Readers React: One party actively tries to suppress the vote to win elections. The other doesn’t

To the editor: Why doesn’t the Los Angeles Times label Jonah Goldberg’s column the “False Equivalency Corner”? Baseless claims of voter fraud made by Republicans are not the same as real-world instances of voter suppression like the actions taken by former Georgia Secretary of State and Gov.-elect Brian Kemp.

Aggressive voter roll purges, rollbacks on early voting, reducing the number of polling places, putting polling places in locations inconvenient for those without cars — these are all part of the voter suppression toolkit. The problem these laws are purported to solve — voter fraud — is fake.

Moreover, by any reading of the 14th Amendment and 150 years of Supreme Court precedent, this kind of voter suppression is unconstitutional. Voting is a fundamental right, the right upon which all others rest.

Laws with actual discriminatory purpose — which these voter suppression laws are — constitute a clear violation of Americans’ right to equal protection under the law.

Branden Frankel, Encino

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To the editor: Florida is congenitally inept with elections and ballots.

Georgia’s former secretary of state reportedly purged about 1.5 million registered voters from the rolls from 2012-16. Also, because of his failure to take proper security measures, hundreds of voting machines were sequestered, causing long lines in minority (mostly Democratic) precincts.

Goldberg cynically invokes “bothsidesism” to accuse defeated Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Kemp’s Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, of being poor sports in not conceding their respective races, even though the Republican candidates condoned voter suppression and railed against even counting the votes that had been cast.

Only Republicans strategize to maintain minority rule and then cry foul when the majority party demands all votes be counted.

Peter Rutenberg, Marina del Rey

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To the editor: Goldberg goes after the supposed hypocrisy of Nelson and Abrams, who claimed their respective elections were being stolen. While their choice of words might have been an exaggeration, is it as bad as alleging that the vote might have been fraudulent, as Florida Gov. and Sen.-elect Rick Scott did?

Nelson made his statement after Scott, who controls law enforcement in the state, tried to have voting machines impounded as a recount was taking place.

This is not just a case of bad people existing on both sides. Republicans have done so much to destroy confidence in government and journalism and have taken action to engineer election outcomes by gerrymandering districts.

Ken Simmons, Los Angeles

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