Mastodawn

Quiz is over!

The quiz question was, since the Supreme Court made it easier for the GOP to be extra racist to Black voters in swing states, the number of voters purged from voting rolls increased significantly. "How many voters were de-registered between 2014 and 2016? Was it 17K? 170K? 1.7 million or 17 million?

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/112924592284252554

The hint: it's more than in 2006 to 2008 but the same as 2016 to 2018. The answer is... 17 million! AKA approximately the population of the Netherlands!🤡

1/N

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] The US Supreme Court under Roberts weakened voter rights protections for Black voters. Since these protections were weakened, the number of voters purged from voter rolls has skyrocketed. These purges disproportionately target Black voters, but there's a lot of white voter "by catch" as well. Between 2014 and 2016, how many voters would you guess were de-registered? Hint: the same number were de-registered between 2016 and 2018. [ ] 17,000 voters (seventeen thousand) [ ] 170,000 voters (one hundred and seventy thousand) [ ] 1,700,000 voters (one point seven million) [ ] 17,000,000 voters (seventeen million voters)

Hachyderm.io

The number of voters purged between 2014 and 2016, and 2016 and 2018 being about the same is important. Because this is the new "normal amount of election racism." 🤷🏿‍♂️

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/voter-purge-rates-remain-high-analysis-finds

I say "about the same" but you already know that the number of deregistrations is moving up...

The fact that voter purges occur disproportionately in places that Black people vote, and ramped up after laws designed to protect Black voters were intentionally weakened, is important too.

2/N

Voter Purge Rates Remain High, Analysis Finds

New data reveal that counties with a history of voter discrimination have continued purging people from the rolls at elevated rates.

Brennan Center for Justice

The next questions on the quiz would be:

2) How many eligible voters were erroneously (illegally) de-registered in these purges, so that they couldn't vote on election day?

3) Did they disproportionately target eligible Black voters for illegal de-registering?

4) Was the number of Black voters illegally de-registered between 2014 and 2016 larger than Trump's margin of victory?

5) Did Black voters ask for help with this in those 2 years prior to Trump winning the election?

But why bother? 🤷🏿‍♂️

If you are white, you are 100% safe from being illegally de-registered, in the same way that a dolphin is 100% safe from ever being caught in a fishing trawler's tuna fishing net🐟🐬. In that you are not safe.🙃

If a dolphin looks around and can see tuna? Then it is at risk of becoming "by catch" or "collateral damage."

If you live where Black people live (AKA cities, where most of everyone lives), then you're at risk of getting caught up in this deregistration.

So check.
https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/112924094411662837

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

Oops! Yesterday was the 6th of August! Hey US people, please remember to check your voter registration every *5th* between now and November! ✅ July 5th ✅ August 5th ⬜ September 5th ⬜ October 5th ⬜ November 5th Check your voter registration for free online here: https://voteamerica.org You can also request your mail in ballot, so that you don't have to stand in line for hours or miss work on voting day. Why check every month? Because some of y'all have been de-registered.😮 Re-register!

Hachyderm.io

Zoe Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke Must point out that white people are also effected, just in case the reader has lacking empathy for black people. Feels pretty distopian to have to reach out to the racists better sense. But I hate to emit it it caught my eye, so clearly it works.

jonathanpeterson Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke For Georgia residents, especially Fulton County voters like me, most likely to be disenfranchised, it's https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/. I check monthly. I should actually bang together some sort of script to hit it daily and confirm a change of status and pass it along to help people protect themselves.

Elections Portal

Philip Mallegol-Hansen Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke I never thought “relatively safer from voter fuckery” would be part of the sales pitch for middle class suburbs. What a world to live in 🙃

Display Name Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke
Plus, vote all you want, when you can't win the election due to deregistration of black folks your accepted white vote is just as meaningless.

Court Cantrell does not comply Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke We moved in March, and most of our new-to-us neighbors are Black. We got our registration changed and got new cards in the mail -- but we're still going to be checking regularly. And I will remind neighbors anytime I talk to them. (Which is admittedly seldom, because I'm an introvert and have social anxiety. But I do what I can. 😊🖖)

Dr. Sobek Aug 8, 2024

@courtcan @mekkaokereke What about writing up a big sign and putting it on your lawn / building board ?

J.H.Noyes Aug 8, 2024

Not true. I was deregistered in 2020. Had to cast a provisional ballot. To be fair, my wife is Comanche, so we may have been listed somewhere as either a Native or mixed race household.

Seth Hanford 🐡Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke I'm a white male, and 100% can confirm. We actually found a subtle issue just this morning (Thanks for your reminder! It was the whole reason I checked!)

