{"id":1906688,"date":"2023-03-29T14:28:19","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T18:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/voter-suppression-is-real-and-its-not-what-you-were-told\/"},"modified":"2023-03-29T14:35:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T18:35:00","slug":"voter-suppression-is-real-and-its-not-what-you-were-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/voter-suppression-is-real-and-its-not-what-you-were-told\/","title":{"rendered":"Voter Suppression Is Real And It\u2019s Not What You Were Told"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fvoter-suppression-is-real-and-its-not-what-you-were-told%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1906688&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>On the morning of Election Day last November, William French went to his local polling place in Freeland, Pennsylvania, to cast his vote. But the qualified and registered voter wasn\u2019t allowed to. The disabled U.S. Army veteran was told that the precinct had run out of paper for ballots and he had to come back later in the afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s what he did, returning at 3:30 p.m. But the precinct still didn\u2019t have ballots. Election workers told him to return yet again. But by nightfall, it was too difficult. French has endured 17 surgeries on his destroyed leg and uses a cane to walk. But the sidewalks are a mess, and he was worried about the risk of falling and further injury.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1231758526\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-6562b376536c06226ddd86fc7d379f14 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-6562b376536c06226ddd86fc7d379f14\"><\/div>\n<p>That same morning, Melynda Reese and her husband went to their polling location in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. But only Reese\u2019s husband was allowed to vote, and for the same reason: The precinct had run out of paper. They came back at 4:00 p.m. and were told there would be a lengthy wait. <\/p>\n<p>Reese is a corrections officer and her husband\u2019s primary caregiver. He had recently suffered two cardiac arrests and a stroke. He required regular medication and attention and couldn\u2019t be left alone. Long waits were also too much to bear. The couple returned at 6:30 p.m., and saw a line that stretched so long that they knew they couldn\u2019t wait. Around 9:15 p.m., an election official called Reese and told her that ballots were finally available and she could vote. But her husband had just taken his sleeping pills and she couldn\u2019t leave him unattended. <\/p>\n<p>French and Reese are just two of the thousands of voters affected by poor election administration in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The two just <a href=\"https:\/\/lawyersdemocracyfund.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/French-v.-Luzerne-Complaint-File-Stamped.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sued<\/a> Luzerne County, its Board of Elections and Registration, and its Bureau of Elections in federal court for violations of their constitutional right to vote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVoters in Luzerne County through no fault of their own, were disenfranchised and denied the fundamental right to vote. William French and Melynda Reese are two of those voters. They bring suit to vindicate the denial of their sacred right to vote, to make sure voters are not disenfranchised in the future, and to bring integrity back to elections in Luzerne County,\u201d said Wally Zimolong, lawyer for French and Reese.<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-fa8932dd56d016f8658909c66b47afff fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-fa8932dd56d016f8658909c66b47afff\"><\/div>\n<p>    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"scribd_iframe_embed\" title=\"French, Reese v. Luzerne County\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/embeds\/634672123\/content?start_page=1&#038;view_mode=scroll&#038;access_key=key-S97kq9RHNXPhcGfZSgHv\" tabindex=\"0\" data-auto-height=\"true\" data-aspect-ratio=\"0.7663551401869159\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p  style=\"   margin: 12px auto 6px auto;   font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;   font-style: normal;   font-variant: normal;   font-weight: normal;   font-size: 14px;   line-height: normal;   font-size-adjust: none;   font-stretch: normal;   -x-system-font: none;   display: block;\"   ><a title=\"View French, Reese v. Luzerne County on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/634672123\/French-Reese-v-Luzerne-County#from_embed\"  style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">French, Reese v. Luzerne Co\u2026<\/a> by <a title=\"View The Federalist's profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/user\/274202084\/The-Federalist#from_embed\"  style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Federalist<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Luzerne County was coal country and <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/10\/30\/pennsylvania-2020-inside-the-democratic-strongholds-that-no-longer-recognize-their-party\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">once a Democrat stronghold<\/a>, before Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, when the county voted Republican. The county\u2019s election administration in 2022 was, according to the lawsuit, a \u201ccatastrophic failure.