Who's afraid of the big bad voter?

Well, Republicans, mostly.

Two more days and it will all be over.

By this this time on Tuesday night four years ago, the election was over and the victor was obvious. It wasn't even close (I said that four years ago; read it here). This year it'll almost certainly be closer; still, expect the more vocal elements on either side to go through the same old dance. Pundits on one side will be celebrating their foresight; on the other side they'll be searching for excuses for their failure, most of them claiming that they were right but the electorate was wrong.

The danger here, the danger to all of us and our democracy, is that many of the losers will then go about finding ways of taking the unreliable electorate out of the process. (That's us, the electorate, by the way.)

I'm not saying that this is purely a Republican thing, but it is a historical fact that the extreme right (which in recent elections has increasingly meant the Republican party) has been trying to narrow the electorate since at least the early '80s. (Here's a piece about voter suppression that gives some history.) Conventional wisdom holds that the more people actually vote, the more it favors the Democrats/Left. (I hate that phrase; wisdom is seldom conventional. Even so, in this case "conventional wisdom" has proven to hold true in all recent elections.)

In 2008, people voted early in record numbers, and early voting favored Obama. This year, the Republicans have tried everything they could think of to decrease this margin. They have, for example, tried repeatedly restricting "early voting days" (especially in Ohio and Florida); most such efforts haven't survived the courts.

All of this brings up a serious question: Why does the Right fear democracy? 

What is it about people voting that sends the Right into a panic? Why is the simple act of exercising your right to vote something which must be undone by fair means or foul? What is it about people having a say in their government that causes others to try to keep them silent?

If democracy is truly the strength and foundation of this nation, how can the nation possibly be served by trying to keep democracy from happening?

The sad truth is that many people seem to believe that the Republic is best served by keeping "the people" out of it. Historically, this was as true of the first Constitutional Convention (1787, spring summer and fall) and the "Founding Fathers" as it is now. I'm not going to go into that here (for which read: I just deleted a lengthy and quite boring passage going deeply into all that). (Try the Wikipedia page on the Constitutional Convention for perspective.)

My point is this: The Romney campaign is relying on voter suppression to bring them victory. The fact is that the more votes counted, the better for Obama, so the Republicans (through their control of most state legislatures and governorships) have been, and are, doing all they can to keep likely democratic votes from counting.

This is my plea to you: don't let them. Whichever side your on, it is vitally important to go out and cast your vote regardless of whatever obstacles are placed in your path by those who want to take you out of the equation.

You may think that this is just Gunny spewing more left-wing claptrap, and you may be right, but I'm hardly the only one spewing. Consider:

United Wisconsin Responds to Voter Suppression Efforts by Romney Campaign
Romney should condemn Voter Suppression (Chicago Sun-Times)
Romney Campaign Training Poll Watchers to Mislead Voters (Daily Kos)
How GOP Voter Suppression Could Win Florida for Romney (Salon.com)
As Election Nears, Voter Suppression Efforts Kick into High Gear (The Daily Beast)
Unable to Win Honestly, Romney Campaign Turns to Poll Challengers (Addicting Info)

And from Think Progress.org:
Tea Party Group and Republican Campaign Coordinating to Supply Illinois with 'Non-Partisan' Poll Watchers
Volunteers for Voter Suppression Group Installed as Election Officials in Ohio
Maine County GOP Puts Out Fliers Urgently Recruiting Poll "Challengers"
All these and more linked to this page:  Voter Suppression | Think Progress

...and all of these links came from the first page of a Google search on "romney campaign voter suppression" and if you want to search further be my guest; there were more than twenty-one million results. Good hunting.

I'll leave you to your research.

The Blues Viking

The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.