Basically the decision came down to the meaning of "election" -- is it the one day designated "Election Day"? If so, Democrats followed procedure. Or does it include early voting? If so, there's a reasonable argument that Democrats botched it.
Where's the damned Democratic Party in all this?? Missing in action as usual. One wonders whether they are in on it (which I believer they are). Both parties are owned by billionaires and do their bidding.
Voter suppression is nothing new. I recently watched an episode of the Lyndon Johnson Presidency of American Experience on PBS.
In his first run for Texas senator Johnson was beat when his campaign manager John Connelly literally told the opposition that Johnson had won by 5000 votes. But the polls were just closing. His opponent "found" 6000+ votes to beat Johnson.
Six years later Johnson was in another tight race for Senator. In the wanning moments of the election the election was virtually tied. Then Johnson made a phone call and within an hour 213 votes were found in a single Texas precinct that had mostly split its vote. But all 213 of the new votes were for Johnson. Later examination of the voter roll showed the last 213 names of real Texas voters had been added in a different colored ink. The signatures were all remarkably similar.
Johnson won. He became the majority leader in the Senate, later a reluctant VP to John Kennedy and eventually President.
It was that lying, cheating, and sometimes racist in Texas President that championed and forced through Congress the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Johnson was pure politics. He didn't read (neither does Trump) but he knew people and what they wanted and how to manipulate them. How to make promises and renege on them when it suited his political purpose. But we progressives remember him for the 1965 Voting Rights Act--a great President, a champion of black and brown people. But he did not begin that way.
History is more complicated and nuanced than any of us can imagine. I urge you to watch Season 4 of American Experience The Presidents: LBJ parts 1 and 2.
The methods you listed aren't the only ways they try to rig elections in their favor. They're trying to restrict or eliminate mail-in voting. They're trying to require voters to show ID at voting booth, disallowing name changes, such as occur to most women when they marry (suppress the women vote), accept gun licenses but not student ID's as ID, & require college students to vote at their permanent place of residence instead of where they go to college (suppress the college vote). Incinerate dropboxes for ballots. Bomb scares (Russian sources) in major cities (especially in swing states) to scatter voters (suppress urban vote), some suspecting that while polls are closed, malefactors insert tampered software into voting machines to change votes to Republican candidate.
Which brings me to the next few items... It is known that MAGA operators allied with Trump around 2021 confiscated voting machines, & are suspected to have tampered with their software, inserting codes. ES&S & Dominion own the vast majority of voting machines. ES&S has had a history of problematic voting results. ES&S are owned & managed by far right Trump supporters & are hackable remotely. Dominion has recently been sold to a right-wing Republican former election official. Many people in the 2024 election reported voting for Harris, but the machine showing Trump as the receiver of their vote. The theory about vote manipulation was that it happened during vote tabulation. I forgot how they said it happened. I will have to reseatch it again. Some who have written or talked about it, & generally seem pretty convincing to me are the Election Truth Alliance, SMART Elections, Jessica Denson, Dissent in Bloom & This Will Hold. There are statistical anomalies in the voting patterns that strongly suggest fraud, such as the more votes there are in a precinct beyond a certain threshold, the higher percentage goes to the Republican. One thing the article whose link you gave said was that audits comparing voting machine votes to paper ballots would show the results to be accurate, but so far no request for audits, of which several have been made of really questionable results, have been accepted by attorneys general, secretaries of state, governors or juries considering the requests, so up until now we have nothing to prove it one way or another. In other countries, audits or recounts of election results are automatic or at least readily done when requested.
If elections are free & fair (which they won't be), gerrymandering will likely actually backfire for Republicans, because to get more majority Republican districts, the margin of the majorities must decrease. 60-40 Republican majorities become 55-45 GOP majorities in normal elections, which become vulnerable in blue wave elections, which 2026 is expected to be. But the preponderance of other ways they cheat will be hard to overcome except with an extraordinary Democratic turnout, which is essential for democracy to eventually prevail.
Respectfully, please read the attached article to understand how they electronically stole the 2024 election.
These fake county vote banks have been discovered in the swing states and Florida, and so far, we’ve mathematically proven they used them in Florida, Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada.
Hello! Last night I started reading your most recent article, putting all the intrigue together from Epstein back to George HW Bush, & it is fascinating! It is very long, & I've only gotten a quarter to a third of the way through, but it is worth it. I hope I have time to read the rest this weekend. You've done a tremendous amount of research on this. It all seems to come together & make sense to explain a number of mysteries revolving tragedies & scandals of the past up to the present. For others, here is the link: https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/merrick-garland-and-the-octopus
This WIll Hold is a fabulous researcher, one of several relentless, resourceful & resolute women working on the Trump-Epstein operations & other national & international scandals of the last half-century or so, & tying them to each other & various other events & people to give us a larger picture.of what's been going on for decades to undermine our democracy. Others to check out are Alisa Valdez-Rodriguez, Kait Justice, Ellie Leonard, Dissent in Bloom & Sarah Kendzior. This Will Hold has also done similarly tireless research on the 2024 election, trying to determine if & how it was rigged, & alerting as many people as she can to this antidemocratic injustice destroying our democracy & urging forensic audits of the election results (this should be automatic if there's any doubt, so why are government officials refusing?), & warning us to be extremely vigilant & guard against election interference in the midterms.
