Voter Suppression Is Not The Issue
The Danger To Democracy Is In Attempts To Alter Election Results
Also on today’s menu:
Another Attempt At Fairness
Injury And Death On The Trail
Finally: An article by Peter Wehner in The Atlantic makes the same point I did about the new Georgia voting law that has been so vilified. After reading through the text of the law, I did not find evidence of voter suppression. Wehner agrees, pointing out that the bill left intact no-excuse absentee balloting and actually expanded in-person early voting.
In fact, the state has more early-voting days (17) than New York or New Jersey (nine each). According to PolitiFact, liberal New York has, in this and other respects, more restrictive voting laws than Georgia. And according to the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, even after the passage of Georgia’s new election law, Georgia is among the top states in voter accessibility.
What everyone should be focusing on is what happens after the polls close. “[E]fforts to corrupt the counting of the vote, and thus to reverse the voters’ will, are an attack on the legitimacy of the election,” Wehner points out. That is why Congress should be looking at revising the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to eliminate the ambiguities and loopholes that allow partisan governors, state legislatures, and members of Congress to nullify an election by submitting alternative slates of electors and throwing the decision to the House of Representatives — just what Donald Trump has now admitted he attempted to do when he lost the 2020 election.
At a rally over the weekend in Conroe, Texas, the former president told supporters that, if he runs for president and wins in 2024, he will pardon the January 6 insurrectionists, and went on to say, “Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power; he could have overturned the Election!”
The “Stop The Steal” campaign was an Orwellian turn of phrase that meant just the opposite: “Steal The Election.” Now that the voting rights bills that the Democrats hoped to pass seem to have stalled, Congress should seek a bipartisan bill that would protect the integrity of the vote by preventing partisan bodies from overturning election results to place their favorite candidate in power if the voters choose someone they don’t like.
Another Attempt At Fairness
Ellen Farnum of Tamworth testified on January 31 at a New Hampshire Senate Election Law and Municipal Affairs Committee hearing on the controversial redistricting plan that House Republicans passed over near-unanimous opposition, saying her town, with a fairly even mix of Republicans and Democrats, had passed a resolution calling for a fair and transparent redistricting process.
“Both Republicans and Democrats are dismayed at the Congressional maps we see today,” she testified. “They destroy the competitive districts in our state and instead create two highly partisan, clearly gerrymandered districts.”
Rep. Dan McGuire of Epsom supported the Republicans’ map, saying that having two partisan districts would would make sure New Hampshire would have a House member in the Majority in Washington, D.C. Having safe Republican and Democratic seats, he said, would allow the representatives to stay in their positions and build up seniority to have a leadership role.
Injury And Death On The Trail
A Concord woman who was snowmobiling on Sunday afternoon, January 30, sustained potentially life-threatening injuries when her snowmobile crashed on the Northern Rail Trail in Boscawen.
According to New Hampshire Fish and Game, Paula Hendrick, 50, was traveling with friends when they met traffic going in the other direction on the trail. When they yielded to the oncoming snowmobiles, Henrick lost control in the snow at the side of the trail and fell off, tumbling down an embankment and colliding with trees.
Because of the distance between the crash and the nearest road, Concord Fire Department used a tracked utility terrain vehicle to transport her to an ambulance that took her to Concord Hospital for further evaluation and treatment.
On Friday, January 28, Derric Harper, 36, of Mansfield, Massachusetts, died in a snowmobile crash on the Corridor Trail 20 in Pittsburg. Harper had lost control of his snowmobile, striking a tree off the side of the trail and getting thrown from his machine.
When his riding companion realized Harper was no longer behind him, he turned around and traveled back to find Harper lying beside his damaged snowmobile. A bystander who came upon the crash assisted both Harper and his riding companion, calling 911 to summon the Pittsburg Fire Department. Harper was taken to Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital where Harper succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead.
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