GOP Death Cult: Running the Wisconsin Primary During a Pandemic

Unfortunately for the nation, Wisconsin Republicans decided that they would prefer to exploit the pandemic to suppress Democratic votes. Their state Supreme Court, dominated by partisan Republicans, allowed them to do so. And now the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the only protection in place to ensure that voters could still safely cast ballots even if the state fails to provide them expediently. This election looks increasingly like a sham tainted by partisan manipulation. And now the most powerful court in the nation has approved these tactics. An election that forces voters to choose between protecting their health and casting a ballot is not a free and fair election. Nor should its results be treated as indisputably legitimate. The courts may have permitted Republicans to rig this election, but Wisconsinites are under no obligation to pretend that its outcome reflects the will of the people.

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We can admire the tenacity of Wisconsin voters willing to risk their lives to exercise their sacred right to vote, a tribute to democracy that puts the Supreme Court majority to shame. The lesson, however, should be clear: Republican politicians and conservative justices will not shy from making voting difficult, dangerous and confusing. Their highest goal is not robust elections, but elections in which fewer voters turn out. To preserve wide participation and credible election results, Democrats must act now to petition state governments for expanded voting by mail. 

Republicans’ motives (think, suppress voting) are obnoxious and anti-democratic, but their reasoning is also faulty. In November, if covid-19 still rages, won’t older, more conservative voters be the ones huddling at home? The refusal to protect voting by instituting voting by mail will endanger lives and may not “work” to achieve the desired results. Republicans may well be shooting themselves in the foot by making it more difficult for their own voters to cast ballots. The casualties of this assault on elections will include many voters who are especially vulnerable to the virus, as well as democracy itself.