Thank you! I was just about to send a link to "This Will Hold" for Quasim Rashid to see. There is just so much evidence that the 2024 election was absolutely rigged in many ways. Today’s post by Quasim certainly alerts us to some of the ways the GOP is rigging elections, but we must all realize that it is much, much more than this. "Truth Alliance" and "This Will Hold" provide an enormous amount of facts that cannot be ignored. I do believe the truth will come out for everyone to see. It’s being blocked by mainstream media right now, but eventually it will all be revealed. We are being told they are conspiracy theories, but be prepared to refute that allegation.
I listed a bunch of other ways they try to rig the election in my comment just above the one by This WIll Hold (she hadn't posted yet before I began writing it), even mentioning her (along with 4 others) as a reference.
Don Scott is fucking useless, should be found criminally complicit if they really don't fight back against this.
Stop putting it up to votes then, pull the same stunts the repubs are in changing their maps, and take the hypocrisy to the highest, most visible court.
Those of us who want candidates who will work for "the people" are fighting two battles. One, against Republicans and two, against corporate-and -pac-owned Democrats (the ones who shudder at the thought of Mamdani). These are the Dems who say "we'll accept the court ruling against VA maps". Not much difference between Repubs and Dems there!! Vote Blue NO Matter Who is the same as saying "you'll eat what's put in front of you".
Democrats need to grow some massive balls of steel and fight back double down against the MAGA Fascist mfers
Basically the decision came down to the meaning of "election" -- is it the one day designated "Election Day"? If so, Democrats followed procedure. Or does it include early voting? If so, there's a reasonable argument that Democrats botched it.
According to The Guardian, "In its decision, the justices found that “the general assembly passed the proposed constitutional amendment for the first time well after voters had begun casting ballots during the 2025 general election,” noting that early voting began on 19 September, but the legislature approved the amendment only on 31 October." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/08/virginia-supreme-court-rules-against-congressional-maps?CMP=share_btn_url
Will the Virginia Supreme Court define "election" differently if it benefits Republicans in the future? Who knows.
Like in Ohio 2022, ignore the court and use the map in the election
Where's the damned Democratic Party in all this?? Missing in action as usual. One wonders whether they are in on it (which I believer they are). Both parties are owned by billionaires and do their bidding.
Insanity. What a nightmare. We have been pretty F’ing comfortable up until now. Strap in folks. This is gonna be heartbreakingly difficult. 😞
Voter suppression is nothing new. I recently watched an episode of the Lyndon Johnson Presidency of American Experience on PBS.
In his first run for Texas senator Johnson was beat when his campaign manager John Connelly literally told the opposition that Johnson had won by 5000 votes. But the polls were just closing. His opponent "found" 6000+ votes to beat Johnson.
Six years later Johnson was in another tight race for Senator. In the wanning moments of the election the election was virtually tied. Then Johnson made a phone call and within an hour 213 votes were found in a single Texas precinct that had mostly split its vote. But all 213 of the new votes were for Johnson. Later examination of the voter roll showed the last 213 names of real Texas voters had been added in a different colored ink. The signatures were all remarkably similar.
Johnson won. He became the majority leader in the Senate, later a reluctant VP to John Kennedy and eventually President.
It was that lying, cheating, and sometimes racist in Texas President that championed and forced through Congress the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Johnson was pure politics. He didn't read (neither does Trump) but he knew people and what they wanted and how to manipulate them. How to make promises and renege on them when it suited his political purpose. But we progressives remember him for the 1965 Voting Rights Act--a great President, a champion of black and brown people. But he did not begin that way.
History is more complicated and nuanced than any of us can imagine. I urge you to watch Season 4 of American Experience The Presidents: LBJ parts 1 and 2.
Greg Palast wrote about how voter supression won in 2024.
https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/
If Dem Leader Scott will not appeal to SCOTUS, isn’t there any other way to do it? This is absurd.
The methods you listed aren't the only ways they try to rig elections in their favor. They're trying to restrict or eliminate mail-in voting. They're trying to require voters to show ID at voting booth, disallowing name changes, such as occur to most women when they marry (suppress the women vote), accept gun licenses but not student ID's as ID, & require college students to vote at their permanent place of residence instead of where they go to college (suppress the college vote). Incinerate dropboxes for ballots. Bomb scares (Russian sources) in major cities (especially in swing states) to scatter voters (suppress urban vote), some suspecting that while polls are closed, malefactors insert tampered software into voting machines to change votes to Republican candidate.
