Block The Vote - 2021 Edition

The Capitol insurrectionists demanded that someone "stop the steal" - even though there was no fraud in the presidential election to get President Biden in - and now Republicans are taking the Big Lie to heart and acting accordingly.  

Numerous states are passing bills that would tighten voting rules by limiting or eliminating early voting, providing more ID at the polls to vote, or, in Georgia, where the Democrats won narrow presidential and U.S .Senate victories, demanding a reason for mail-in voting and getting rid of mail-in ballot receptacles altogether.  This is all designed to keep Democratic constituencies - especially blacks - from voting.

Can I offer any comfort to you?  No. Like Jacob Marley's ghost, I have none to give.   And there are three reasons for that.  First of all, Republicans, though out of power in Washington, did very well in state legislative elections in 2020, a census year, meaning Republicans have the upper hand in redrawing U.S. House districts (as well as state legislative districts) and they intend to bitch-slap Democrats with the back of it.  (Where was Martin O'Malley's Win Back Your State PAC when we really needed it?)  Second, Republicans already control the legislatures passing this voter-suppression legislation, and they're likely to be upheld by a Republican-dominated court system.  Third, the voting-rights bill passed by the House, which would negate state voter-suppression laws, has no chance in the Senate because Republicans will filibuster it and Senate Democrats haven't figured out a way to get the voting-rights bill around that roadblock.  

I do have one ray of hope, a silver lining of sorts, to throw out.  And it's not President Biden's executive order securing the right to vote; that's purely symbolic.  In states like Georgia, mail-in-voting has been traditionally used more by Republicans - who are older and have trouble getting to the polls - than Democrats.  So this suppression of mail-in voting could keep more Republicans than Democrats in Georgia from casting a ballot and end up being a wash that doesn't help the Republicans one iota.

With this legislation all but certain to become law, Democrats in Georgia will have to work with what they have.  If they have to stand in line all day to vote, so be it.  They can't let the bastards win.  And if you're a Georgia resident and you need water to sustain you while waiting to vote, BYOB - Georgia's new voting legislation doesn't allow people to hand out water bottles to voters either.