The Old Parties Fear You

Nothing has become clearer in recent political cycles than the idea that the Old Parties are afraid of you. They are afraid that you might not vote for their candidates and, by extension, for their version of whatever America means to them. So, in order to assuage their fears, they have resorted to questionable tactics specifically (and clandestinely) designed to reduce the possibility that you might vote for someone who is not one of their candidates; someone like me.

But let's be clear on the terminology:

• Campaigning attempts to secure votes through persuasion and organization, activating otherwise inactive voters, or registering new supporters.
• Suppression attempts to gain an advantage by discouraging or preventing groups of people from casting a vote or (in this case) even being able to vote. Suppression is an anti-democratic tactic associated with authoritarianism.

Now that the Texas primaries are over, Old Party advocates have already "chicken counted" your vote into one of their tally columns, but I think that the sitting members of the Texas Legislature (most of whom associate with the Republican Party) are supremely afraid that you might NOT choose a Republican in November. To this end, right-wing advocates have independently been challenging the accuracy of Texas' voter rolls and forcing challenged voters to defend their right to vote.

They don't seem to care that the issues that matter most to you may not align with the positions of their candidates. All that seems to matter to them is making it as difficult as possible for any candidate who is NOT one of them to possibly win the seat. They don't what your voices to be heard (unless you happen to have voted in their direction) and they definitely don't want you to vote if there is even a possibility that (GASP!) you might vote for me or my friends instead of one of their candidates.

[News Link] Inside the Right’s Effort to Build a Voter Fraud Hunting Tool