074-suspendinginpersonvotingandspecialsession.pdf (accessed June 8, 2020). 336 The Supreme Court of Wisconsin granted leave to commence an original action before the Supreme Court under Wis. Stat. § (Rule 809-70. 123 legislature on a party-line 4-2 vote, in effect nullifying the Governor’s executive order and proclaiming – in a separate written order – that he lacked the authority to take such action. In 337 its amended order, the majority asserted that “[e]ven if the Governor’s policy judgments reflected in the order [were] well-founded, and even if we agreed with those policy judgments, none of the authorities cited in the order support this broad sweep of power”. In 338 dissent, Judge Ann Walsh Bradley delivered a stinging rebuke that clearly spelled out the stakes behind these decisions: “endanger your safety and potentially your life by voting or give up your right to vote by heeding the recent and urgent warnings about the fast-growing pandemic. These orders are but another example of this court’s unmitigated support of efforts to disenfranchise voters. […] democracy takes a step backwards”. The state was still subject 339 to the Governor’s initial stay-at-home order to minimize the community spread of the virus. Two consequences ensued. The first was that poll workers were reluctant to show up at polling stations. To take but one example, the city of Milwaukee, which normally operated 180 polling stations, opened only five. The second consequence was that the Wisconsin electoral system faced an overwhelming backlog of absentee ballot requests with the possibility of thousands of voters not having the opportunity to hand in their ballots in time. The night of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s orders, the U.S. Supreme Court also intervened regarding the elections in Wisconsin. The Justices, in Republican National Committee, et al. v. Democratic National Committee, et al., again in a party-line 5/4 ruling, effectively blocked a lower court order extending the deadline for mailing absentee ballots (by six days). The 340 Justices in the majority, none of whom signed the opinion, asserted they were ruling on a “narrow, technical question about the absentee ballot process” and emphasized they were adhering to precedent that general forbids lower federal court judges from altering election rules close to an election. Writing for the dissenters, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg 341 underscored the “dire health risks” of gathering at Wisconsin polling places and the plaintiffs’ intention to ease the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the election. Referring to the 342 majority opinion, she added: “While I do not doubt the good faith of my colleagues, the Court’s order, I fear, will result in massive disenfranchisement. […] The Court’s suggestion that the current situation is not ‘substantially different’ from ‘an ordinary election’ boggles the mind”. Wishing to drive the point home with absolute clarity, Justice Ginsburg stressed 343 the question in the case was “whether tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens can vote safely in the midst of a pandemic”, an issue that is “utmost importance – to the constitutional rights of Wisconsin’s citizens, the integrity of the State’s election process, and in this most 337 Wisconsin Legislature v. Evers (No. 2020AP608-OA): order of April 6, 2020, Internet available at https://www.wpr.org/sites/default/files/2020ap608o2_order_granting_orig_action_pet_and_injunction_04 -06-20.pdf (accessed June 8, 2020). According to David Cole, “all of the court’s justices voted absentee; they weren’t risking a trip to the polls”, in David Cole, “Why We Need Postal Democracy”, The New York Review of Books, May 28, 2020, Internet available at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/05/28/why-we-need-postal-democracy/ (accessed June 8, 2020). 338 Wisconsin Legislature v. Evers (No. 2020AP608-OA): amended order of April 6, 2020, at p. 2, Internet available at https://www.wpr.org/sites/default/files/2020ap608o3_-_final-.pdf (accessed June 8, 2020). 339 Ibid, p. 4 and p. 7. 340 Republic National Committee, et al. v. Democratic National Committee, et al., 589 U.S. ____ (2020)(per curiam), Internet available at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19a1016_o759.pdf (accessed April 9, 2020). 341 The main precedent was Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1 (2006)(per curiam). In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that courts should be wary to disturb elections procedures close to the date of an election. Admittedly, this case supposed that elections were not organized in a context of public health upheavals such as those stemming from the coronavirus crisis. 342 Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissent, slip op., p. 2. 343 Ibid, pp. 3-4. 124 extraordinary time, the health of the Nation”. Many legal scholars considered the Supreme 344 Court delivered a thinly-disguised partisan decision, Joan Biskupic writing that the ruling “reflects Chief Justice John Roberts’ cramped view of voting rights in America, a long-held position that has often favored Republican interests”. Another considered the Supreme 345 Court’s ruling was “brazenly ironic” in that it refused to make accommodation for Wisconsin’s voters whilst indefinitely postponing all of the cases that were originally scheduled to be argued before the Court because of the coronavirus crisis. Most 346 significantly, some claimed African-Americans in particular would be particularly hard-hit. With data showing a disproportionate number of African-Americans dying from the coronavirus. By way of reminder, the area in Wisconsin with the largest black population 347 (Milwaukee) only had five polling places, instead of the normal figure of 180. According to 348 David Cole, writing in The New York Review of Books, “in the coronavirus pandemic, Republicans may have discovered the ultimate voter suppression tactic. For years they have sought to erect obstacles to voting, imposing strict voter identification requirements, limiting registration opportunities, purging voter rolls, and opposing early voting – all ostensibly in the name of fighting in-person ‘voter-fraud’, even though there is virtually no evidence that anyone unlawfully impersonates a voter at the polls. Many Republicans believe that lo voter turnout favors them, because older and wealthier citizens, disproportionately Republicans, vote more regularly than younger and poorer citizens, who tend to favor Democrats. But the suppression tactics the party has previously pursued pale in comparison to fear of contracting a deadly disease, which is certain to deter many people from going to the polls”. 349 2. Scandal – Ridden Administration (=Government) cause someone to become involved in an argument or a difficult situation: The White House is embroiled in a variety of scandals: sex scandals, collusion with Russia and Trump campaign + possible influence of Russia on Trump’s campaign, conflicts of interest, … 3. Politically Inexperienced President Before becoming president, Donald Trump was a businessman, a T.V. host and a producer of reality TV shows. He never served in any public office. 344 Ibid, p. 6. In rare (and near-insulting) fashion, the majority spent considerable time outlining why it considered the dissent was wrong, to the point of criticizing the dissent’s rhetoric as “misplaced”: see majority opinion, slip op., pp. 3-4 345 Joan Biskupic, “Supreme Court’s Wisconsin Ruling”, CNN, April 7, 2020, Internet available at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/voting-wisconsin-supreme-court-john-roberts/index.html (accessed April 9, 2020). 346 Leah Litman, “The Supreme Court’s Wisconsin Decision is a Terrible Sign for November”, The Atlantic, April 7, 2020, Internet available at https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/supreme-courts- hypocrisy-going-get-americans-killed/609598/ (accessed April 9, 2020). 347 See Akilhah Johnson and Talia Buford, “Early Data Show African Americans Have Contracted, Died of Coronavirus at an Alarming Rate”, Medscape, April 6, 2020, Internet available at https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/928164 (accessed April 9, 2020). The reasons invoked have to do with racial disparities in the health-care system and socioeconomic disparities that prohibit poorer communities from taking various preventive measures. 348 Leah Litman, “The Supreme Court’s Wisconsin Decision is a Terrible Sign for November”, The Atlantic, April 7, 2020, op. cit. 349 David Cole, “Why We Need Postal Democracy”, op. cit. 125