(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Trump Tries to Reverse Voting Rights [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-01-22

There was so much happening on January 20th that a lot of things dropped off the radar or weren't even seen. All the executive orders that Trump signed are under attack.

But there were also the 78 executive orders that Biden had made that Trump rescinded. One of those was about voting rights. Executive Order 14019: "Promoting Access to Voting." Trump rescinding it tells you everything you need to know about how Trump and the Republicans want to suppress minority voting.

Executive orders always start out with:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Then we get to the heart of the matter.

The right to vote is the foundation of American democracy. Free and fair elections that reflect the will of the American people must be protected and defended. But many americans, especially people of color, confront significant obstacles to exercising that fundamental right.

You can see right away why Trump wanted to cancel out this executive order.

These obstacles include difficulties in voter registration, lack of election information, and barriers to access at polling places.

Keep those darkies ignorant, Trump would say.

Black voters and other voters of color have face discriminatory policies and other obstacles that disproportionately affect their communities. These voters are more likely to face long lines at the polls and are disproportionately burdened by voter identification laws and limited opportunities to vote by mail.

Vote by mail. That was one of Trump's main complaints in the 2020 election. It's what made him seem like he was ahead when he wasn't. In person voting ran up his totals, and then when the mail-in ballots were counted, he lost. So, already, we've hit Blacks, people of color, voter registration, and mail-in ballots.

People with disabilities continue to face barriers to voting and are denied legally required accommodations in exercising their fundamental rights and the ability to vote privately and independently. Members of the military serving overseas, as well as other American citizens living abroad, also face challenges to exercising their fundamental right to vote.

Trump doesn't want people with disabilities around him, like wounded soldiers, because it makes him look bad. He probably doesn't want them to vote either. The only way for the military to vote from abroad and American citizens abroad is to use absentee ballots.

The order then goes into a long section about the history of voting rights especially with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and how it's the government's responsibility to make voting possible, and as easy as possible.

Agencies shall consider ways to expand citizens' opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about and participate in the electoral process. This effort shall include consideration of ways to provide relevant information in the course of activities or services that directly engage with the public, including through agency materials, websites, online forms, social media platforms and other points of public access, about how to register to vote, how to request a vote by mail ballot, and how to cast a ballot upcoming elections. Ways to facilitate seamless transition from agencies website directly to state online voter registration systems or appropriate Federal websites, such as Vote.gov.

Make it easy for everyone to vote, is not in the Republicans playbook. You know it's all supposed to be made more difficult for minorities to know how the process even works.

Making Vote.gov better and getting more people to register to vote only works against Republican ideals of limiting the vote.

I hate to say it, but it worked in 2024. 90 million people didn't vote. The reasons can be traced to a number of different variables, but their excuses lose validity with the ability to use mail-in ballots. But ignorance of how to get them when they aren't mandated, like in Oregon, is also a factor. Many states even have ballot drop-off boxes, so you don't even have to pay the postage. Other states actually have it pre-posted with a permit. There is no cost to the voter at all.

The 2020 election had a voter turnout of 66%. And that was the highest in decades. But 66% is terrible. All those people made it possible for Trump to win because of their absence.

This executive order was supposed to get more people registered and to vote in 2024. President Joe Biden signed it on March 7th, 2021. With all its intentions to make voter registration and voting easier, what happened? Why didn't the people heed the call?

More from the order:

Agencies are all supposed to facilitate the ability to vote from voter registration to the voting in elections. Third-party organizations can also be used to help in the process. Set up multilingual access, materials, and ballots. If required in a particular state, get them identification documents that are necessary to vote.

The Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government, Office of Management, and Budget shall coordinate efforts to improve and modernize federal websites and digital services that provide election and voting information to the American people.

All of this also has to be provided to people with disabilities and limited English proficiency. In 1999, there was an attempt in the House of Representatives to make English the national language of the United States. It didn't pass, but it would have allowed every law requiring multilingual education to multilingual voting ballots to be challenged.

The General Services Administration shall take steps to modernize and improve the user experience of Vote.gov in determining how to do so. GSA shall coordinate with the Election Assistance Commission and other agencies as appropriate, and seek the input of affected stakeholders, including election administrators, civil rights and disability rights advocates, Tribal Nations, and nonprofit groups that study best practices for using technology to promote civic engagement.

Trump wants to take this all away. We know why. Racism and bigotry have become a staple of the Republicans. Every state that they control tries to institute voter ID is to make voting as limited as possible. Many people don't have driver's licenses. Sometimes, they refuse to accept college IDs as being valid. Students don't always have driver's licenses either. Many states with Department of Motor Vehicles also provide just a photo ID in place of the driver's license.

Vote.gov has to be translated into all the languages set up in section 203 of the Voting Rights Act. It's a complicated section to read, but it basically says that if there's enough of a particular minority that speaks a different language, you've got to cover it.

Trump has made a big deal about immigrants coming to the country speaking languages that nobody here understands. Speech discrimination, language discrimination. Make it as difficult as you can for non-white people to vote.

The order goes on to say how employees of the federal government, state governments, local governments, Tribal Nations and territories need to be given time off in order to vote.

Federal employees who want to serve as nonpartisan poll workers or non-partisan observers need to be supported in their effort.

A very long section on providing access and facilities to people with disabilities.

The Secretary of Defense must make it possible for both domestic and foreign military personnel to be able to register vote and to vote in whatever fashion they need to.

