The Lies We're Told

 The Lies We're Told

        Betsy McCaughey has a history of being active and critical of almost every healthcare effort put forth during the Obama administration, even those which had really been Bush 43 initiatives. She also has a history of lying and misdirection in these and numerous other areas. PolitiFact labels her “Pants on Fire” (complete fabrication) in every fact check related to her. She apparently subscribes to the “Big Lie” theory – that is, lie often enough and emphatically enough and some schmucks will believe it.

        Her latest Op-ed column which sadly, runs in the Villages Daily Sun, is entitled, “Nancy Pelosi’s Bill Would Rig the Election Process.” Now, there are several McCaughey tactics in play here. First is the use of the GOP’s favorite curse word - Nancy Pelosi. Mrs. Pelosi, while Speaker of the House, is not a sponsor or co-sponsor of the bill. It isn’t “her” bill! Actually, the Bill is sponsored by Congressman Paul Sarbanes of Md. So, with that first big lie out of the way, let’s continue. “Rig” is Donald Trump’s word, synonymous with “I lost, but I can’t ever lose, so it must have been “rigged.”  In truth, as Ms. McCaughey uses the term in the context of HR 1 (“the bill,” actually the “For the People Act of 2021,” it really means something more along the lines of “If we let all eligible voters have equal access to the ballot, then Democrats will win more.”

        In the aftermath of the election of 2020, Trump and his acolytes immediately began a massive and heavily funded disinformation campaign. The results? Nothing. Not a single verifiable instance of voter fraud by Democrats. In truth, this fact, alone, in the most heavily scrutinized election in history is what drives Ms. McCaughey and her ilk in the unreasoning premise that somehow, somewhere, since “everybody knows” the Republican candidates were nobler, more honest etc., the real reason for their defeat, where it happened, was that it was “too easy to vote” and sleazy Democrats were able to vote in greater numbers. Of course, as I mentioned, this is, simply put, a lie.

        If there was ever an election in which the GOP could prove widespread voter fraud instead of just imagining it, 2020 was it. Instead, Americans learned what experts had long told us. Election fraud is rare, and the kind of fraud that Voter ID would address - people going to a precinct and attempting to vote as someone else - is almost non-existent. The Trump campaign and other Republican interests  filed more than 30 election lawsuits in 6 states. No court found a single instance of fraud.

        In fact, the most notable threat to 2020 election integrity has come from not from voters or voting machines, but Republican officials. Like Lindsay Graham of South Carolina inexplicably asking the Georgia Secretary of State about tossing ballots to the president and his supporters pushing for the non-certification of millions of legitimate votes, it’s clear and shameful that officials in one party have no issue with disenfranchising voters if it will bring victory.  

    Oh yeah, I forgot; there were five cases of actual fraudulent and deliberate voting in Wisconsin. These were recognized and disallowed by local officials. All five were Republicans attempting to cast a second vote with false ID.

        HR 1 is an attempt by Democrats in Congress to deal with a number of state legislative initiatives to make it more difficult to vote. Remember, no evidence other than Democrats winning, motivates these efforts. Take it to the bank that if these states had “gone Republican” these attempts at voter suppression would not exist. But why attempt to assure voter rights at the Federal level? Well, being a historian, I could elaborate on the history, especially in the South, of attempts by law and by violence at keeping certain segments of the citizenry from voting. I could mention the Ocoee, Florida riots and deaths because one Black man tried to register to vote. We could consider the armed white thugs outside polling places in the Jim Crow South.

        Later, in the early 20^th century, there were the voter registration offices which were “closed” when Blacks tried to register. There were strategically located polling stations, poll taxes, and numerous other tactics, some deadly some simply administrative, whose sole aim was keeping “Those people” from exercising their rights as citizens. It also resulted in the deaths of white volunteers whose sole “crime” was helping others to vote (“Mississippi Burning”).

        What changed? The voting Right Act of 1965 was enacted. Signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson, it outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. It also allowed for federal supervision, where necessary/appropriate to ensure provisions of the act were met. The results were, as expected, immediate. In Mississippi alone, voter turnout among Black people increased from 6 percent in 1964 to 59 percent in 1969.

        However, recent elections and the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down key enforcement provisions in the Voting Rights Act (VRA), have eroded oversight and enforcement. These have been seen in reduction in polling places and location of them. The New York Times summed it thus: “At the core of the disagreement was whether racial minorities continued to face barriers to voting in states with a history of discrimination. “Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” (My note: this implies that “things are better” so there’s less need for federal supervision)

        The decision had immediate practical consequences. Texas announced shortly after the decision that a voter identification law that had been blocked would go into effect immediately, and that redistricting maps there would no longer need federal approval. Changes in voting procedures in the places that had been covered by the law, including ones concerning restrictions on early voting, will now be subject only to after-the-fact litigation." Redistricting can radically change how votes are grouped; this is especially critical in Congressional races. A state, which wanted to, could redraw Congressional district boundaries to disadvantage a group. (gerrymandering)

        The apparent basis of the USSC decision was the assertion that most of the VR act of ’65 was overtaken by events since “now all citizens can vote” (until states, freed from federal supervision, alter the laws, back to the bad old days).

Results of the decision include: Since the Shelby County decision, local election boards and state governments have closed over 1,600 polling places. That is approximately 8% of total voting locations within jurisdictions affected by the Shelby decision. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan independent study group, found that states claimed polling-place closures were intended to save money, centralize voting operations, and complying with Americans with Disabilities Act – but really the goal was reducing voter turnout, particularly among minority voters who were historically disenfranchised. Additionally, due to more polling places “strategically” closed, voters in majority black precincts were far more likely to wait longer than half an hour to cast a ballot than voters in majority white precincts. A study of the 2012 election found that the voters who waited in long lines paid, collectively, over half a billion dollars in lost wages. It was worse in 2020, but the stakes were high.

         Ms. McCaughey cares not a fig about elections as long as Republicans win. She is lying about this bill (HR1) just as she lied when she fed the term “Obamacare death panels” to Sarah Palin.