New PFAW Report Shows Voter Suppression Measures Spreading
State-to-state “Like Viruses”
WASHINGTON, D.C.— People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch project today released a new report on GOP state-level voter suppression efforts, “The Right Wing War on American Voters: Vote Suppression in the Age of Trump.” Written by Bob Moser, the report details the GOP efforts to limit the franchise to cling to power long after the public has rejected their extreme right-wing agenda.
“Republicans have clearly chosen raw power over democracy,” former Tallahassee mayor and PFAW Senior Fellow Andrew Gillum said. “Their extreme right-wing agenda is costing them popular support, so they have reacted with outrageous attacks on young people, Latinos, and African Americans that target their ability to vote. This new report makes it very clear that we have to fight these attacks with everything we have—and then we have to vote like our lives depend on it.”
The report, authored by Bob Moser, highlights examples in Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee, detailing efforts including voter ID laws, purges of voter registration rolls and other methods to put roadblocks in the path to the polls for African Americans, Latinos and young people—the likeliest Democratic voters.
“Republican lawmakers in 19 states have passed new measures to suppress votes since 2017,” Moser writes. “And with so much at stake in 2020—not just the presidency and control of Congress, but the balance of power in state legislatures that get to draw new district lines for a new decade after the U.S. census—they’re not done yet, especially in the presidential battlegrounds.”
“Leaders on the right have been explicit that they do not want more people to vote, and they could not be more clear about who they think should have a harder time voting,” Gillum said, pointing to comments by Heritage Foundation leaders Paul Weyrich and Jim DeMint referenced in the report. “But that means they have given up on a democracy that works for everybody, and are fine crushing the rights of others if it keeps them in the halls of power. We won’t stand for it.”
At a report preview event in New York on November 14, Moser and Gillum discussed their experiences witnessing voter suppression and the risks for 2020. View video of the program here: https://youtu.be/cgMQbR5FlRQ.
Read the full report here: www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-right-wing-war-on-american-voters
About Bob Moser
Report author Bob Moser is the author of “Blue Dixie: Awakening the South’s Democratic Majority.” He reports on politics for Rolling Stone and The New Republic. Bob is also a former editor-in-chief of the Texas Observer, and has held editorial posts at National Journal, The American Prospect and The New Republic.
About Right Wing Watch
Right Wing Watch is a project of People For the American Way (PFAW) dedicated to monitoring and exposing the activities and rhetoric of right-wing activists and organizations in order to expose their extreme agenda. Our researchers monitor dozens of broadcasts, emails and websites, and use their expertise on right-wing movements to analyze and distill that information for media, allies and the general public. By shedding light on the activities of the right-wing movement, we help expose the risks its extreme and intolerant agenda presents to our country. We do not endorse the views of groups that we report on.
About PFAW
People For the American Way is a progressive advocacy organization founded to fight right-wing extremism and build a democratic society that implements the ideals of freedom, equality, opportunity and justice for all. We encourage civic participation, defend fundamental rights, and fight to dismantle systemic barriers to equitable opportunity. Learn more at www.pfaw.org.