Republicans Default Democracy To Democrats

[First posted Monday at Purple Wisconsin.]

Voters can make an intentional, principled statement with their ballots Tuesday by rejecting moves by GOP legislators, governors, strategists and funders who are willfully obstructing the voting process.

Gone are the days when easing voter access was a bi-partisan value. After all, Americans fought and died in foreign wars and domestic civil rights struggles to preserve and expand the right to vote, so you'd think any plan, even any thought of using state power or insider resources to discourage voting would be called un-American and out-of-bounds, stopped cold.

But no - - given US Senate GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's base, and baseline dictum that the number-one priority since 2008 has been and shall be the defeat of President Obama, Republicans have followed through with a national, state and local blueprint to suppress voter participation:

*  Republicans flooded legislatures with Voter ID laws that put fresh and unneeded hoops in front of legally-registered and eligible voters - - principally seniors, the poor and students who also just happen to be reliably Democratic voters.

 *  Republican officials in Florida and Ohio are undermining and restricting voting hours, registration validity and polling place access, all to create confusion, anger and long lines so voters with jobs, kids' soccer and grand-parent care duty will give up or stay home - - all for partisan advantage.

That isn't public service: it's public disgrace and disservice.

*  Wealthy, politically-connected donors have put up menacing billboards in low-income neighborhoods to discourage legal voting by suggesting there were felons on the loose intent on re-offending with a felonious vote.

In this election, the Democrats are the true democrats; Republicans' win-at-any-cost suppression strategies run contrary to American history and values, and that's reason enough to keep them from further access to state power.