# Do Democrats suppress Republican votes anywhere? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 13, 2018, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898 "2018-10-13T08:52:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/1 "2018-10-13T08:52:09Z")
I was considering posting this in General Questions, but settled on Great Debates because I think it will inevitably turn into a political argument. It seems to be there is a genuine asymmetry between the two parties on voter suppression. This doesn’t seem to be a case of “both sides do it.” Let’s keep this discussion confined to the 21st century. I know the Southern Democrats during Jim Crow suppressed black votes, and blacks tended to vote Republican back then. But I don’t think reaching back that far into the past is relevant for discussing today’s political climate. I’m not aware of any systemic attempts by the Democrats to make it more difficult for Republicans to vote, even when that might have been to their advantage. When the Tea Party backlash happened in 2010, did the Democrats try to suppress rural white (Republican) votes to maintain their power? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/2 "2018-10-13T10:13:04Z")
Let me guess. You get to define what “suppress,” voters means, and it won’t mean gerrymandering, and it won’t mean arguing that military absentee ballots should not be counted because they lack postmarks, which military mail often does, but it WILL mean Voter ID and voter registration roll verifications. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/3 "2018-10-13T10:14:20Z")
Not exactly voter suppression but Tea Party organisations were apparently deliberately targeted by the IRS during Obama’s presidency. CNN article with timeline [here](https://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/18/politics/irs-scandal-fast-facts/index.html). ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/4 "2018-10-13T12:00:07Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Let me guess. You get to define what “suppress,” voters means, and it won’t mean gerrymandering, and it won’t mean arguing that military absentee ballots should not be counted because they lack postmarks, which military mail often does, but it WILL mean Voter ID and voter registration roll verifications. > > Right? Gerrymandering has been around a long time. The problem is that new technology and better mapping information has made it a far more potent tool than it was in the past. Perhaps if Democrats had swept the state legislatures in 2010, they would have had their own version of [REDMAP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP). I’ll tell you what. I promise that if the Democrats sweep office in 2020 and implement a BLUEMAP strategy, I will be posting on this message board to condemn it. You can bookmark this post and hold my feet to the fire, counselor. As far as the military mail issue, I believe you’re referring to the 2000 election. I was 16 at the time and not as interested in politics as I am now so my memories of that fiasco are hazy. I’m going to profess my ignorance for now. If I wanted to be super lawyerly and pedantic, I’d say that doesn’t count because technically the 21st century started in 2001. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/5 "2018-10-13T12:43:06Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > … As far as the military mail issue, I believe you’re referring to the 2000 election. I was 16 at the time and not as interested in politics as I am now so my memories of that fiasco are hazy. I’m going to profess my ignorance for now. If I wanted to be super lawyerly and pedantic, I’d say that doesn’t count because technically the 21st century started in 2001. 😉 IIUC, it was _illegal_ to count those military ballots but the majority of Democrats acquiesced to their counting without pursuing legal remedies — _even though all know these ballots would favor Bush by a huge margin_. _ **This was to show respect to young Americans in uniform.** _ And thus Bush, rather than Gore, became the 43rd President of the United States. Regardless of the _morality_ of the situation, the _ **LAW** _ required that the ballots NOT be counted. I am not entirely uncertain that Dopers who usually advocate for conformity with the LAW would not advocate for the LAW in this case also, were the party alignment reversed. On one matter, however, **Mr. Bricker** and I are in agreement, albeit in a minority here. _The 21st century started in 2000, Gosh darn it!_ ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/6 "2018-10-13T13:19:33Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Let me guess. You get to define what “suppress,” voters means IOW, No. > [@](#): > > military absentee ballots should not be counted because they lack postmarks The issue in 2000 was ballots postmarked _after Election Day_. We’ve been over that a number of times, sadly without effect. > [@](#): > > Right? No. Now try again, this time with facts. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/7 "2018-10-13T13:30:36Z")
**Quartz** , what actually happened there was that the IRS targeted political organizations that were illegally using a nonpolitical nonprofit status. They targeted organizations on both sides of the aisle, but the asymmetries were that there were more such illegal organizations on the right, and they were more likely to let them get away with it. