A bit long, but very detailed Marc Elias from Democracy Docket )17 minutes)

Voter suppression is the MAGA crowd’s biggest single weapon in any election these days. After years of chewing bigger and bigger holes in eligible voter roles – especially eligible voters who are more likely to vote Democratic – MAGAs feel they have hit on the ultimate suppression bomb.

Many of you are familiar with previous MAGA voter suppression tools which have often been used in individual states. Voter suppression was so successful in the last election that it is the reason for Trump’s election. From commondreams.org:   

“All of which leads me to the amazing work of Greg Palast, who has been investigating the electoral process—tracking its flaws and lies–ever since the George W. Bush era. This time around, the essence of his analysis is this:

Trump lost. That is, if all legal voters were allowed to vote, if all legal ballots were counted, Trump would have lost the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Vice-President Kamala Harris would have won the presidency with 286 electoral votes.

And, if not for the mass purge of voters of color, if not for the mass disqualification of provisional and mail-in ballots, if not for the new mass “vigilante” challenges in swing states, Harris would have gained at least another 3,565,000 votes, topping Trump’s official popular vote tally by 1.2 million.

This wasn’t done with the simple snap of a powerful finger. Palast outlines numerous efforts over the years, at numerous governmental levels (in particular, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia), to play games with the electoral process and interfere with—and outright eliminate—certain voters’ right to vote. These efforts include such tactics as rejecting mail-in ballots without valid reason, failing to enter newly registered voters in the voting rolls in time for them to vote in the presidential election, failing to count “provisional” ballots, and allowing registered voters to be challenged by ordinary citizens for extremely spurious reasons (e.g., their names match other names, such as a name in an obituary).”

They are about to detonate that suppression bomb any day now. That suppression bomb is a law that has already passed the US House of Representatives on April 10th. It passed pretty much on a party line vote 220 to 208. That means that all of Iowa’s MAGA delegation voted for it. (Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Feenstra, Nunn)

I will turn it over to the folks at campaignlegal.org to briefly explain what the SAVE Act is and what it will do:

Our democracy works best when everybody can participate. But a bill in Congress, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, could silence millions of voters by creating new barriers to voter registration that make it harder for Americans to make their voices heard.

When registering to vote, Americans are already required to verify their eligibility. The SAVE Act imposes unnecessary barriers to the registration process, requiring voters to provide documentation that many don’t have.

More than 21 million Americans are unable to access the additional documents that would be required to register to vote under the SAVE Act. People of color, married people who have changed their names, as well as young and elderly people are more likely to have difficulty in accessing these documents. For example, married people who have changed their name do not necessarily have a birth certificate with their current legal name on it.

The US Senate is about to vote for this suppression bill. This will be the MAGA dream bill: voter suppression on a national scale targeted almost exclusively at women who changed their names when they got married. Getting documentation together to match a current name to your name at birth may be in many cases a daunting task.

I fear that if the SAVE Act passes it may rig elections for MAGAs for ever and everywhere. Therefore we need ACTION! from you. We need every democrat in Iowa to call the offices of our senators, Ernst and Grassley and tell them to vote NO.

We don’t just need you to call their Washington offices, but also to call their local offices. And call them often. Here are the numbers:

Grassley:

Washington DC.     202-224-3744

Cedar Rapids, IA 52401.   PHONE: (319) 363-6832 

Council Bluffs, IA 51501.   PHONE: (712) 322-7103

Davenport, IA 52801         PHONE: (563) 322-4331

Des Moines, IA 50309      PHONE: (515) 288-1145

Sioux City, IA 51101.          PHONE: (712) 233-1860

Waterloo, IA 50701.          PHONE: (319) 232-6657

Joni Ernst:

Washington, DC 20510.   PHONE: (202) 224-3254

Cedar Rapids, IA 52401.  PHONE: (319) 365-4504

Council Bluffs, IA 51501.  PHONE: (712) 352-1167

Davenport, IA 52801.       PHONE: (563) 322-0677

Des Moines, IA 50309.    PHONE: (515) 284-4574

Sioux City, IA 51101.         PHONE: (712) 252-1550