The Democrats left their National Convention in Chicago last week with the wind at their backs. While they, and many others supporting the Harris-Walz ticket, are flying high, we would all be wise to keep our feet solidly on the ground and focus on building a huge GOTV (Get-Out-the-Vote) campaign to counter the Republicans’ aggressive voter suppression efforts.

The Republicans know that the only way they can win the November election is by suppressing the vote in as many ways as possible. For instance, the Republican National Committee urged “the Supreme Court to intervene in an Arizona election dispute this week and block up to 40,000 of the state’s registered voters from casting ballots in the presidential race.”[1] On Thursday, while the Court rejected the Republican effort to disenfranchise those voters, it did allow “some parts of a law requiring proof of citizenship to be enforced.”[2]

In Michigan and Nevada, Republicans are seeking to force election officials to remove voters from the rolls, despite federal law limiting such actions in the months preceding an election. In another Nevada lawsuit, the RNC is trying to block mail ballots from being counted if received after Election Day.[3]

In Georgia, the Republican-controlled state Board of Elections passed a new rule that allows local elections officials to halt vote counting[4] and even outright refuse to certify the election results.[5]

Meanwhile, Republicans are also recruiting thousands of poll monitors in battleground states to try to intimidate voters and disrupt the elections in Democratic cities.[6] At the same time, Democratic groups like Swing Left[7] are training and organizing poll watchers to protect voters’ rights at the polls.[8]

These are the acts of scared, desperate Republicans who will do just about anything to gain power. It is a very sad state of affairs. Not that the Democrats are above reproach. But the Republicans have now thrown democracy out the window at the behest of a two-bit con man who would readily throw any of them under the bus if it served his huge narcissistic appetite.

Republicans are anxiously trying to get Trump to stay on message by focusing on the economy and immigration. But Trump refuses to. He loves going personal, making fun of people, and calling them names. Something an 8-year-old might do.

Fortunately, the Democratic standard bearer, Kamala Harris, is a no-nonsense prosecutor, among other valuable skills. If anybody can beat Trump and ensure that he’s brought to justice, Kamala is answering the call “for the people.”

Still, we all must stand with Kamala. An overwhelming voter turnout created by a massive GOTV campaign must make it crystal clear that the American people support democracy and reject Donald Trump’s authoritarianism. As Kamala declared on the final night of the convention, “We’re not going back!…We’re moving forward.”

Bruce Berlin

A retired, public sector ethics attorney, Berlin is the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America (See breakingbigmoneysgrip.com. https://protectthevote.net/), the founder of New Mexicans for Money Out of Politics, a former U.S. Institute of Peace fellow, and the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He can be reached at breakingbigmoneysgrip@gmail.com.

Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/.

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[1] https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-08-19/republicans-urge-supreme-court-to-block-40-000-arizonans-from-voting-for-president-in-november

[2] https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-citizenship-elections-arizona-62b7e777cfdbb99242510e562de00781

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/10/republican-trump-election-voting-lawsuits/

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/25/democrats-fair-election/?utm_campaign=wp_follow_jennifer_rubin&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl-jenniferrubin&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3ed245a%2F66cb1bd654e7751dec229478%2F5ddffac0ae7e8a7319e6966d%2F6%2F23%2F66cb1bd654e7751dec229478

[5] https://www.wabe.org/new-rule-may-allow-georgia-election-boards-to-halt-certifying-results/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrKu2BhDkARIsAD7GBouoq-EE2PBQxXlDGo37Y75v_Jx8-7jiBJdzIgsbEQ4rRvO-Cm24JX0aAgOlEALw_wcB

[6] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/gop-poll-monitors-suburbs-democratic-cities-rcna159059

[7] https://swingleft.org/p/strategy?utm_source=google-search&utm_campaign=volunteeracquisition24&utm_medium=paid-search&utm_term=volunteer_democrats

[8] https://protectthevote.net/