Democrats’ campaign to suppress democracy

It is axiomatic in American politics that voters have short memories. Many politicians, and most of the media, absolutely depend on it.  

Sometimes it allows them to sell you today the exact opposite of what they were selling you yesterday. More frequently, it allows them to do the exact same thing they just finished excoriating the other side for doing.  

Case in point: voter suppression.

Remember (last month, last spring, last year) when the Republican Party was supposedly trying to suppress your vote? Bearing in mind that, again, a lot of people are counting on you not remembering it, a quick refresher might be helpful.

The New York Times, from May: “The Republican push for stricter state election laws is organized and planning for the long term…Republicans have long said their goal is “election integrity,” but a spate of recent proposals suggests clear, and sometimes strikingly specific, political aims.”

Democracy Docket, also from May: “Everywhere you turn these days, free and fair elections are under attack… Republican-controlled states continue to advance new, bolder voter suppression laws…The most obvious reason for these changes, is the one that few want to discuss — years of Republican voter suppression efforts are succeeding.”

“Across this nation, MAGA extremists are working to restrict voter access to undermine faith in our elections,” Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) said in July 2023.

There are plenty more examples, but you get the idea. And keep in mind, that was just a few months ago.

A few months can be an eternity in Washington. Which is why no one is talking about the current efforts by Democrats to suppress voter choice and participation in the 2024 election.

And, no, I’m not talking about the current effort to keep Donald Trump off the ballot in at least four states — although I certainly could bring that up. I could write a lot about what a horrible precedent such acts would create, and about how it would just continue the tit-for-tat between Trump and the Democrats, moving us further toward banana republic status.  

But I also recognize that roughly half the country hates Donald Trump with a passion, so I’m not talking about that effort here. I don’t need to.  

I’m talking about the efforts by Democrats to keep the third party, No Labels, off the ballot in every state.

No Labels is a nascent third party that has basically said “We don’t want Trump, or Biden, and we are willing to try to do something about that by offering somebody else.” They don’t know who that someone else is yet. And they’ve even said that if it isn’t Trump vs. Biden then they won’t offer a candidate. But if it is, they seem serious, as they’ve already raised about $80 million just in case.  

And they have been working to get a line for their new party on ballots on states across the nation. That’s a critical part — and indeed, one of the hardest parts — of offering a third-party candidate for office. You don’t just walk up to a state elections office and say “I have a new party, please put us on the ballot next year.” There are a lot of t’s to cross and i’s to dot, and usually a lot of voter signatures to collect. And that is how No Labels has been spending its time.  

So far, they have gained ballot access in 10 states:  Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota and Utah.

Democrats don’t like that. They contend that a No Labels candidate (even a Republican) would pull more votes from Joe Biden than from Trump, tipping the electoral scales in favor of the former president. (No Labels, for their part, claims to have data that says there are roughly equal numbers of Democrat and Republican voters who are likely to gravitate to a centrist third party candidate.)

In response, Democrats are taking the old-fashioned step of pointing out what a great job Joe Biden has done, and what a peerless candidate he is.

Just kidding. They are actually suing to keep No Labels off the ballot, starting in Arizona.

Their first effort to keep No Labels off the 2024 ballot there failed last month. Undeterred, they’ve filed a new complaint with the state to require No Labels to disclose its donors. An interesting angle, except that that such disclosure isn’t required by state law.  

Keep in mind that, as a recognized party in Arizona, No Labels could field candidates for every office on the ballot. So the Democrats here are seeking not just to suppress voter choices for president, but for U.S. Senate and House as well.  

There’s a similar sort of effort going on in Maine, where Washington Democrats have convinced the Maine secretary of state, also a Democrat, to write a letter to every single person who has signed up to join the No Labels party — on official state letterhead — to ask them if they are sure they really want to do that. Apparently, signing a document entitled “Maine Voter Registration Application” can be misleading to Maine voters.

Back in 2022, Democrats wailed that our very democracy was at risk because the state of Georgia made it illegal for candidates to give out water to people waiting in line to vote. But apparently, they would, in the next breath, have you believe that this sort of harassment of people trying to participate in the political process doesn’t matter. For them, keeping an entire political party off of a ballot is really just a case of “nothing to see here.”  

I have no idea whether No Labels will field a presidential candidate, or whether that candidate would be anywhere close to viable. But I do respect their right — if they follow the law — to get that person’s name on the ballot.

One would think that the party that just a few months back was complaining about efforts to suppress voter participation and choices in elections would agree wholeheartedly.

But that was a few months ago. Which, in Washington, is forever.

Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, is a contributor to NewsNation. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and acting White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.