Amanda Jane is a 30-year-old writer, social media lover and pop-culture obsessed adult*. While she isn't working on her novel, she enjoys watching television shows, wondering about the YouTube business model for vloggers, movies and reading any books she can get her hands on. She might be made up of 20% coffee and 80% sarcasm.
*An adult when her parents are looking.
The Supreme Court just issues a ruling allowing Ohio and other states to purge voters from their election registration rolls due to their failure to cast a ballot in previous elections.
This is a major victory for the Trump administration and the GOP, and a direct consequence of the Supreme Court being stacked with more conservative judges (the votes were 5-4). This is also a huge part of what Trump/the GOP were counting on to save them in the 2018 midterm elections, which is where Democrats have been hoping to take back a majority in the House, giving them more power to combat Trump’s abuses of power and Republican legislation.
What this means is YOU CAN NOT ASSUME THAT YOU ARE REGISTERED for the 2018 elections, just because you SHOULD be. Thanks to this decision, red states can purge voters’ registration based on their not having cast a ballot in even just previous federal elections, NOT just the national Presidential elections. Effectively, if you haven’t voted in previous senate races or for congressional representatives in the past few years, that’s all they need now to say you’re no longer registered and need to register again.
They’re deliberately counting on people assuming they’re still registered and so not checking until after registration deadlines have passed, or showing up to vote this November and only then finding out they’re no longer registered, when its too late to do a damn thing about it.
And this is absolutely targeted at marginalized communities, low income voters, disabled voters, and basically anyone who simply can’t always AFFORD to keep on top of every federal election and show up to vote in every senate race, etc. Which not so coincidentally happen to be all the communities and voters who have the most to gain from Democratic victories in the 2018 midterms and are the least likely to cast votes for GOP candidates at this point.
This was absolutely a calculated effort aimed specifically at keeping the GOP in power with a majority control of the government come November, and unfortunately, it has a DAMN good chance of accomplishing just that if it goes by unacknowledged. I’m not looking to alarm or panic anyone, simply to say:
If you are a registered voter in a red state at this point, please please please do not take your registered status as assumed. Check on your registration status, look up all relevant voter registration deadlines for your state and district, CIRCLE THAT SHIT ON YOUR CALENDAR, and check your registration status AGAIN right before those deadlines pass, so you can be sure of it before its too late to do anything about it til the next voting cycle.
Registration deadlines are calculated by length of time before the election you’re voting in; midterm elections this year are on November 6th. If your registration is on file by October 1st you will be eligible to vote in all 50 states (except North Dakota, which doesn’t have voter registration, so I guess there you just show up).
Not sure if you’ll remember to check your voter registration by the deadline? Set a calendar event to check your registration status a few weeks in advance of your deadline. Get a robot to remember it for you!
This made me smile. For most of us $50 isn’t much money, but sometimes even the smallest good deed (while expecting nothing in return) can make all the difference in the world and mean everything to people.
SN: carry-on baggage fees by airlines really is a ridiculously greedy way to fleece customers.
Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you up, heart and soul.
“Writing begins with forgiveness. Let go of the shame about how long it’s been since you last wrote, the clenching fear that you’re not a good enough writer, the doubts over whether or not you can get it done”