\u201d More than 40 precincts had an insufficient number of ballots, many running out early in the morning on Election Day. The county implausibly blamed high voter interest, but Pennsylvania law requires counties to have enough ballots for every registered voter. Election workers were sent scrambling to office supply stores for paper, and were left untrained for the disastrous day. A court had to intervene to allow a few more hours of voting. Judge Lesa Gelb wrote in her order, \u201cVoters in Luzerne County through no fault of their own, were disenfranchised and denied the fundamental right to vote.\u201d Left-wing groups pressured the county election board to certify the election results, even though the first vote to certify failed to pass. The county election board <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/12\/01\/pa-county-cements-suppression-of-thousands-of-voters-by-flip-flopping-to-certify-disaster-plagued-election\/\">bowed<\/a> to the pressure.<\/p>\n<p>Even with the problems faced by thousands of voters, including not being able to vote, no election contest was challenged because of the poor administration. But the story could have been much worse. Pennsylvania frequently has close elections. Just months prior, in fact, the Republican primary for Senate nominee came down to just over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/politics\/election\/inq2\/pennsylvania-primary-results-2022-20220517.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">900 votes<\/a> statewide.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, the House Administration Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/03\/28\/house-republicans-highlight-luzerne-countys-voter-suppression-in-the-2022-midterms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">held a hearing<\/a> to investigate just how things went off the rails in Luzerne County.<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-948cc5455a5c01906c299f55858ae7dd fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-948cc5455a5c01906c299f55858ae7dd\"><\/div>\n<p>At the hearing, House Administration Chair and Republican Rep. Bryan Steil noted that Democrats and media operatives talk a big game about disenfranchisement every time Republicans pass legislation to increase election security, but they have never been able to produce evidence of voters unable to vote. \u201cFor years, several of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have claimed that states like Florida and Georgia \u2014 that have implemented voter integrity laws \u2014 are suppressing voters. \u2026 However, they have never produced a single voter who wanted to vote and was unable to,\u201d said Steil.<\/p>\n<p>One of the more prominent examples of Democrats\u2019 \u201cvoter suppression\u201d smear came two years ago, when Georgia passed legislation enhancing the integrity of the state\u2019s elections. Despite the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/whats-in-the-georgia-voting-law-11617883732\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">benign provisions<\/a> included in the bill \u2014 such as voter ID requirements for mail-in voting \u2014Democrats and their legacy media allies blatantly mischaracterized the law as a Republican-led effort to suppress Georgia voters. President Joe Biden took his hyperbolic response a step further, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/09\/26\/biden-hosts-atlanta-braves-at-white-house-after-pushing-mlb-to-boycott-their-city-for-all-star-game\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">referring<\/a> to the bill as \u201cJim Crow on steroids\u201d and pressuring the MLB to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/biden-endorses-moving-mlb-all-star-game-out-of-georgia-lauds-athletes-using-sports-to-push-politics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">relocate its 2021 All-Star game<\/a>\u00a0out of Atlanta in protest. The league ultimately caved and moved the event to Denver, Colorado. Other Georgia-based corporations to smear the law as a form of voter suppression include <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/12\/05\/after-georgias-record-voter-turnout-when-will-coca-cola-apologize-for-lying-about-state-election-law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Coca-Cola<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/04\/06\/delta-airlines-condemns-georgia-voter-id-law-requires-id-to-fly\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Delta<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Despite such grossly inaccurate statements, Georgia experienced <a href=\"https:\/\/sos.ga.gov\/news\/georgia-voters-post-all-time-record-gubernatorial-early-voting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">record-shattering voting<\/a> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/12\/05\/georgia-election-integrity-reforms-are-driving-runoff-turnout-not-suppressing-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2022 midterms<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>French and Reese\u2019s lawsuit against Luzerne County, its Board of Elections and Registration, and its Bureau of Elections comes at a time when some election officials in the country have seemed to privilege early and unsupervised voters at the expense of Election Day voters. In Maricopa County, Arizona, for example, at least 70 of the county\u2019s 223 election locations experienced <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/11\/23\/maricopa-county-made-arizonas-elections-even-more-of-a-disaster-than-people-realize\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">significant problems with ballot printing and processing<\/a> on Election Day.