Haters Gonna Hate: Voting and Its Enemies

Top Story: Voting in America: Not A Right, A Fight

Paul Weyrich, the one-time GOP master manipulator, said the quiet part out loud.  Widespread voting is one of those things that really annoys Republicans.

You may want to two-sides this, for your editor’s sake. But you can’t. Suppressing the vote isn’t a bug. It’s a feature of the GOP machine. And there are few stories more important for your readers to know about than local efforts to keep them from the polls.  

As you read this, all across the country, hundreds of lawsuits are winding their way through the courts, as Republicans seek a myriad of creative ways to make it hard, illegal, expensive, inconvenient, dangerous, and simply impossible for Americans to cast their votes in 2024.  

Cover this early and often. For democracy’s sake.

Tips on Covering GOP Efforts to Stop Voting

Name Names.

Readers deserve to know what GOP leaders, what GOP organizations, and what GOP donors in their communities want to keep them  from voting.  This is a Republican thing. And you gotta say it.

Pay Attention.

Republican efforts to suppress the vote are highly aggressive, highly organized and national. Keep a look out for what Republicans are doing in communities near you.

Warn.  

Then, warn your audience. Being pro-democracy means helping people in your community get prepared for attacks on their rights.  

Understand the Myth of Voter Fraud.  

Republicans lie about voter fraud to justify their unethical efforts to suppress the vote. You shouldn’t help them spread this misinformation.

• Do not use the term “Election Integrity.”

  Radical Republicans skillfully manipulate the media (that’s you) by coming up with official-sounding terms for made-up measures to combat made-up problems. Election Integrity is one of those carefully planted faux ideas.  Getting you to use the term Election Integrity allows them to start spreading another false idea: that there is a lot of Election Fraud in our country, which is categorically untrue.  

• Do not use “so-called Election Integrity” either — as a way of communicating: “I don’t believe this.” That’s Journalism-Speak. Readers don’t actually know what “so-called” means.

• Instead explain, like this:

  House Member Peter Lie A Lot has told his constituents that he fears people who come to polling stations without their ID’s are attempting to vote illegally, even though there is no evidence to suggest that. In fact, extensive research indicates that voter fraud is very rare.

Provide evidence > Here.  

Give historical context.

When you are writing about current initiatives on your beat, make sure your readers understand this is a classic anti-democratic tool of American conservatives in your community; not a one-off.

Be pro-voting.

Make sure voters in your state know:

• where, how, and when to register and vote.

• their rights as it relates to voting

• how to get in touch with you if they are being intimidated, harassed, or dissuaded from voting.

Good Examples of Voter Suppression Coverage

• Mark Niesse in The Atlanta Journal Constitution makes it clear who is trying to suppress the vote and why

• Ayanna Alexander at the AP comes out and says it: Mississippi has a long history of voter suppression

• KUT News in Austin leaves nothing to chance. This voter guide has it all

• Tho Ohio Capital Journal paid attention. When a federal appeals court in Arkansas ruled that private citizens could not file suits alleging abuse of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, they let their readers know why this could matter to them in Ohio

We’re Watching

Slay The Dragon, a fabulous doc about gerrymandering and why it pollutes democracy.  

We’re Reading

Democracy Docket, every day, so we keep abreast of where voter suppression efforts are happening, and who is fighting them.

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See You Next Week!

Our Staff

Executive Editor Kyle Spencer

Managing Editor Christen Gall

Our Board of Advisors

Alex Aronson, executive director of Court Accountability

David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy

Connor Gibson, founder of Grassrootbeer Investigations

Maurice Cunningham, retired associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and author of Dark Money and The Politics of School Privatization.

Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College, founder of Faculty First Responders and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War

Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe distinguished professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America

Ralph Wilson, founder of the Corporate Genome Project and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War

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