We Are Going To Have To Fight For Election Integrity

Even the most casual observer can find evidence of suspicious activity in the 2020 presidential election. A lot of states have attempted to close any loopholes that allowed for illegal voting. Generally speaking, those states have encountered opposition in the courts. For example, North Carolina has twice had a voter-approved voter id bill stopped by the courts. We are going to see the courts fight similar voter integrity laws in other states.

On Sunday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

An often-reversed Arkansas judge struck down four new election integrity laws approved by the Republican-controlled state legislature, finding the statutes unconstitutional—but an appeal to the state’s supreme court seems imminent.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen permanently enjoined the laws—Acts 249, 728, 736, and 973—on March 18 after a four-day trial. The statutes came as part of a nationwide wave of new state-level election laws that followed irregularities during the 2020 presidential election.

In court, Griffen reportedly said the defendants, including Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston, a Republican, hadn’t demonstrated a need for the laws and that the state’s fears about election integrity were “based entirely on conjecture and speculation,” which “cannot be permitted to supply the place of proof.” Griffen said he would issue a detailed order at a later date.

The lawsuit was initiated by the League of Women Voters of Arkansas (LWVAR), Arkansas United, and five voters. They claimed the statutes disproportionately harmed voters of color.

LWVAR president Bonnie Miller said on social media that she was pleased with the court decision.

The article concludes:

Griffen, known for his left-wing activism, is a controversial figure in Arkansas. Some Republican state lawmakers advocate impeaching and removing him as a judge. Compared by some to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former President Barack Obama’s pastor whose fiery sermons blasted the United States as an inherently racist country, Griffen is also a Baptist preacher known for wearing an African dashiki when delivering sermons, as Wright did.

Griffen was barred from hearing cases that could lead to the death penalty after he attended an anti-capital punishment protest outside the governor’s mansion in 2017 while strapped to a cot as if he were about to be executed by lethal injection. The protest came the same day as he issued a ruling blocking the state’s execution schedule.

Griffen also denounced President-elect Donald Trump days after his election in November 2016.

“White nationalism and white male supremacy never left this country,” Griffen said, according to Arkansas Money and Politics. It is a “fallacy … that somehow the nation had moved on beyond the hatefulness, the fearfulness, the misogyny.”

Stay tuned for similar battles in other states.