Voter suppression

File:Democratic voter suppression.jpg

Democratic party voter suppression, 1963.

The Democratic party exercised voter suppression in of the African American vote in the South for the first 100 years after the Republican-controlled Congress and states passed the 15th Amendment. In 1964, a near unanimous vote of Republicans, coupled with a bi-partisan coalition of some Democrats, passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 allowing for federal intervention end Jim Crow laws in Blue States.

Voter suppression occured through discriminatory practices at polling stations and often through intimidation and violence by the terrorist wing of the Democrat party - the Ku Klux Klan.

History

Origins

With the defeat of the Democrats and the South, to the victors went the spoils. Republicans immediately stripped white males who engaged in rebellion against the United States of the vote, and gave it to Blacks. Newly freed Blacks held local, state and federal elected and non-elected positions as Republicans. The white males who were deprived of the vote were also barred from holding any civil service position and were universally Democrats. This disenfranchisement created enormous resentment among Democrats, so they formed the Ku Klux Klan to engage in voter intimidation and suppression.

African Americans in the South were left to the mercy of increasingly hostile state governments dominated by white Democratic legislatures; neither the legislatures, law enforcement or the courts worked to protect freedmen. As Democrats regained power in the late 1870s, they struggled to suppress black voting through intimidation and fraud at the polls. Paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts acted on behalf of the Democrats to suppress black voting. From 1890 to 1908, 10 of the 11 former Confederate states passed disfranchising constitutions or amendments, with provisions for poll taxes, residency requirements, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses that effectively disfranchised most black voters and many poor white people. The disfranchisement also meant that black people could not serve on juries or hold any political office, which were restricted to voters; those who could not vote were excluded from the political system.

Civil rights era

The McGovern-Fraser Commission required state parties to develop written rules and post uniform statewide notification of the date, time, and location of precinct caucus meetings or party primary elections. There was a common practice in some Southern states such as Mississippi were all-white local party bosses held meetings in obscure locations so that Black majorities in a county or district were unaware of the time and place of party elections. Although many provisions the commission brought about were undone in the early 1980s by Walter Mondale and Ted Kennedy, several provisions have remained. Prior to McGovern-Fraser, several states had no written guidelines governing party conventions, caucuses, and the delegate selection process at each level, and were based mostly on local tradition, which often meant cronyism, discrimination, voter suppression and the boss's rule. The system had been used effectively by Democrats in their voter suppression of Blacks for over 100 years.

After the 1972 election, Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski was asked by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to chair the Mikulski Commission to review and make recommendations on how effective the pre-convention McGovern-Fraser reforms rules were. According to CNN, the commission

replaced the demographic quotas of 1972 with affirmative action requirements to increase participation by women, blacks and other minorities. (However, this specific plan had the OPPOSITE effect, decreasing the proportion of women from 38% in 1972 to 36% in 1976. The proportion of blacks declined from 15% in 1972 to 7% in 1976. After 1976, quotas for women delegates were reimposed.) PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION, the distribution of delegates among candidates to reflect their share of the primary or caucus vote, was mandated by party rules.

The Mikulski Commission did away with the secret ballot and required a public declaration in front of the election judges or on registration forms and a party-specific ballot given to the voter to cast. Now in most states a non-partisan primary voter who wishes to vote for a Democrat for President and a Republican for Senate experiences voter suppression and denial.

2020 Iowa Caucus

Main article: 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses

Shadow, Inc. is the company that developed the Iowa and Nevada Democratic caucus app. FEC records show Buttigieg for America paid Shadow Inc. $42,000. Former Clinton campaign chairman Robby Mook vetted the app for the Democratic party. Shadow, Inc. was launched by a dark money SuperPAC called Acronym, headed by CEO Tara McGowan, a former journalist and Obama for America operative who is married to a senior advisor of Buttieg's presidential campaign. Acronym was founded by billionaire Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn. Hoffman funded Project Birmingham, a covert voter suppression and fake news campaign based on the Russian model during dirty the 2017 Doug Jones/Roy Moore Alabama Senate race. Obama crony David Plouffe sits on the board of Acronym.

On election night the Iowa Democratic party stopped counting when 98% of precincts were counted and Bernie Sanders was ahead by 2,500 votes. Only the precincts that would likely help Buttigieg were recounted, and the remainder of precincts were weighted to Sanders. Under the apportionment system Buttigieg was awarded two more delegates and claimed victory, but Sanders won the statewide popular vote. Seven of the last nine winners of the Iowa Caucus went on to win the Democratic nomination, and the DNC rigged the election to prevent Sanders from gaining momentum from a victory. Of Buttigieg's 2 delegate margin of victory, 3 were awarded by coin toss. Due to Democrat corruption and election rigging, the Associated Press refused to recognize Buttigieg's claim of victory.

Michigan Democrat primary

Once again, long lines appeared at certain select precincts where many frustrated voters gave up and returned home. Sanders accused the Democrat party of voter suppression. As a committed idealist, which anyone who knows the man or followed his career since he entered politics in 1981, these events explain clearly why Sanders never joined the Democratic party - because the Democratic party is not democratic. Democratic party insiders and office holders do not hold to the fundamental belief in one man, one vote. This was true when the Democratic party's forebearers inserted the 3/5 rule into the U.S. Constitution; it was true in the decade-long court battles ending with the Dred Scott decision, and after the Civil War it was the basis for, first lynching white carpetbagging Republicans, then secondly turning on recently freed Blacks and imposing a century-long era of segregation and Jim Crow. Winning, and holding power at all costs are the core principles of Democratic party leadership since its founding, and those core beliefs have repeatedly compromised any notion of freedom, equality, or human rights to attain their objectives. Few contemporary, ordinary Democratic party voters understand these basic facts of the history of the Democratic party as well as Bernie Sanders does. By running from outside the party, Bernie Sanders attempted to reform it. Sanders is the living embodiment of the 38% of Democratic party voters, who identify as socially conscious liberals or progressives, whose valuers and beliefs may be high minded and noble, but are systematically mocked behind their backs as dupes and stooges by party insiders. In Sanders' case, Sanders has simply been honest with himself by not wearing the party label. Very few of his staff, supporters, or followers can make the same claim, or excuse.

See also

• Civil Rights movement
• Essay:An analysis of another misleading poll