Well past BNR’s 2 day publishing limit. Nov. 28, ’21 OP relegated to Old News( category – NV –CNN)The foundations for a potential coup of the 2024 election are already being put into place. The very institutions that are supposed to protect our democracy are a big part of the problem.
If Donald Trump steals the election in 2024, as he tried to do in 2020, it will likely be because he and his supporters are laying the groundwork right now. They are infecting key government institutions that can be exploited to thwart the will of the voters.
The Supreme Court is the first major concern. With three Trump appointees, the Court has upheld restrictive state voting rules and deferred to state legislatures on how to run elections, failing to protect the constitutional right to vote. In several cases leading up to the November 2020 election, the Court rejected lower court rulings that would have made it easier for voters to cast their ballots during a pandemic and have those votes count. In case after case, the Court essentially ignored the plight of voters and instead upheld states’ authority to run an election as they see fit.
That undue deference to states did not start in 2020. In a series of cases over the past few decades, the Court has required voters to show with specificity how a voting rule would burden their constitutional rights. But it has credited a state’s generalized interest in rooting out voter fraud, even if the state cannot offer much evidence voter fraud is a real problem that needs fixing. The Court also essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which helped to secure minority voting rights in the face of racial discrimination, both in the Shelby County, Alabama case in 2013 and in a case this past July, in which the conservative majority set out rules that make it much harder for plaintiffs to bring a successful claim that a voting law has a disproportionate effect on minority voters.
Just Think
Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/28/opinions/2024-coup-douglas/index.html