Which brings me to the next few items... It is known that MAGA operators allied with Trump around 2021 confiscated voting machines, & are suspected to have tampered with their software, inserting codes. ES&S & Dominion own the vast majority of voting machines. ES&S has had a history of problematic voting results. ES&S are owned & managed by far right Trump supporters & are hackable remotely. Dominion has recently been sold to a right-wing Republican former election official. Many people in the 2024 election reported voting for Harris, but the machine showing Trump as the receiver of their vote. The theory about vote manipulation was that it happened during vote tabulation. I forgot how they said it happened. I will have to reseatch it again. Some who have written or talked about it, & generally seem pretty convincing to me are the Election Truth Alliance, SMART Elections, Jessica Denson, Dissent in Bloom & This Will Hold. There are statistical anomalies in the voting patterns that strongly suggest fraud, such as the more votes there are in a precinct beyond a certain threshold, the higher percentage goes to the Republican. One thing the article whose link you gave said was that audits comparing voting machine votes to paper ballots would show the results to be accurate, but so far no request for audits, of which several have been made of really questionable results, have been accepted by attorneys general, secretaries of state, governors or juries considering the requests, so up until now we have nothing to prove it one way or another. In other countries, audits or recounts of election results are automatic or at least readily done when requested.
If elections are free & fair (which they won't be), gerrymandering will likely actually backfire for Republicans, because to get more majority Republican districts, the margin of the majorities must decrease. 60-40 Republican majorities become 55-45 GOP majorities in normal elections, which become vulnerable in blue wave elections, which 2026 is expected to be. But the preponderance of other ways they cheat will be hard to overcome except with an extraordinary Democratic turnout, which is essential for democracy to eventually prevail.
Respectfully, please read the attached article to understand how they electronically stole the 2024 election.
These fake county vote banks have been discovered in the swing states and Florida, and so far, we’ve mathematically proven they used them in Florida, Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada.
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/she-won-florida-used-a-fake-county?r=57k1uv&utm_medium=ios
Hello! Last night I started reading your most recent article, putting all the intrigue together from Epstein back to George HW Bush, & it is fascinating! It is very long, & I've only gotten a quarter to a third of the way through, but it is worth it. I hope I have time to read the rest this weekend. You've done a tremendous amount of research on this. It all seems to come together & make sense to explain a number of mysteries revolving tragedies & scandals of the past up to the present. For others, here is the link: https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/merrick-garland-and-the-octopus
This WIll Hold is a fabulous researcher, one of several relentless, resourceful & resolute women working on the Trump-Epstein operations & other national & international scandals of the last half-century or so, & tying them to each other & various other events & people to give us a larger picture.of what's been going on for decades to undermine our democracy. Others to check out are Alisa Valdez-Rodriguez, Kait Justice, Ellie Leonard, Dissent in Bloom & Sarah Kendzior. This Will Hold has also done similarly tireless research on the 2024 election, trying to determine if & how it was rigged, & alerting as many people as she can to this antidemocratic injustice destroying our democracy & urging forensic audits of the election results (this should be automatic if there's any doubt, so why are government officials refusing?), & warning us to be extremely vigilant & guard against election interference in the midterms.
Thank you! I was just about to send a link to "This Will Hold" for Quasim Rashid to see. There is just so much evidence that the 2024 election was absolutely rigged in many ways. Today’s post by Quasim certainly alerts us to some of the ways the GOP is rigging elections, but we must all realize that it is much, much more than this. "Truth Alliance" and "This Will Hold" provide an enormous amount of facts that cannot be ignored. I do believe the truth will come out for everyone to see. It’s being blocked by mainstream media right now, but eventually it will all be revealed. We are being told they are conspiracy theories, but be prepared to refute that allegation.
I listed a bunch of other ways they try to rig the election in my comment just above the one by This WIll Hold (she hadn't posted yet before I began writing it), even mentioning her (along with 4 others) as a reference.
I’m super glad to support you. It’s hard sometimes to stay positive. But after reading your post. I feel calmer. Thank you Qasim ✊🏻💙☮️
Don Scott is fucking useless, should be found criminally complicit if they really don't fight back against this.
Stop putting it up to votes then, pull the same stunts the repubs are in changing their maps, and take the hypocrisy to the highest, most visible court.
Sheer numbers. We need numbers. 🇭🇺 🇭🇺 🇭🇺 She's Hungarian!!
This, this is exactly why there is a Second Amendment
Those of us who want candidates who will work for "the people" are fighting two battles. One, against Republicans and two, against corporate-and -pac-owned Democrats (the ones who shudder at the thought of Mamdani). These are the Dems who say "we'll accept the court ruling against VA maps". Not much difference between Repubs and Dems there!! Vote Blue NO Matter Who is the same as saying "you'll eat what's put in front of you".
This is no time for Democrats to sit on their hands. We must get out there and vote. Don’t be intimidated!