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/8 "2018-10-13T13:42:45Z")
On the topic of gerrymandering, [FiveThirtyEight.com](http://FiveThirtyEight.com) [did an excellent series on gerrymandering last year](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/) including a series of podcasts which delved not only into deliberate gerrymandering but the difficulty of balancing provisions of the Voting Rights Act with the intent of creating competitive districts that are also demographically representative. You can see from their [Atlas of Redistricting](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/) that the current map somewhat favors Republicans but is not essentially different from proportional, majority-minority, or compact districts, although it slightly less competitive than the first two and significantly less than compactly drawn districts. The Democratic Party has certainly engaged in partisan gerrymandering, albeit not [in such a systemic way as the GOP has in the last decade](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16670705/republican-gerrymandering-strategy/) with REDMAP. On active voter suppression in the post-Voting Rights Act era, this is almost exclusively a GOP activity, consisting not only of imposing restrictive voter i.d. laws despite virtually no evidence of a problem of significant voter fraud, but also restricting voter registration, absentee balloting, arbitrarily purging voter rolls of legitimate voters, removal of voter registration and polling stations in locations accessibly by people with limited transit options, et cetera. Democratic vote suppression consists of [scheduling off-year elections at odd dates to reduce the number of people participating](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-democrats-suppress-the-vote/), and the effect is pretty much limited to local elections. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/9 "2018-10-13T15:29:59Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Not exactly voter suppression but Tea Party organisations were apparently deliberately targeted by the IRS during Obama’s presidency. CNN article with timeline [here](https://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/18/politics/irs-scandal-fast-facts/index.html). Yet another talking point from the right that I have seen become fossilized among many on the conservative side. > **[The Debunked IRS Targeting Scandal Shows There Is No Sane Wing of the GOP](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/10/debunked-irs-scandal-shows-theres-no-sane-wing-of-the-gop.html?gtm=bottom>m=bottom)** > > A new report proves the “scandal” Republicans are certain of never existed. > [@](#): > > Four and a half years ago, the IRS revealed that it had subjected numerous conservative political groups to excessive scrutiny, delays, and demands for paperwork. A scandal was born. President Obama apologized, newspaper headlines confirmed the agency’s guilt, and Congress scheduled investigatory hearings to confirm its suspicion that the Obama administration has sicced the agency on its enemies — just like Nixon, whose name was invoked with frequency. > > Last night supplied the latest and probably final proof that the entire scandal was a fever dream. The Obama administration didn’t use the agency to target its opponents; indeed, as we now know conclusively, the IRS did not target conservatives at all. The sorry episode reveals a great deal about Washington but nothing whatsoever about a liberal bureaucratic plot. > > The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reviewed a decade of IRS handling of political organizations. It found that scores of liberal groups were subject to the same heavy scrutiny that conservative groups faced. This merely certified what had been perfectly clear all along. Within months of the “targeting scandal” breaking, evidence was already available to show that the IRS was giving political activists on the left the same treatment as those on the right. (The New York Times reported on this as early as June 2013.) ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/10 "2018-10-13T16:24:59Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Yet another talking point from the right that I have seen become fossilized among many on the conservative side. > > [Debunked IRS Scandal Shows There’s No Sane Wing of the GOP](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/10/debunked-irs-scandal-shows-theres-no-sane-wing-of-the-gop.html?gtm=bottom>m=bottom) I’m not sure that’s quite the correct interpretation. The investigation turned up nothing because crucial data was accidentally destroyed in a HDD crash. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/11 "2018-10-13T16:40:18Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I’m not sure that’s quite the correct interpretation. The investigation turned up nothing because crucial data was accidentally destroyed in a HDD crash. And was there a mysterious epidemic which killed off hundreds of IRS auditors around the same time? Because if there had been a bunch of audits like you’re claiming, there would have had to be auditors conducting them. All you’d need to do to prove the audits were occurring is have the auditors who were conducting them testify. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/12 "2018-10-13T16:42:05Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > I was considering posting this in General Questions, but settled on Great Debates because I think it will inevitably turn into a political argument. > > It seems to be there is a genuine asymmetry between the two parties on voter suppression. This doesn’t seem to be a case of “both sides do it.” Let’s keep this discussion confined to the 21st century. I know the Southern Democrats during Jim Crow suppressed black votes, and blacks tended to vote Republican back then. But I don’t think reaching back that far into the past is relevant for discussing today’s political climate. > > I’m not aware of any systemic attempts by the Democrats to make it more difficult for Republicans to vote, even when that might have been to their advantage. When the Tea Party backlash happened in 2010, did the Democrats try to suppress rural white (Republican) votes to maintain their power? Well, by keeping it in the 21st century you are going to take most of the instances of Democrats suppression votes off the table. It’s cherry picking, especially since the political landscape has so shifted that, outside of the perennial gerrymandering squabbles I’m not sure how Democrats WOULD suppress the vote of Republicans in any sort of systemic ways. Today, for sure, Republicans are more guilty of voter suppression than Democrats…minorities that are poor are pretty much overwhelmingly Democrat and poor minorities are easier targets for voter suppression in systemic ways…or even in in non-systemic but critical ways. As your brief mention of Jim Crow demonstrates. And this was hardly the only instance of Democratic vote suppression…though, honestly, I think the Dems were better at enhancing votes, lets say, than trying to suppress them, in the past. All those dead folks voting in lock step for the Dems really helped, after all. