As law professor and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance said today in her Civil Discourse newsletter, voter suppression has long been a part of the US election landscape. Problem is, it hasn’t long been prosecuted for the rampant and blatant crime that it is.
Vance was specifically addressing fake Biden robocalls to New Hampshire Democrats telling them not to vote in their primary today. Literally. The call has an AI-generated voice of Biden telling voters to save their vote for November.
Vance listed other instances of voter suppression occurring in election years prior, particularly those targeting black communities in the south. Mailers with fake election dates and other tricks of the corrupt trade that is Republican politics. Because if they didn’t cheat with fake flyers and fake robocalls, how else could they win?
Vance also speculates whether the Department of Justice will investigate this crime. The fact that we have to ask if this DOJ will investigate is problematic in and of itself.
If we were talking about the previous administration’s DOJ headed by Bill Barr, there would be no question. Not only would there be no investigation, suppression of Democratic votes was likely lauded, not lamented or legally prosecuted. Aided and abetted, not abhorred. How else could they stay in power?
I was especially concerned about voter suppression here in Nevada in the 2020 election. And it turns out I had good reason, due to a fake slate of Republican electors cooked up by the likes of derelict dudes Giuliani and Chesebro (all now finally indicted but it took them long enough). The six Trumpster fraudulent electors sought to wipe out my and all other votes for Biden for president in Nevada. Had a few of our elected officials been as corrupt as they were, Republican fraudsters might have gotten away with it.
Plus, it is my absolute and irrevocable stance that the fake Nevada electors had help, as did many other states, via the United States Post Office. Why was I particularly concerned about voter suppression in 2020? I never received my official mail ballot. Every Nevada voter is legally required to have one sent to them so that they can vote by mail if they so choose.
I contacted the Nevada Secretary of State’s office in Carson City. They said the ballot had been mailed. I requested another one, as was my right to do so. It never showed up either. Funny thing, I lived in a predominantly black neighborhood.
My take is, even if this was not voter suppression, per se, and was merely due to the appalling incompetence of what has become the USPS under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, this remains a critical issue with respect to election and voting integrity that has yet to be addressed. Because DeJoy is still there, unimpeded in ongoing MAGA damage to the US mail system.
If you don’t receive your ballot, you can’t vote by mail. You have to go stand in line in the hot Vegas sun in October to place your vote during established voting times at established polling locations. Where, sure enough, there were a bunch of MAGA idiots, old white men running around in MAGA gear, waving Trump flags as they walked past the lines of voters, because they decided that rules don’t apply to them.
If you don’t have an official mail ballot, you also can’t use ballot drop boxes available at Nevada polling locations, which many states are actively trying to get rid of as part of their voter suppression efforts, if they haven’t already accomplished it.
While I waited in vain for my official ballot to show up in the mail, DeJoy was busy removing mailboxes from residential neighborhoods. But those fake flyers telling voters that their voting day was different than the designated Tuesday election day, well, the USPS sure managed to get those delivered, now didn’t they?
Cue this year. Since I moved to my current location two years ago, I’ve been using what the USPS calls Informed Delivery, wherein you receive a daily (usually) email with photos of (most) incoming mail. Because of Informed Delivery, I’ve been able to determine every single time the postal carrier misdelivers my mail. It happens far more often than it should, and my community has an ongoing known problem with both our regular carrier, and especially with our weekend “relief” carrier, that the USPS has done nothing about. I’ve also recently had issues with my outgoing mail taking weeks to reach US destinations.
With the Nevada primary approaching, I received an Informed Delivery notice last Tuesday with a photo of my official mail ballot from the Clark County Election Department. Problem was, the ballot wasn’t in my mailbox that day. The USPS claims that sometimes it won’t be that exact day that any piece of mail will be delivered.
Except past experience has taught me many times over that if a particular piece of mail doesn’t show up that day, it was put in someone else’s box. I’m still waiting on a Christmas card that was supposed to have been delivered Dec. 23. I may never get it because the USPS apparently thinks it’s okay to rely on the goodness and integrity of neighbors to hand over mail that it misdelivered.
Part of the problem is the partial privatization of the USPS, but that’s another story. A bigger part of the problem is having MAGA manipulators like DeJoy in charge, and not holding them accountable for their corruption.
The good news, at least for this 2024 primary election, is my official mail ballot did appear in my mailbox three days later. Just enough time for it to have been returned from the wrong mailbox and placed in mine. So at least I have one neighbor who did the right thing when the USPS didn’t.
The bad news is, why on earth would I now trust my ballot to the US mail? It’s not that I don’t believe in voting by mail. We should all be able to do so. But we should also be able to trust and rely on the USPS. I do not and I cannot. Replacing DeJoy would have been a good start to changing that. Indicting him would be even better.
It is absolutely appalling that as I get ready to vote in the Nevada primary, a blatant voter suppressor is still at the helm, seemingly doing everything he can to destroy election integrity and the integrity of the USPS.
My official mail ballot states in all-caps in red ink and circled on the front of the envelope: OFFICAL MAIL BALLOT VOTER MATERIAL – PLEASE DELIVER PROMPTLY
Perhaps it should also state, PLEASE DELIVER TO THE CORRECT ADDRESSEE AT THE CORRECT ADDRESS. Or maybe the USPS needs to be told what PROMPTLY means, and should be expected to actually abide by it.
Either way, it’s a crapshoot for me to vote by mail in Clark County, Nevada, a gamble I’m not willing to take living in a swing state with literally criminal Republicans running rampant while they’re out on bail. You know, the ones claiming election fraud while they’re blithely and deliberately committing it.