Coronavirus does not appear to be stopping people from signing up to vote. According to the April 1 voter registration tally issued by the Secretary of State, we’ve added 4,998 voters to the rolls since the beginning of the year, with 1,552 new voters registering in March. Of course, in the last two Presidential election years, the number of people who signed up to vote in March was 2,886 in 2016 and 1,619 in 2012.
The number of Republican voters in South Dakota climbed over 260,000 again after Secretary Barnett’s fall voter purge knocked them back down to 257,325. Independents similarly recovered, climbing above 130,000 again. Democrats remain down in the 154K range that Barnett purge took them down to over the fall.
Republicans make up 47.47% of the South Dakota electorate, which is only a tenth of a percentage point greater than the proportion they held at the time of the 2006 general election. Democrats make up 28.18% of the current electorate, down from the 37.64% they held in 2006. Independents are now 23.76% of the electorate, up from 14.71% in 2006.
Voter registration is up everywhere, I’ve heard. Polls show the lean toward the Democratic Party increasing at a steady pace.
News is that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has delayed the Wisconsin election scheduled for tomorrow. The state’s GOP lege is taking him to court because they say he can’t do that. They also insisted Wisconsinites vote in person because they’d like to reduce the state’s population, I guess. GOP loves cheating on elections.
Debbo– the gov lost to the supreme court of Wis. Election is on , the killing fields are open for business.
🤬🤬🤬 The Wisconsin GOP stacked their Supreme, so not surprised. 🤬🤬🤬
We are running big Voter Registration & Absentee Voting Campaigns to ensure voter engagement in Nov. The 2 ballot issues are incredibly popular & are engaging lots of first time voters. I am cautiously optimistic about the voter turn out for this year. Fun fact Cannabis dispensaries have been deemed essential businesses during this pandemic. It’s time for SD to move into smart reform.
Debbo, Wisconsin is stacking this whole election by suppressing tens of thousands of votes (that were returned late because ballots were slow to go out due to the increase of requests resulting from the pandemic). But the US Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote says tough, late votes don’t count and the election will not wait.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/supreme-court-wisconsin-absentee-ballots.html
The GOP is THE most anti-democratic institution and threat to true democracy in the US. Voter-Suppressed, fixed elections are the smokescreen to justify their more-and-more illegitimate rule.
Keep after those new registrants, Melissa!
Nice thing about voter registration drives, which distinguishes them from petition drives, is that you don’t need witnesses and notaries to get people to register to vote. Show them the form, get them to fill it out and mail it in… presto! New voters!
I agree O.
Governor Evers knew he didn’t have the authority on his own to change the election. It required statute changes to do that. He had been trying for weeks to get the Republican majority leadership in the Legislature to address this. Evers proposed several alternatives over that time frame. Each was met with utter disdain by the Republicans, a disdain for representative government, local officials, voters and health experts. Their thirst for power is out-of-control. They feared the Democratic Presidential Primary was going to bring out huge voter turnout, dooming the Walker appointed cipher on the Supreme Court. This pandemic gave them the opportunity they sought: the possibility of a low-turnout election, the only way they could keep their man on the Supreme Court. They had no desire to change anything to risk voters actually, you know, voting in this election, and voting out their corrupt Justice.
Governor Evers tried a last minute end run around the Republicans, but our corrupt Supreme Court shot that down, as did the corrupt US Supreme Court ended extended mail-in absentee ballots.
Liz and I got our ballots in early, so we didn’t have to go to the polls. We drove around several polling sites today. Very few cars out front. Hopefully, the voters did as we did and voted early.
The Presidential Primary has taken a backseat to our state Supreme Court race. There was a lot of advertising on that race, none in the last month on the Presidential primary.
The silver lining: the Republicans may get their Supreme Court justice, but they have lost Wisconsin’s electoral votes and, perhaps, a couple Congressional seats. People are livid, and they are going to remember.
Maybe trumps moronovirus will make everyone puke with disgust.
NYT reports Wisconsonites took to the ballot boxes today, They also said there was only 5 polling places in Milwaukee, instead of the usual 180.
I did not stumble over a paywall, but there might be one.
Donald, I hope you are right. I also hope democrat candidates show up in Wisconsin to remind voters of this atrocity from the suppressants GOP. Left alone, voters have TRAGICALLY short memories.
Maybe these guys can slow voter registration….
https://the-immoral-minority.com/trump-political-adviser-caught-on-tape-discussing-plans-for-voter-suppression-in-2020/
The writer in Mike’s link is correct on two points for sure, imo.
1. The GOP will continue to cheat in November, probably at higher rate than ever before.
2. The only way to ensure a win in spite of that cheating is massive voter turnout. Massive! We know the courts have become an arm of the GOP, so actual numbers must overwhelm.
Voter suppression alert, “Kentucky cutting number of polling places for Tuesday’s primary from 3700 to 200. There will be one polling place for 616,000 registered voters in Louisville’s Jefferson County, where half state’s black voters live,” author Ari Berman tweeted Friday night.
Wingnuts idea of social distancing is to spread the herd in one solo spot for most minorities. It is almost like wingnuts don’t like minorities to vote.