My family moved about 3 years ago. We are in SC. We moved from one end of our street to the other, have updated addresses with the DMV, have current licenses with correct addresses, etc. My wife and I both voted since moving, and SC has voter ID laws. And as a former poll worker, I am intimately familiar with how rigorous they train us to be.

My registration has the correct address, everything is fine. My wife? Her registration is showing the old address. If we would have showed up in November, we could have been very disappointed to find that she would be denied a right to vote. I'm not sure how this wasn't caught the last time, but maybe I'm just misremembering if we remedied it at the polling place.

There are local procedures that can protect us (showing current license and filling a form, voting in person at the county board of elections, etc.) but they are all hurdles and hardships that could deny many from voting.

♥️

Matt McIrvin Aug 8, 2024

@ckure @mekkaokereke I got tripped up by a vote-purging mechanism in Massachusetts once. There's a paper-mail town census you have to respond to every year. If you don't do this for a few years in a row, you can end up on an "inactive voter list", which means you need to provide proof of address when voting (or vote with a provisional ballot and provide it later). If you don't have a driver's license or equivalent with your current address, or a paper utility bill to show (less common today than it used to be), this could actually be difficult.

Matt McIrvin Aug 8, 2024

@ckure @mekkaokereke I seem to recall that in the heyday of the Tea Party movement, one of their MA groups around Worcester got in some hot water for sending out "election observers" who were harassing people who were trying to vote off the inactive-voter list.

Subhendu Ghosh Aug 8, 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKFALtjiS_8

crowdsourcing crazies to get people off the rolls

'I was pretty pissed off': Man finds his voter registration is challenged by nonprofit

YouTube

Brian Grinter Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke everything about your election system is bat shit crazy I’m afraid

The idea a party can de-register someone is bonkers. Every time I tell people here about it they say isn’t that illegal?

esa Aug 8, 2024

@bgrinter
@mekkaokereke

The entire idea of voter registration is foreign to me. Here all citizens are eligible to vote in national elections; for local elections you can vote if you've lived here for three years, less for people from neighbouring countries. Nobody registers to vote, instead the government sends people "here's your closest voting station" info.

Tons of early voting also means no queues. The scenes from the US just look incompetent if you don't know about the malice.

@mekkaokereke @syklemil @bgrinter

Same here in Canada… electoral lists are developed by Elections Canada which is an arms length independent agency that does does regular enumeration, collects data (with permission) from tax returns, and permits voting without prior registration with proof of residence or even an formal attestation by a neighbour.
What you’ve got going on down there is one of the reasons the US is usually rated as a ‘flawed democracy’

@syklemil @bgrinter @mekkaokereke

Similar in Germany. But the system is based on the requirement to register your place of residence (otherwise the state would not know where to send the voting info to). You are nor required to register your residence in UK and US.

EU citizens have to register to vote for EU parliament in germany. If the do not, they can still vote in their country of citizenship (which may or may not require registration).

Stacey Campbell Aug 8, 2024

@syklemil @bgrinter @mekkaokereke The Australian Electoral Commission will track you to the ends of the...well...Australia. They will knock on every door and kick over every rock until they have tracked down all eligible voters who for one reason or another are not already on the voter rolls.

Brian Grinter Aug 8, 2024

@stacey_campbell @syklemil @mekkaokereke haha - love the Mad Max reference 😝

And that’s the way it should be

“To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
— Louis L'Amour

@bgrinter @stacey_campbell @syklemil

"You have decided not to vote. What a puny plan!"

Brian Grinter Aug 9, 2024

@mekkaokereke @stacey_campbell @syklemil

😂

Emelia 👸🏻Aug 9, 2024

@stacey_campbell @syklemil @bgrinter @mekkaokereke they'll even track you out of the country (from experience)

George Baily Aug 8, 2024

@syklemil @bgrinter @mekkaokereke oh wow that last sentence applies to so much! "scenes from the US just look incompetent if you don't know about the malice."

climate voter/radical oldie Aug 8, 2024

@syklemil @bgrinter @mekkaokereke In Colorado we all get a mail in ballot which you can drop in a local box. No muss. No fuss.