The head of every agency with overseas employees must also do the same.

It even covers voter registration for prisoners in federal custody. Registration materials, elections, and ballots must be made available according to state law in which the facility therein resides and is able to vote accordingly.

The Attorney General even has to tell the Marshals Service that they also have to help in this endeavor.

Probation and pretrial services also have to cooperate.

There's an extremely long section about Native Americans and how they qualify to vote, and government departments that have to help them figure out what to do.

The order ends as all executive orders do. Section 12. General provisions and disclaimers.

Do I even need to explain Trump's motive in rescinding this executive order? It covers all the bases of people being able to vote who may be marginalized due to disabilities, language barriers, and not being physically present in the United States.

The minority rule that Trump and the Republicans want is their ability to control the government with out-sized influence and representation. They don't want minorities of people to take part in that.

This executive order was supposed to correct that problem. It was well thought out and covered all the bottlenecks and impediments to voting. The problem was the states. 10 years ago, the Supreme Court voided the law that said that localities with histories of voter discrimination needed to get preclearance from the federal government in how they handled voting. When the Supreme Court struck that down 10 years ago in Shelby County v. Holder, diluting taking race into map creation spelled out in Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Republican states started a campaign to limit voting access. Over 100 bills restricting minority voting rights have been passed since then. One of the common tactics Republicans have used to cancel minority representation is to gerrymander Congressional maps. When lawsuits challenge these maps and win in federal courts, such as in Louisiana in 2022, the Supreme Court has reinstated the gerrymandering ones.

In 2021, Alabama created a map that only allowed one district to represent Black voters, when Blacks make up 27% of the voters. The district court ruled against the map, and when the case was put before the Supreme Court in 2022, their ruling was that it was too close to the election to make changes. In June of 2023, the Supreme Court finally upheld the district court ruling against the map. What did Alabama do? They ignored the Supreme Court ruling. Again, the district court ruled against the map, and again, the Supreme Court ruled, this time, that a special master would select the map for the 2024.

In 2024, the same thing happened with Congressional District 1 in South Carolina's map from 2022. Unanimous federal trial court decision reversed by a 6-3 Supreme Court decision that the district court had applied the wrong standard and sent it back to the district court for further proceedings.

None of this would have been necessary if the Supreme Court had not gutted sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 2021 alone, 400 anti-voter measures were introduced in state legislatures across the country.

I decided to take a look at Vote.gov and see how well it was designed. Immediately, I saw that it was available in 20 different languages. Even Russian. Worked just fine on a cell phone. Pick your state or territory, and you immediately go to a spot on vote.gov just for that state. Depending on the state, you can start or update your registration online. Links to other pages at the top:

Mail-in and absentee voting Early voting Voter ID requirements Check your registration status Check your address Changing your political party

Knowing your voting rights covers:

Voting as a college student Voting as a new US citizen Voting with a disability Voting while unhoused Voting after a felony conviction Preparing to vote, age 18 or under Voting as a military service member Voting as a US citizen from outside the US

Learning more about elections covers:

State and local elections Presidential election process Primaries and caucuses Congressional and midterm elections Electoral college Election results

Under all that is a box to add your email to USAgov and get information about government benefits and services.

I decided to try different languages to see what would happen. German isn't on the list, which I know, and I know a smattering of French. So I picked French. Instantaneously, everything on the website was translated into French.

I had to laugh when I chose Russian because instantly, Google translate came up and translated it back into English. I'd forgotten that I had several languages set to have Google translate it for me.

The one thing you do need to know when working with the states is the English word for the state. That drop-down is only available in English. Which makes sense because state names aren't translatable. It is the only impediment on the website. Languages that use different alphabet characters, like Arabic, Cryllic, and Asian would be affected. A minor problem that can't really be fixed.

The website works as it was intended to. I used the Internet Wayback machine to take a look at what it looked like in 2019. The website was absolutely clunky in comparison to now. I went back to 2016, and the only thing it did was show how to register to vote, not actually doing it.

The question is, what is it going to look like tomorrow? Trump obviously knows that a major part of this executive order was in beefing up Vote.gov. The executive order worked. The website works. Minorities, however, might have the same problem in having internet access as well as local voting access. Not everybody has internet access. Not everybody has a computer. Not everybody has a cell phone.

You're not supposed to have to be rich in order to vote, but sometimes you do. At one time, you had to pay a poll tax in order to vote. The whole idea there was to make it impossible for minorities to vote. It was obvious.

There is one thing that would equalize everything. That would be compulsory voting. You are literally required to vote. All we need to do is talk to the people of Australia who have had it since 1924. You can bet that Republicans would be opposed to it. They would probably call it unconstitutional. Voting unconstitutional. That's the world we live in today.

There is something that could fix this mess the Supreme Court and states have created, and that's the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2023. Introduced in Sept. of 2023, it has gotten nowhere because of the House Republican majority. It would restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Congress always has the ability to pass legislation that can reverse bad Supreme Court decisions. Just not now with Republicans in control.

President Biden tried to help us with a basic right of any democracy. The right to participate in the choosing of government representatives, ballot measures, and constitutional amendments. Trump and the Republicans want to take that away. Rescinding Biden's Executive Order is just a first step.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/22/2298327/-Trump-Tries-to-Reverse-Voting-Rights?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/