Don't Be a Dope, Remember to Vote
Sooner is Better Than Later
Things must be looking bad for California Republicans. How do I know this? The in-state election campaigning I’m hearing the most about from the GOP side are complaints about the integrity of the voting process.
(The DC oriented campaign for Democrat Mike Levin’s congressional seat is on my radar, on the other hand. The GOP’s sounding mighty desperate.)
Carl DeMaio was interviewed on KUSI recently, giving viewers the California version of the Big Lie: implying that huge numbers of ballots are being illegally cast and blaming California’s automatic vote by mail system.
To make a long story short, he alleges that ballots go to people who are no longer residents or even alive and that these “orphan ballots” are then “harvested” by the forces of evil.
When DeMaio is involved in something it’s a sign he’s recruiting names and donations for Reform California, which I’m thinking is mostly a platform for his ego. The campaigns they mount are mostly figments of the imagination of whomever runs their website.
The canard about California’s voter rolls packed with countless names of people who either don’t exist or are ineligible to vote exists because of a lack of understanding or a deliberate attempt at disinformation that’s been repeatedly debunked.
This is part and parcel of the strategy used by the former President, who –in both of his campaigns– predicted the election would be “stolen” from him. In 2016, much to his surprise, he won. He still told the public Hillary Clinton had committed some sort of crime and deserved to be in jail.
In 2020, we saw an obvious attempt to interfere with the transfer of power, the insurrection rehearsal often referred to as the January 6 uprising, and are continuing to have our perceptions of reality challenged by a herb of blustering blowhards bleating about voter fraud.
In 2022, even so-called mainstream Republican candidates are working hard to undermine public confidence in the electoral process.
This year, the likes of the Pillow Guy and retired United States Army lieutenant general are working the nation’s prosperity-oriented evangelicals for support in staging revival-type rallies where disinformation is at the top of every agenda.
Locally, this entity would be the Awaken congregations, a spin off of the Australian Hillsong College, whose global network of flashy and youthful churches has been roiled by controversy.
In addition to enlisting volunteers for local conservative campaigns, they’re using their “campuses” to host training sessions for poll watchers.
Below is a social media post from an Awaken leader.
The term “poll watchers” is being used by some groups who’ve already determined that elections are fraudulent; it’s been made clear that some individuals can be expected to challenge voters based on criteria that have nothing to do with law.
A report from the California Voter Foundation notes that 15% of local election officials have left the job since November 2020.
Because of reports from around the nation about election workers being harassed or threatened, California enacted Senate Bill 1131 by Sen. Josh Newman, a Democrat from Fullerton. It allows election workers to keep their addresses confidential to protect them from harassment.
For this election, both the state Democratic Party and state Republican Party have their own election integrity and voting resource websites.
Once you’ve voted, track the progress of your ballot through https://california.ballottrax.net/voter/?twclid=2-1c79sqzidr6tja86u1i30oouh
I voted on October 12 and received an email four days later informing me that my ballot had been received and counted.
There’s another kind of voter suppression going on, and it’s a bit more subtle that the brute force methods being advocated by the foaming-at-the-mouth wingnut set.
Although there are reports from throughout the country indicating record numbers of people already voting, the political punditry for profit set is making noise about a sudden shift in the electorate– usually to the right.
In California, last Tuesday’s vote totals indicated a 75.3% increase from day two of 2018 midterm early voting, and a 3.3% increase over the second day of early voting in the 2020 Presidential Election.
In Georgia, more than 130,000 votes were cast on the first day of early voting, according to the Secretary of State's office. That surpasses the record for the first day of early voting in a midterm, which was set in 2018.
From ABC News
More than 2 million people have already voted in the 2022 general election, according to data analyzed by the University of Florida's U.S. Elections Project.
The project, which compiles public data on early voting at ElectProject.org, had counted 2,030,730 early votes, of which 1,842,115 mail-in ballots have been returned and 188,615 ballots have been cast in person thus far, as of Oct. 17. There have been 14,892,186 total mail ballots requested.
University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, who oversees the Elections Project, said that early turnout so far in 2022 was higher than usual for a midterm election.
I’m not saying that I have any idea of how all those people are voting. What I am saying is that anybody –pollster or pundit– who claims to know how the voters are thinking at this moment is trying to manipulate the public, either for personal profit or to influence turn out.
What I will say is that you should vote as early as possible, either by mail or through early voting. The hard part of voting for many people is determining who and what to vote for or against.
Here’s a link to my Voter Guide. I didn’t cover most judicial races because the process for evaluating candidates is opaque. What I can say is that –as far as the appellate court Yes or No candidacies are concerned– the far right is asking followers to vote No on all.
In fact, if the righties had their way, they’d just as soon have you not cast a ballot. The lower the turnout, the thinking goes, the better it is for right wing candidates.
Remember, when it comes to mailers and phone calls/texts, they are supposed to stop once you’ve voted, so don’t procrastinate, do it today.
Email me at: WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com