Brian Grinter Aug 9, 2024

@tmstreet @syklemil @mekkaokereke Australia has postal voting, but polling places are usually in schools, the P&C committee usually is running a BBQ to raise money and you can support them and get a tasty sausage sandwich at the same time. There’s even a website to find the nearest polling station with the best food for sale

Don’t think I’ve ever waited longer than 15min to vote

https://democracysausage.org/

Democracy Sausage

A real-time crowd-sourced map of sausage and cake availability at Australian elections. It's practically part of the Australian Constitution. Or something. #demsausage

Reselsnark Aug 9, 2024

@bgrinter @tmstreet @syklemil @mekkaokereke
And because we have compulsory voting (on Saturdays) in Australia, it also means the onus is on the government to ensure that there are sufficient polling places, and workers to allow everyone to vote quickly and easily on the day, or via post.
(NB even with this there remain obstacles for remote Indigenous communities that mean they have a lower participation rate than other groups)

Brian Grinter Aug 9, 2024

@reselsnark @tmstreet @syklemil @mekkaokereke volunteered a few times on polling stations for the AEC, money was good for one day per election cycle and gave an insight into how it all worked

Reselsnark Aug 9, 2024

@bgrinter @tmstreet @syklemil @mekkaokereke it’s a brilliant experience. I haven’t worked for the AEC or state versions myself, but have worked alongside senior members of them when running other elections for organisations.

We are extraordinarily lucky to have such a professional, independent, and well resourced AEC. When I see other systems it’s difficult to understand how people put up with it.

And thank you for being a part of it!

Brian Grinter Aug 9, 2024

@reselsnark @tmstreet @syklemil @mekkaokereke
It was an eye opener

Had a sitting State MP die of a heart attack the morning of the election - instant bi-election

People get their name crossed off then run out the door

A punch up between party volunteers over where to stand to hand out pamphlets

@syklemil @bgrinter @mekkaokereke @tmstreet

Democracy sausage, I love it more every time I’m reminded of it.

Brian Grinter Aug 9, 2024

@DavidM_yeg @syklemil @mekkaokereke @tmstreet

@mekkaokereke @bgrinter @tmstreet @syklemil

Democracy is like sausage, most appealing if you haven’t seen it being made.

Brian Grinter Aug 9, 2024

@DavidM_yeg @mekkaokereke @tmstreet @syklemil

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
— Winston Churchill

Brian Grinter Aug 9, 2024

@DavidM_yeg @mekkaokereke @tmstreet @syklemil

“What’s up, Skip?”

https://www.coles.com.au/product/k-roo-kanga-bangas-500g-1200231

Michael Busch Aug 9, 2024

@bgrinter @tmstreet @syklemil @mekkaokereke Meanwhile, here in the United States the state of Georgia has made it punishable by up to a year in prison to give people water while they wait to vote.

Because that is just how cruel and opposed to democracy the Georgia Republican party is.

Luke Kanies Aug 9, 2024

@tmstreet @syklemil @bgrinter @mekkaokereke same in Oregon.

Luke Kanies Aug 9, 2024

@tmstreet @syklemil @bgrinter @mekkaokereke although I’ll point out, Oregon and Colorado are missing the main things that lead to severe voter disenchantment:

Neither state has democrats easily targeted by laser-focused voting laws, while having republican leadership

Both states are mostly white, and in Oregon, the Black community was shattered geographically by highways and “urban renewal” (e.g., replacing Black neighborhoods with arenas).

Barbara Monaco Aug 8, 2024

@bgrinter @mekkaokereke
The party does not de-register voters, state governments do. It's not illegal but it should be.
In my opinion voters should be automatically registered at 18 and should not lose their registration until they leave the state or die.

@Barbramon1 @bgrinter

The party *does* de-register voters. In particular, it's the GOP that does this. They get in power and take control of state governments, and then do this racism.

It *is* illegal. But the GOP gets control of the presidency, then they appoint Supreme Court justices that ignore the law, and let GOP controlled states do this anyway.

Pretending that it's not one particular political party doing this is silly and non-productive. It's a big part of why Dems lose elections.

Brian Grinter Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke @Barbramon1 perhaps the UN 🇺🇳 should send election advisors like they do in other failing democracies to ensure fair and unbiased elections…

Barbara Monaco Aug 9, 2024

@bgrinter @mekkaokereke International bodies have monitored US elections in recent years.
https://www.passblue.com/2020/10/07/international-election-monitors-arrive-in-the-us-for-the-nov-3-poll/

Barbara Monaco Aug 9, 2024

@bgrinter @mekkaokereke One more point before I go. Secretaries of State in modern times find "legal" ways of reducing voter rolls. Unless they are investigated and taken to court, unless voting rights legislation is present and enforced, they can continue to attack our right to vote.
#votingrights
#votersuppression

Barbara Monaco Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke @bgrinter You and I are saying the same thing. I perhaps misinterpreted the poster's comment to say he thought it was the voter's own party doing the de-registering.
Of course it's the party in power at the state level that has the ability to disenfranchise. In modern times it is the gop doing exactly that. Sorry if I was not clear.
I lived in Ohio and saw it with my own eyes.