<\/p>\n<p>But according to America\u2019s left-wing legacy media, voter disenfranchisement doesn\u2019t matter if the Democrat candidate is declared the winner. In the case of Maricopa, legacy media have not only run interference for the incompetence of the county\u2019s election officials. They\u2019ve also <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/2022-midterm-elections-donald-trump-arizona-4e15278b82452878d6f6aa45b2984579\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">accused<\/a> Arizonans concerned about the conduction of the contest of promoting \u201cconspiracy theories.\u201d Media outrage over the setbacks in Luzerne County has also been practically nonexistent.<\/p>\n<p>These kinds of Election Day failures aren\u2019t just problematic because no voter should be disenfranchised. They\u2019re problematic because of a stark partisan divide in how Americans vote. Democrats have made unsupervised, mail-in balloting a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/how-mail-voting-became-democratic-electoral-strategy-opinion-1637676\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">key electoral strategy<\/a>. Republicans, by comparison, prefer <a href=\"https:\/\/today.yougov.com\/topics\/politics\/articles-reports\/2022\/10\/14\/democrats-republicans-plan-vote-2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">in-person voting on Election Day<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>If this trend grows, it means that Republican voters are more likely to bear the brunt of any maladministration on Election Day than Democrats. Such circumstances would further degrade Americans\u2019 waning confidence in the electoral process. It\u2019s why it\u2019s so important that voters disenfranchised in places such as Luzerne County receive the accountability they deserve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLuzerne County has a history of election administration problems that needs to be addressed. These two plaintiffs represent those whose efforts to vote are thwarted by election officials\u2019 incompetence, negligence, partisan rancor, or\u00a0failure to follow the law,\u201d said Lisa Dixon, executive director of Lawyers Democracy Fund, a conservative voter rights group. \u201cFurther, the citizens of Luzerne County deserve to know how the catastrophic ballot shortage occurred last fall, and the county has provided no explanation. This lawsuit will help shine light on what happened and ensure election officials do not disenfranchise eligible voters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-6e7fc27d0afda9f456038cbf47b34513 fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-6e7fc27d0afda9f456038cbf47b34513\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">   Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist. Mollie Hemingway is Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist.<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-tags bdr-top-black mt-30 mt-sm-60 pt-15 pt-md-45\">\n<ul class=\"list-unstyled d-flex flex-wrap align-items-center mb-0 mx-n10 p-0\">\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/committee-on-house-administration\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Committee on House Administration<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/democrats\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Democrats<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/elections\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Elections<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/georgia-voting-law\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Georgia voting law<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/house-republicans\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">House Republicans<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/legacy-media\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">legacy media<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/luzerne-county\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Luzerne County<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/maricopa-county\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Maricopa County<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/melynda-reese\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Melynda Reese<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/pennsylvania\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Pennsylvania<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/voter-disenfranchisement\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">voter disenfranchisement<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/voter-suppression\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">voter suppression<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/voting\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">voting<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/william-french\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">William French<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the morning of Election Day last November, William French went to his local polling place in Freeland, Pennsylvania, to cast his vote. But the qualified and registered voter wasn\u2019t allowed to. The disabled U.S. Army veteran was told that the precinct had run out of paper for ballots and he had to come back<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1898,"featured_media":1906689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[6550,5001,6982,3737,6459],"class_list":["post-1906688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-its","tag-real","tag-suppression","tag-told","tag-voter"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1898"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1906689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}