18 Feb Leo W Gerard: Rig the Vote
Rig the Vote is the evil opposite of Rock the Vote. Rock is the campaign by a nonprofit to increase political engagement and register young people. Rig is the campaign by the GOP to suppress political engagement and subvert balloting.
The GOP rigged the vote by limiting registration, demanding specific photo ID at the polls and creating hours-long waits in poor and minority districts. The GOP also connived to re-apportion state electors to the Electoral College. And if six key states had adopted the change, President Obama, who received the majority of the popular vote by a margin of nearly 5 million,would not be president.
All of this was calculated to stifle and sabotage voting by those who lean Democrat, particularly the 47 percent of Americans who Republicans disdain. Republicans, who grovel to the 1 percent, realized they weren’t going to win if they played fair and square by those pesky old American tenets of one-person-one-vote and majority rule. They figured the more Democrats they could prevent from voting, the weightier Republican ballots would become. In this scheme, Republicans wouldn’t have to bother winning the hearts and minds of the majority. Instead, this bull-dozing of democracy would enable rule by the minority.