Bodhipaksa Aug 9, 2024

@bgrinter @mekkaokereke

GOP state governments will send out postcards (targeted to Black/Democratic areas) and if you don't reply to the postcard they remove you from the voting register.

If you miss voting in a couple of elections they'll take you off the register.

Have you heard of placebo votes? They'll let you vote and then just not count it.

https://hartmannreport.com/p/democracy-undone-the-texas-placebo-f52

Democracy Undone: The Texas Placebo Ballot Plot

They must go to court to take away your gun, but they can take away your vote without even informing you...

The Hartmann Report

Brian Grinter Aug 9, 2024

@bodhipaksa @mekkaokereke like I said - failing democracy

Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧Aug 9, 2024

@bodhipaksa @bgrinter @mekkaokereke

‘As of last week, according to The Dallas Morning News, “Nearly 12% of Texas’ roughly 18 million voters are on the suspense list.”’

A⍼ex Aug 9, 2024

@bodhipaksa @bgrinter @mekkaokereke that is some serious failed state BS. WHY are the let do this?

Bodhipaksa Aug 9, 2024

@DoctorBrodsky @bgrinter @mekkaokereke It's self-perpetuating: they engineer a majority, then they gerrymander districts and disenfranchise dissident sections of the population to keep things that way.

Some Republican states in the US cannot be considered democracies by any stretch of the imagination. They're now one-party states along the lines of Orbán's Hungary; the opposition still exists but can never get elected. Tennessee is a prime example.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/tennessee-republican-partisanship-one-party-state/674732/

Is Tennessee a Democracy?

What happened when a Republican supermajority gained control—and wasn’t satisfied

The Atlantic

Carolannie Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke so how do we counter it? I write letters with registration info in GOTV work, but does that help alert people who may have been purged?

People need to check every month.

People need reminders that they can re-register.

People need reminders that they can vote by mail, or vote early, or drop-off their ballot.

Over the years, the Vote America team has proven itself to be the most effective in this regard.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/112924094411662837

Get out the vote efforts should focus primarily on avoiding this suppression, not "increasing voter motivation."

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

Oops! Yesterday was the 6th of August! Hey US people, please remember to check your voter registration every *5th* between now and November! ✅ July 5th ✅ August 5th ⬜ September 5th ⬜ October 5th ⬜ November 5th Check your voter registration for free online here: https://voteamerica.org You can also request your mail in ballot, so that you don't have to stand in line for hours or miss work on voting day. Why check every month? Because some of y'all have been de-registered.😮 Re-register!

Hachyderm.io

isotope239 🥸💻🇺🇦😣Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke @carolannie Thom Hartmann published an excellent essay today that details a perfect example of what you describe in your thread.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/democracy-undone-the-texas-placebo-f52?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Democracy Undone: The Texas Placebo Ballot Plot

They must go to court to take away your gun, but they can take away your vote without even informing you...

The Hartmann Report

jonathanpeterson Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke @carolannie And in the longer run people need federal voting standards (John Lewis Voting Rights Act - https://www.commoncause.org/our-work/voting-and-elections/john-r-lewis-voting-rights-act/) and states need to have non-partisan voting boards (my state just had a new rule pushed through by the GOP majority that Trump saluted as "fighting for us" in his Atlanta rally last week, that will allow county boards to NOT certify an election for completely subjective reasons. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/06/georgia-local-election-boards-allowed-withhold-vote-certification

John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is named for the civil rights hero who helped pass the original VRA. Help protect every Americans’ right to be heard.

Common Cause

Frappe Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke @carolannie https://secure.actblue.com/donate/m4va #MastodonForVoteAmerica

Carolannie Aug 8, 2024

@mekkaokereke or is supporting Marc Elias a way to go?

Michael Bacon Aug 8, 2024

The WaPo had an article this morning about Trump flipping out from Harris's success. It also had quotes from his advisors saying that they thought "voter integrity efforts would still be enough."

They're overtly saying they're counting on voter suppression to win.

LindaMarie Aug 8, 2024

@MichaelTBacon @mekkaokereke

Suppression along with dishonesty and intimidation.

Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴‍♂️📷 🗺️Aug 8, 2024

Why is this a fucking thing, he says, safely from a country with a voting agency whose role is to get as many people voting as possible.

Third spruce tree on the left Aug 8, 2024

@the5thColumnist @mekkaokereke

Srsly that's fucked up

\- Canada