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(THREAD) Some people are understandably confused about what& #39;s going on in Kentucky, so here& #39;s a brief thread on the coming primary that explains how we go to this odd situation: moderates and progressives arguing with one another about *voter suppression*. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/kentucky-slashes-polling-places-voting-rights-mcgrath-booker-lebron-james/">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/...
1/ Kentucky, under Dem leadership, did a *great thing*: increased mail-in balloting substantially. The *only* catch, when one pursues excellent voting reforms like this, is that voters require a long runway and a substantial acclimation period. This has always been so—everywhere.
2/ Some people will find the new system too confusing. Some won& #39;t want to break with their usual practice of voting live. Some won& #39;t hear about the new option(s) in time. And what well-intended election officials who are screwing up say *every single time* is... "It& #39;ll be fine."
3/ Note: what *ill-intended* election officials will often say—nearly always Republicans—is, "Tough luck, *voter*, if you weren& #39;t paying enough attention to eldritch voting statutes while trying to make ends meet." Such folks *hate* voters—and voting. There& #39;s a long history here.
4/ After mail-in balloting in Kentucky was augmented, it was found that the state had *violently* cut down on live voting sites. So voting rights activists—who& #39;ve seen this pattern a million times—said that either election officials were *screwing up* or they were *ill-intended*.
5/ The reason that voting rights activists said this is that they *knew* from *decades of experience* across *all 50 states* that when you introduce a new voting practice without *transitioning*—by maintaining the old one at its past level for a *while*—you disenfranchise voters.
6/ So voting rights activists waited to hear what response election officials would give, *knowing* that election officials are as aware of everything I& #39;ve just explained as anyone in America. This is literally their bread-and-butter: election infrastructure resource allocation.
7/ The first response from election officials to voting rights critics was, "Sorry—but we *increased mail-in balloting*. Did you not hear us? Did we stutter?" And what that said to voting rights activists was that Kentucky officials, for whatever reason, were acting in bad faith.
8/ *Then*, articles like the one atop this thread from MOTHER JONES—also many others, along with many high-traffic social media accounts—started sounding the warning, which you *have* to do urgently in voting rights cases or else *it& #39;s too late*. "Disenfranchisement," they cried!
9/ This freaked out Kentucky officials, some of whom were Democrats and felt they& #39;d been acting in good faith. Well, guess what: *many* of the Florida election officials who ruined the 2000 election for Democrats—and much more importantly all America—were well-intended Democrats.
10/ Now under fire, Kentucky officials suddenly had a *brand new* refrain. They said, "*No*, we didn& #39;t leave just 1 polling site for 610,000+ mostly black voters because we increased mail-in balloting. We *know* those folks need more polling sites. The problem was... COVID-19!"
11/ Instead of acknowledging this as a tardy (and insufficient) reply to the concerns of voting rights activists, some high-profile Kentucky folks—including some on the left—pretended that the COVID-19 explanation (we couldn& #39;t get enough poll workers!) had come at the start.
No.
No.
12/ Had Kentucky election officials said—at the start—"We& #39;re headed for a possible disaster in Kentucky during our upcoming primary because we can& #39;t find enough poll workers in majority-minority precincts," the response from media and activists would have been *wholly* different.
13/ Given what recently happened in Georgia& #39;s primary—which *involved*, but was *not* exclusively due to, issues in getting skilled and experienced poll-workers to certain sites in the middle of a pandemic (as such workers are often older)—the response would& #39;ve been *supportive*.
14/ There would& #39;ve been—*could& #39;ve* been—a huge effort, backed by non-profits and possibly Democrats, to ensure enough poll workers at all *existing* majority-minority precincts, *eliminating* the need to cut any such sites. But as ever, that& #39;s not what happened. History repeated.
15/ And here& #39;s the history of election bureaucracies: no one who is invested in an election reform *ever* admits they screwed up until *after* the election is over and it& #39;s too late.
Let me repeat: *ever*. *Ever*.
That& #39;s why Kentucky insisted, "But we expanded mail-in voting!"
Let me repeat: *ever*. *Ever*.