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/13 "2018-10-13T16:48:55Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > […] it won’t mean arguing that military absentee ballots should not be counted because they lack postmarks, which military mail often does[…] This can’t be voter suppression because those votes were actually counted. You might be able to make a case for attempted voter suppression, but that’s not what this thread is about so it’s not really relevant. If you post an argument about this in the failed attempts at voter suppression thread, I’ll be happy to discuss it there. It sounds like it could be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/14 "2018-10-13T17:46:26Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Not exactly voter suppression but Tea Party organisations were apparently deliberately targeted by the IRS during Obama’s presidency. CNN article with timeline [here](https://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/18/politics/irs-scandal-fast-facts/index.html). No, they were not. \*The findings indicate the division of the IRS that handles tax exempt organizations was mismanaged and unprepared for the surge in applications from new nonprofits affiliated with the Tea Party movement. According to the committee, the delays in processing the applications from conservative groups were due to poor communication and layers of bureaucracy… The Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration issues a new report that finds liberal-leaning groups may have also been subjected to extra scrutiny when they sought tax-exempt status./I] Basically that division was overworked and application piled up, so they took everything that looked political and put in in the “dont accept for now, check it out later” pile. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/15 "2018-10-13T17:47:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Quartz** , what actually happened there was that the IRS targeted political organizations that were illegally using a nonpolitical nonprofit status. They targeted organizations on both sides of the aisle, but the asymmetries were that there were more such illegal organizations on the right, and they were more likely to let them get away with it. Well, yes. But they were taking a shortcut and basing the preliminary decision on the name. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/16 "2018-10-13T17:48:15Z")
I heard reports that in 2000 the democrats were trying to suppress votes from military overseas during the Florida recount, but thats the only example I know of. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/17 "2018-10-13T17:50:24Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And was there a mysterious epidemic which killed off hundreds of IRS auditors around the same time? Because if there had been a bunch of audits like you’re claiming, there would have had to be auditors conducting them. All you’d need to do to prove the audits were occurring is have the auditors who were conducting them testify. Sorta. What happened is that the Agents were’t conducting the audits, they put a bunch of them aside to possibly conduct audits on. You can say this was bureaucratic shenanigans to reduce the workload. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/18 "2018-10-13T18:22:13Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Let me guess. You get to define what “suppress,” voters means, and it won’t mean gerrymandering, and it won’t mean arguing that military absentee ballots should not be counted because they lack postmarks, which military mail often does, but it WILL mean Voter ID and voter registration roll verifications. > > Right? Why can’t the military do such a small thing as postmark their mail correctly? Is it somewhere in the law that says that if the military does not postmark their mail, then it gets treated as if it were postmarked anyway? If the duly elected representatives wanted the law to say that the military did not need to postmark their mail, then they could have said that in the laws that they wrote. In any case, even though the law specifically said that they should not be counted, the republicans insisted that they should be, and they turned to the courts to try to get unelected judges to bend the law in order to get the result that they wanted. BTW, they did end up being counted, in case you forgot, contrary to the letter of the law. Why do the republicans have such little respect for the law, as it is written by duly elected representatives, I wonder? The law was supposed to protect voter confidence in the elections, that everyone had voted by the deadline. There being no way to tell when these ballots were cast and mailed decreases the confidence that the results of the election are legitimate. In such a high stakes as a presidential election, when it comes to such close numbers, the laws should be followed, not ignored if they are inconvenient, wouldn’t you agree? Resolved: Your attempted charge of tu quoque has failed, miserably. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/19 "2018-10-13T18:43:26Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Why can’t the military do such a small thing as postmark their mail correctly? Please don’t engage in this sideshow. The end result is that both sides agreed the ballots should be counted. Not a single vote was suppressed. This thread is about Democratic voter suppression. An eighteen year old incident where they didn’t suppress votes is a distraction. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898/20 "2018-10-13T19:01:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And was there a mysterious epidemic which killed off hundreds of IRS auditors around the same time? Because if there had been a bunch of audits like you’re claiming, there would have had to be auditors conducting them. All you’d need to do to prove the audits were occurring is have the auditors who were conducting them testify. Your doubt is that the audits were occurring? There’s ample evidence of that. The typical leftist defense on this is that the lefty orgs were also hit, not that it didn’t happen. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-democrats-suppress-republican-votes-anywhere/822898.md?page=2)