Don't Let the Fuckers Intimidate You

Are you going to let them scare you away from voting? Are you going to let anyone you know be scared away from voting?

Repugs cannot win if everyone votes. So they have to prevent people they're pretty sure will vote Democratic from voting at all.

David Dayen:

One thing is certain: the Republicans do have an X-factor in their get out the vote operations. That’s what they always use: intimidation and voter suppression. The Rand Paul curb stomping incident, seen this way, wasn’t just an expression of violence but a warning to those planning to hit the polls on Election Day.

In 2006, conservative activists repeatedly claimed that the problem of people casting fraudulent votes was so widespread that it was corrupting the political process and possibly costing their candidates victories.

The accusations turned out to be largely false, but they led to a heated debate, with voting rights groups claiming that the accusations were crippling voter registration drives and squelching turnout.

That debate is flaring up anew.

Tea Party members have started challenging voter registration applications and have announced plans to question any individual voters at the polls whom they suspect of being ineligible.

This has flown a bit more under the radar than in previous years, but it’s starting to elevate. Tea partiers in St. Paul, Minnesota are offering a $500 bounty for any voter fraud cases. In Texas, poll watchers have physically intimidated early voters. And throughout the country, allegations have been flying about voter fraud, including in Yuma County, Arizona, where the allegations proved without merit.

Publius Pundit, a supporter of the Republican challenger to Rep. Raul Grijalva, wrote that “voter fraud on a massive scale could be taking place,” claiming that 3,000 new voter registration applications were dropped off at once and 65 percent were invalid. (Neither of which, if true, would be evidence of fraud.) The blogger, Maria Carvajal, also noted the “statistical improbability” that most of the registrations were Democratic [...]

It appears the allegations are baseless. Mi Familia Vota, along with One Arizona, submitted about 3,000 requests to add voters to the permanent early voting list. They aren’t new registrations. Instead, already registered voters are asking to get an early voting ballot mailed to them every election cycle.

“Our goal was mainly signing Latinos up on the permanent early voting list. That way they become frequent voters,” Francisco Heredia, the Arizona state director for Mi Familia Vota, told TPMmuckraker. “We’re not telling people how to vote.”

The group only submitted about 300 new registrations, Heredia said. He also said that the requests were not submitted all at once, but on a weekly basis over two months.

Let’s make one thing clear: the goal is not to catch anyone for committing voter fraud. It has been well documented that there’s nobody to really catch. The goal is to intimidate poor, minority, or otherwise voiceless voters from the hassle of going to the polls. We’ve seen this with posters in minority-heavy precincts warning of immigration officials at the polls, or the wrong day put on voting fliers, or “Don’t Vote” campaigns on TV. And this plays into that. They want less people to vote, and they think that improves their chances.

Repugs don't want you to vote. They are so scared that the Democratic voters who turned out in 2008 will turn out next Tuesday that they've been reduced to actual physical violence - the likes of which we haven't seen since Bull Connor's Birmingham in 1963.

There is, in the end, only one way to stop them: Vote. Vote against them. Vote for the Democratic candidates who will fight them. Vote. Make sure everyone you know votes.

Nothing you can do - not even, or especially even, responding to their violence with more violence - will defeat and destroy them as quickly and effectively as voting against them.

Stride proudly into your polling place. Look the repug intimidators in the eye and stare them down. You have every right to be there. They are the un-American interlopers. You are the reason - the only reason - American democracy works. Because you vote.

Cast your vote with righteousness, knowing they cannot stop you.

Dare them to fucking try.