Salon: Republicans roll out “tidal wave of voter suppression”: 253 restrictive bills in 43 states

Republicans across the country responded to record voter turnout by unleashing a flurry of legislation aimed at restricting ballot access, citing concerns over unfounded allegations of rampant voter fraud that they themselves stoked for months.

At least 253 bills with provisions restricting voting access have been introduced, pre-filed, or carried over in 43 states, mostly by Republicans, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, dwarfing the number of similar bills filed at this point in 2020.

Many of these measures are in response to a “rash of baseless and racist allegations of voter fraud and election irregularities” that former President Trump and his Republican allies promoted for months without any evidence, the Brennan Center report said. …

“These legislatures saw a free, fair and secure election with record turnout that represented the will of the people, and are responding by saying ‘Actually, we didn’t want some of you to vote,'” Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at the government watchdog group Common Cause, said in a statement to Salon. “So there are real victims of this GOP fever dream, people who are losing access to the ballot because of the barriers that legislatures are putting in place — barriers specifically aimed at silencing Black and brown voices. Instead of embracing policies to attract more voters, Republican legislators across the country are very deliberately trying to dictate who can vote and who can’t for their own political advantage.”