I was surprised to find that the Maricopa County GOP is officially encouraging voters to actively disenroll from participation in mail-in balloting.
From their official county party newsletter:
The newsletter doesn’t explain why a voter would want to do such a thing. I assume that the move is part of the on-going separation from reality imposed on the party by participation in Grump’s #BigLie that he won Arizona and the mail-in ballots were somehow involved.
While I don’t like to see ANY voters face more hurdles to their participation in our democracy, in this case, the inconvenience is entirely self-imposed. Having failed to destroy no-excuse mail-in ballots and the early voting enrollment list entirely this legislative session (not for lack of trying, on the floor and in the courts), it seems they are bound and determined to continue to demonize and shun early mail-voting to their own voters – even though the AZGOP pioneered and refined the system into one of the best in the nation.
If fewer AZGOP voters end up voting as a result of this nuttery in service to the Orange Menace, I can’t really consider that a bad thing. Given how compromised by the #BigLie the AZGOP’s nominees for office are likely to be, I really do hope that the Republicans wind up suppressing their own vote turnout with stunts like this. The anti-democratic and fascist impulse set loose in the GOP by Tangerine Palpatine has to burn itself out with utter electoral defeat. Let’s be glad that the Maricopa AZGOP is doing its part to aid in that result.
They’re planning a “Red Mirage” coup. This gives them the ammo to claim voting-by-mail is inherently fraudulent. If a lunatic like Mark Finchem gets elected, this will become official policy. This might possibly be the last free and fair election in the US; the Republican party is primed to ride their Big Lie to authoritarian fascist rule. Why not? It worked for the original Fascists….
In 2018, Republicans led in all statewide races on election night. Then as the votes were counted over several days, several Democrats pulled ahead and won their races. The AZ GQP and Donald Trump screamed election fraud! The AZ GQP even hired current Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer to conduct an “audit” of the election. He found nothing to support the alegations of fraud.
In 2022, the first returns you will see posted around 8:00 p.m. will be mail-in ballots. This year Democrats are likely to be leading races early on Election night. Try not to get too excited. What the Republicans are trying to do is build a “red wave” of same day voting on election day that erases any early Democratic lead n mail-in ballots.
As an overall strategy, this is a bad strategy. For decades, the Republican Party sent their voters postcards to request an absentee ballot to vote by mail rather than on election day, Then they enacted no-excuse early mail-in voting. Then they enacted the permanent early voter list. All of this worked to the advantage of Republicans in winning elections.
2018 and 2020 were the first time that Democrats caught up to Republicans in early voting turnout. Now that Democrats are winning elections, suddenly the decades-long Republican strategy of voting early by mail is somehow “voter fraud” because their “Dear Leader” says so?
I can’t tell you how many times i have heard reporters say “based upon late returns of absentee/mail-in ballots, the Republican candidate has won the race.” They are cuting off their nose to spite their ridiculous face. The reduction of early mail-in ballots, coupled with long lines and frustrated voters with no patience on election day could mean the narrow margin of victory in this election.
Of course, if a Democrat wins Republicans will immediately scream “election fraud!” because in their twisted minds, only a Republican can be legitimately elected. A Democrat winning is thus election fraud by definition.
Step one – Make it so only Dems vote by mail.
Subsection B - Only put polling places in R areas.
Sub-Subection B - Station angry incel's in camo costumes at polling places to scare "those people" away.
Don’t forget to mail out the misleading mailers telling Dems that this year voting is on Wednesday, etc., etc.
Step two – Throw out the mail in ballots.
I’m not sure I’m kidding.