Worried about Russian hackers or other outsiders meddling in US elections? Arguably, the greatest threat to our democratic system comes not from the outside but from forces within our own two-party system that are trying, and often succeeding, to prevent American citizens from voting.
In this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman talks to journalist Greg Palast, author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, about “caging” and “crosscheck” — two species of “dirty tricks” that are being used ever more frequently to suppress votes. While the primary practitioners have been Republicans, encouraged for years by Karl Rove, Palast explains that Democrats are using similar tricks to gain advantages in primary elections.
In “caging,” letters are sent out to voters who must spend time away from their primary addresses, such as minority soldiers stationed abroad or students during summer recess. When the letters come back as “undeliverable,” the senders can use this as a reason to get those voters taken off the rolls.
Over the years, caging has led to millions of eligible voters being purged from voting rolls, Palast says. He adds that this and other stratagems are very much in use today by operatives like Brett Doster, a onetime Rove operative who is now running Roy Moore’s senatorial campaign in Alabama.
The story that Palast tells is truly one of “birds of a feather” getting together to undermine what’s left of our electoral democracy.
