How Republicans Are Working to Steal the 2024 Election

And the racist MAGA responses to those calling out their anti-democratic strategy is part of the plan to intimidate us into silence

Content warning — grotesque MAGA racism cited below.

Last week I wrote how the SAVE Act is the MAGA Republican attempt to revive Jim Crow voter suppression in America. This Project 2025 priority is already being enacted now in 2024 to help Donald Trump win. I share below the first hand alternate reality in which MAGA Republicans live, in this case, as it relates to voting rights in America. If we have any hope of saving our republic, we cannot just vote this November—we must vote in such overwhelming numbers that we overcome the MAGA attempts to deny voting rights to millions of Americans. Let’s Address This.

Voters oppose voter suppression in Georgia 2021. [Credit: Lynn Anderson / AP]

It started with this viral tweet below. And as of the writing of this article this viral tweet exceeded 20,000 retweets, 54,000 likes, and 2.3 million views: (forgive the misspelling of eligible but such is social media).

Additionally, the Oklahoma MAGA GOP Governor purged more than 435,000 voters from the voter rolls. Of them, at least 194,962 voters were valid voters but removed anyway due to made up excuses like ‘address verification.’ As one among many readers responded:

While this person has the knowledge and means to check their status, the fact that is that many don’t. That is voter suppression. These voters will show up ready to vote like they always do, but be arbitrarily denied due to the above Jim Crow suppression.

Meanwhile, the responses to my tweet from MAGAs spanned from outright disbelief, to claims that none of the above is voter suppression, to accusations that the above is necessary to prevent Democrats from cheating, to grotesque racism. For example, a MAGA named Carl Whitlock accused me of being a “weak little tiny boy” who “supports baby killing,” and how only “cheaters” oppose hand counting ballots.

But Carl wasn’t alone. He was just one of thousands of angry and unhinged responses—virtually none of them grounded in fact. Steve McGraw cited the debunked “2000 Mules” fascist propaganda film by disgraced convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza.

Another person named Dr. Sandra, whose bio proudly displays “Are you good with Christ? Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior,” tweeted the following to me:

How Christ-like, don’t you think? In fact, a significant number of responses from MAGA extremists were just racists and white supremacists telling me to “go back to my sh*thole country.” Certainly the argument you make when you stand on facts and logic (sarcasm).

The above racism and name calling notwithstanding, the fact is that each of my statements are accurate and MAGA Republicans are in fact trying to steal the 2024 election. For example, I stated, that “Texas has purged about 500K eligible voters from voter rolls.” In fact, the full number of purged names exceeds 1 million, with roughly half of them eligible voters:

About half of the voters removed have died, requested to be be taken off or are living in another state, based on figures from the governor’s office. Nearly 7,000 were noncitizens who had registered illegally, and about 6,000 were convicted felons unable to vote. About 463,000 were on what Texas calls its “suspense list,” where counties place voters who don’t respond to requested certification forms. The removal effort is part of a sweeping package of voting restrictions the Texas Legislature passed after the 2020 presidential election.

Note, the “suspense list” has nothing to do with suspicion of illegal or unregistered voting. These are US citizens, already confirmed and registered to vote by showing their ID, and still being purged from the list. As is well documented, this targets low income and people of color more than white people—hence the racist voter suppression.

Next my tweet stated, “Nebraska is potentially changing its Electoral count to winner take all so they all go Red.” This is a direct push from Trump to prevent Harris from getting the 1 electoral vote she may need to win the Presidency, and it’s being done as a last minute effort to further suppress the will of the American people.

Third, my tweet stated that, “Georgia is requiring 5-6M votes be counted by hand.” This is another Trump push to get the “12,000 votes” he needed to win in 2020, and deeply problematic. While MAGAs seem to believe that hand counting votes ensures accuracy, the facts tell a wholly different picture. A detailed MIT study reports:

MIT released a study analyzing elections in New Hampshire from 1946 to 2002, finding poll workers who counted ballots by hand were off by 8%, while voting machines had an error rate of about 0.5%.

Numerous studies consistently arrive at the same conclusion as the above MIT study:

A 2018 MIT study that analyzed votes in Wisconsin’s 2011 Supreme Court election—which included a recount of ballots tallied by hand and by machines—found that scanners were closer to the recount totals than the hand-counted ballots.

And yet again:

Another study published in 2008 by Rice University found that hand-counting ballots produces more errors than machine tabulation, indicating people counting by hand were correct less than 58% of the time.

So not only is it clear that machine tabulation is faster and far more accurate than hand tabulation, there is likewise zero evidence that machine counting has resulted in any form of voter or election fraud. It is no wonder that Donald Trump shut down his own “voter fraud commission” after finding no such evidence. Moreover, Trump then set up a second commission to “find” voter fraud, but then also shut it down after it found no such fraud.

Finally, my tweet stated that “Red states have closed more than 10,000 polling locations in Black/Latino neighborhoods.” On this point I concede I was not accurate, and admit I erroneously missed a 0. In reality, Red states have closed not 10,000, but more than 100,000 polling locations, disproportionately in Black and Latino neighborhoods. Yes, 100,000+ closed polling locations.

National data from the independent, nonpartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission shows declining polling place availability nationwide. A 2018 survey found more than 200,000 polling places in use. That number dropped to just over 132,000 in 2020’s report, and fell again to 94,793 physical polling places in 2022. Fewer places to cast a ballot can be a barrier to voting for many people, especially low-income individuals who may lack transportation or time off to vote.

Shutting down more than half of all polling locations, while zero demonstrable election fraud exists, is what voters suppression looks like. Texas is one of the worst offenders, and overtly racist in how they closed locations. A Guardian analysis found that:

The 50 counties that gained the most Black and Latinx residents between 2012 and 2018 closed 542 polling sites, compared to just 34 closures in the 50 counties that have gained the fewest black and Latinx residents. This is despite the fact that the population in the former group of counties has risen by 2.5 million people, whereas in the latter category the total population has fallen by over 13,000.

As a reminder, a Washington Post and AP study over the last 50 years found no examples of systemic voter fraud, and no examples of voter fraud that could have even remotely overturned any State or Federal election. We must say it plainly. Republicans know they cannot win on ideas and policy, so they are engaging in demonization and voter suppression to steal the 2024 election. And the response to those, like myself and my other human rights lawyers and activists calling out this injustice, is overt racism and bigotry. But we will not be silenced so easily.

It is impossible to overstate how critical it is we vote in overwhelming numbers this November up and down the ballot. MAGA Republicans are screaming loudly that they have no regard for democracy or a government represented by We the People. We should believe them, and vote to ensure they never have that kind of power again.

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