The Biden Justice Department has been virtually silent on voting rights since Merrick Garland took over a Justice Department thoroughly corrupted by the most corrupt Attorney General in American history, William Barr.
Arizonan’s have been asking where in the hell is the Justice Department action to stop the Arizona Senate’s GQP sham “fraudit” after the Department sent a prelitigation letter earlier this year warning the state that it is in clear violation of federal election laws.
This inaction has been taken as a green light by other Republican-run states to engage in their own post-election sham “fraudit” of the 2020 election in pursuit of Donald Trump’s Big Lie to undermine confidence in American elections and democracy. Not just Arizona: Republicans push more partisan election ‘audits’ (“fraudits”). Republicans Push To Export Absurd Arizona-Style Election Audits To Other States.
TY but it shouldn't have to fall to you to protect democracy. It should be DOJ suing and Congress passing both voting protection bills! https://t.co/jBgc8Evqsn
— Jill Wine-Banks (@JillWineBanks) June 10, 2021
We may finally get an answer today. Axios reports, Garland to promise voting-rights fight in major policy speech:
Attorney General Merrick Garland will give a policy address on voting rights at 2 p.m. ET, promising “concrete steps … to secure the fundamental right to vote for all Americans,” the Justice Department says.
Why it matters: President Biden said last week that he’s prioritizing fights for federal voting-rights protection, as Republicans in legislatures across the country pass their own election laws. Democrats’ efforts were set back Sunday when Sen. Joe Manchin said he wouldn’t support a centerpiece bill passed by the House.
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- Biden earlier this month announced Vice President Harris will be leading the administration’s push to protect voting rights. He has called the GOP-led wave of voting restrictions “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”
- Harris said in a statement that the administration “will not stand by when confronted with any effort that keeps Americans from voting,” promising to work with voting rights organizations, the private sector and lawmakers to protect voting access.
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What they’re saying: A DOJ official told Axios that Garland “will discuss the central importance of voting rights to American democracy. He’ll announce steps the department is taking to secure and expand the right to vote for all Americans, including in states seeking to curb voter access.”
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- “He will also speak to the upcoming redistricting cycle, the first since 1964 to proceed without preclearance protections of the Voting Rights Act.”
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Here’s hoping that the Attorney General will finally address the unlawful Arizona Senate GQP sham “fraudit,” and hopefully seek to hold the coconspirators behind this “fraudit” accountable at law.
Also today, the House is holding a hearing on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Bill:
What: “Voting in America: The Potential for Polling Place Quality and Restrictions on Opportunities to Vote to Interfere with Free and Fair Access to the Ballot,” a hearing before the Committee on House Administration, Subcommittee on Elections
When: Friday, June 11, 2021, 11 AM ET
Where: Livestream available here.
Who:
Panel 1
- Mimi Marziani, President, Texas Civil Rights Project
- Jesselyn McCurdy, Interim Executive VP for Government Affairs, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
- Kevin Morris, Quantitative Researcher, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law
- Donald Palmer, Chair, U.S. Election Assistance Commission
- Stephen Pettigrew, Director of Data and Science, University of Pennsylvania
Panel 2
- Gilda Daniels, Director of Litigation, Advancement Project
- Michael C. Herron, Professor, Dartmouth University
- Danielle Lang, Director, Voting Rights, Campaign Legal Center
- Isabel Longoria, Elections Administrator, Harris County, Texas
- Ashlee Titus, Board Member and Corporate Secretary, Lawyers Democracy Fund
UPDATE: Attorney General Merrick B. Garland gives a policy address on voting rights and the steps the Department of Justice is taking to secure the fundamental right to vote for all Americans. He calls upon Congress to pass the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Right Advancement Act to give the Department all the tools it needs. In the meantime, he is going on a hiring spree, promising to double the number of attorneys in the Voting Rights section. He did not directly address the Arizona Senates’ GQP sham “fraudit.”
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A Reuters Special Report, “Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers”, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-georgia-threats/
(Excerpt)
[There is a] continuing barrage of threats and intimidation against election officials and their families months after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s November election defeat. While reports of threats against Georgia officials emerged in the heated weeks after the voting, Reuters interviews with more than a dozen election workers and top officials – and a review of disturbing texts, voicemails and emails that they and their families received – reveal the previously hidden breadth and severity of the menacing tactics.
Trump’s relentless false claims that the vote was “rigged” against him sparked a campaign to terrorize election officials nationwide – from senior officials such as Brad Raffensperger to the lowest-level local election workers. The intimidation has been particularly severe in Georgia, where Raffensperger and other Republican election officials refuted Trump’s stolen-election claims. The ongoing harassment could have far-reaching implications for future elections by making the already difficult task of recruiting staff and poll workers much harder, election officials say.
Trump’s baseless voter-fraud accusations have had dark consequences for U.S. election leaders and workers, especially in contested states such as Georgia, Arizona and Michigan. Some have faced protests at their homes or been followed in their cars. Many have received death threats.
Some, like Raffensperger, are senior officials who publicly refused to bow to Trump’s demands to alter the election outcome … But many others whose lives have been threatened were low- or mid-level workers, just doing their jobs.
Trump’s incendiary rhetoric could reverberate into the 2022 midterm congressional elections and the 2024 presidential vote by making election workers targets of threatened or actual violence. Many election offices will lose critical employees with years or decades of experience, predicts David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research.