The Republicans, led by Trump, are preparing to take revenge
The publication Politico came out with an article whose title begins obscenely "We're f--ked". This article tells that representatives of the Democratic Party on the ground are beginning to panic about the new electoral legislation that is being adopted in states controlled by the Republican Party, since the new laws severely limit the possibilities of remote and absentee voting, which the Democratic Party used in full in 2020.
Questions about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election still excite American society. Even Joe Biden himself explained that he understands what it is about when one of the American football players hinted at the White House that "40% of the country still does not believe that we won."
In order to fix its majority in the 2022 congressional elections, the Democratic Party at the House of Representatives level adopted "For the People Act”, which assumed the liberalisation of the voting procedure in US elections and would allow even undocumented migrants to vote in the elections. However, the consideration of this project was suspended in the US Senate, as even some Democratic senators did not agree with it.
In order to spite this initiative, in the states controlled by the Republican Party, local congresses adopted legislation tightening the voting procedure. In Texas, representatives of Democrats even left the state to disrupt the adoption of one of such laws.
For example, the already adopted law in the state of Georgia with the requirement to have an identity card to receive ballots by mail may affect about 270,000 voters who do not have an identity card, writes Politico.
"If there isn’t a way for us to repeat what happened in November 2020, we’re f---ed", said one of the leaders of a public organisation engaged in the Democratic Party electoral campaign. "Republicans are trying to peel away Democratic-leaning voters wherever they can. … It’s sort of death by 1,000 cuts”, another activist of the Democratic Party tells Politico.
Representatives of the Democratic Party expect to repeal a number of laws through the courts and spend more than one million dollars on this. Aneesa McMillan, deputy executive director of Priorities USA, which manages the voting rights preservation program, explained that “the most ridiculous thing we’ve had to sue over" was a Michigan law prohibiting hiring people for transporting voters to polling stations.
Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, referring to the provision of the law in Georgia, which gives lawmakers more authority to interfere in local elections, said: “That is not America, that’s Russia. I mean, that is some straight-up dictator-type stuff”. Although the very provision of the law states that legislators can remove the head of the local election commission only in case of repeated detection of violations of the electoral process.
In July, US Vice President Kamala Harris announced the expansion of the Democratic Party's program “I will vote” to $25 million to support voter turnout and protect the election.
"Over the last 3 decades we have witnessed the Republican Party, especially at the state level, put up enormous roadblocks to the freedom to vote for every citizen and part of the problem is that there is one party that believes every American citizen deserves the freedom to vote while the other party erects barriers to the ballot box,” said Donna Brazile, former chairwoman of the Democratic Party.
Between January 1 and July 14, 2021, at least 18 states adopted about 30 laws restricting the voting procedure. The main innovation is the requirement that the voter has an identity card.
However, most often the changes concerned the order of absentee voting. A number of states have canceled the mailing of ballots by mail, now you can get them only at the request of a voter. In some states, it has become possible to vote in absentia if there is a good reason for not being able to turn out at the polling station. Also, the terms of absentee voting, which used to be calculated in weeks, were most often reduced.
At the same time, at least 25 states have adopted 54 laws with provisions for liberalising the voting procedure. Representatives of the Democratic Party at the level of state legislation allowed the registration of voters on the day of voting and even online registration. They simplified or even abolished the requirements of ID for voters. They lifted restrictions on voting for citizens who are in prison. Restrictions on the collection of ballots from voters by third parties were lifted, for their subsequent transfer to polling stations.
The article of the RUSSTRAT Institute "The Deep State has begun to dismantle the American civilisational code" indicated that the ideological confrontation in the United States is only escalating, and this will entail the manifestation of new forms of socio-political conflict.
Now it can be stated that the ideological struggle has manifested itself in the field of legislative initiatives, and this is clearly not the end of the matter. Victory in the 2022 elections becomes no less significant than the struggle for the post of president of the United States, since only with a significant majority in Congress will the winner be able to realise their ideological vector of the country's development.