That& #39;s why Kentucky insisted, "But we expanded mail-in voting!"
16/ This explains what you& #39;re seeing from me—and others—trying to push back against the folks in Kentucky making all the arguments I just said out and somehow, incredibly, thinking they& #39;re the first people ever to screw up in this particular way. Or react this way to screwing up.
17/ I& #39;d only add that the *additional* defensive response we& #39;re hearing is, "You don& #39;t know Kentucky! We& #39;re special flowers—and our elections can& #39;t be guided by any wisdom learned from decades of voting rights violations across every state and literally *thousands* of elections!"
18/ I& #39;m very willing to say that many of those involved in the new election scheme in Kentucky are well-intentioned. I& #39;m perfectly happy conceding that COVID-19 is a major obstacle. I fully recognize no election is perfect and that there are voting idiosyncrasies in every state.
19/ But the reason voting in America *never improves* is that *every county reinvents the wheel* and *won& #39;t listen* to anything voting rights advocates say—*or* what history teaches. The result is the *same errors* get made over and over—and the *same people* get disenfranchised.
20/ It& #39;ll surprise no one that the disenfranchised are the poor, the elderly, the less-educated, those with ADA disabilities, minority groups and—too little discussed—first-time (often young) voters. Because the harm is foreseeable *every time*, voting rights activists get angry.
PS/ I cut my teeth as a voting rights advocate in the 2004 election—which not many realize was, in fact, stolen. And we *know* who stole it: Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio& #39;s Secretary of State, who somehow managed to close sites and remove machines in *only* majority-minority precincts.
PS2/ So yes, I get pretty heated when, even 16 years later, even after HAVA—which never became a fully funded mandate—we& #39;re seeing the *same* issues and hearing the *same* excuses. That some of those making the excuses were well-intended at *this* point means *very* little to me.
PS3/ I& #39;m perfectly happy to acknowledge dissent from within Kentucky and to seek to dismantle it here. Here& #39;s a thread worth reading, which I& #39;ll respond to right now in these postscripts (i.e., continue reading this thread once you& #39;ve read what Josh says): https://twitter.com/JoshuaADouglas/status/1274881770203144194">https://twitter.com/JoshuaADo...
PS4/ The first thing Josh does is pull a bait-and-switch. He impresses you with the "222,000 of 600,000+" figure (wowee! amazing!) while hoping you won& #39;t read the small print: *those aren& #39;t voters*. *Some* of them are voters—they voted already. Others merely "requested a ballot."
PS5/ As I& #39;ve laid out here, "Not knowing mail-in balloting is an option" is only *one* reason of *many* that voters historically have required a long runway and a *substantial* acclimation process before live voting options can be curtailed *at all* in favor of a new voting mode.
PS6/ I don& #39;t think Josh has his voter estimates right—but we don& #39;t need to go there, as he *concedes* his best-case scenario is *50,000 voters* needing to vote in *1 location* in a majority-minority area. And he *concedes* that that& #39;s *totally* unacceptable. (Read for yourself!)
PS7/ Josh goes on—mind you, this is... a *defense*... of what Kentucky is doing—to say that what Kentucky is doing is "dangerous." I won& #39;t use Josh& #39;s euphemisms, though: Kentucky is endangering *black voters& #39; right to vote*—and as Josh has conceded, the harm is *foreseeable now*.
PS8/ Now comes Josh& #39;s second bait-and-switch, which I& #39;ve seen many times before as a voting rights advocate: he focuses on *voters& #39; actions*—how many ballot requests they make—when one of the *chief* issues with a state instituting a new voting mode is *errors made by the state*.
PS9/ *Every* election official who& #39;s *ever* disenfranchised a minority voter has proceeded from the at best cynical and at worst spiteful position that the *voters* will make errors, but *they*—the officials—won& #39;t. Now do you want to guess how often the errors are the officials& #39;?
PS10/ I appreciate that Josh is well-intended. I appreciate that he concedes, "None of this is ideal. Even with record turnout, it could& #39;ve been *higher* but for problems, long lines..." That he trusts officials saying "we think lines will be 30 to 45 minutes" is... *terrifying*.
