I have just one question regarding this spate of voter suppression laws being passed around the country.
The US Constitution has been amended 27 times. 4 of those amendments deal directly with securing and/or expanding the Right to Vote for citizens of the United States. No other single issue has been addressed as many times as voting. It would seem to even a casual observer that the Right to Vote is a matter of great importance.
But the last 40 years has seen a concerted attack on the Right to Vote in much of the country. And, as has been the case with so many other issues, minority groups are the most affected by these attacks. It doesn't require a Ph.D in Political Science to figure out why this is happening. Voter suppression laws always originate from the right side of the legislative aisle. Republicans have known for quite some time that minorities don't vote for them very much. So often the only way Republicans can win an election is to keep as many people of color, women, young people and the economically disadvantaged from voting. Fewer polling places and shorter voting hours make it harder to take the time to vote. When you can't afford to take time off work or to pay for transportation to a far away polling place, you just don't vote. And that makes Republicans very happy.
In 2020, due to a global pandemic, many states expanded voting to offer a mail-in option. We saw the largest voter turnout in the nation's history and a sitting President was defeated for reelection by a Democrat. That made Republicans VERY unhappy. Their response to this loss wasn't an admission that their candidate was the worst President in history, it was to ramp up their efforts to further limit opportunities for citizens to exercise a precious constitutional right. These efforts would appear to be in direct violation of the guarantees made by the Constitution. So again I ask
Our courts, especially the Supreme Court, are charged, in part, with assuring that the rights of the citizens are not violated or infringed by frivolous, spurious, or malicious legislation. Courts have frequently struck down laws on this basis. And I can think of nothing more frivolous, spurious, malicious or potentially harmful to democracy than keeping a citizen from voting. So,
Where is the court, or judge, who will step up and say, "No, you can't have a law that makes it harder to vote"? This is a threat to the foundation upon which our country was built. This is the small child who didn't get a cookie throwing a temper tantrum. This is a wannabe dictator continuing to hold sway over his minions even after his ouster from power. We have laws in this country to protect us and courts to enforce those laws. And I don't have an answer to the most essential question of our times.