MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

(Photo: Kathleen Conklin)

An April 4 email from the Courage Campaign -- a California-based grassroots organization -- warns that voter suppression by Republican state legislators is still going strong:

Republicans have ramped up voter suppression tactics around the country. In Wisconsin, local officials gave false information to voters. In Arizona and Mississippi, cuts in voting hours and locations resulted in voters waiting for hours in lines before casting their votes on election day. And stringent voter ID laws in six states around the country may have deterred hundreds of thousands of voters from turning out in 2016.

What's worse is that Republicans are openly gloating that their voter suppression strategies work -- especially those designed to prevent Black Americans from voting.

Our nation was founded on the belief that the government derives its power from the people. But voter suppression laws send a loud and clear message to marginalized citizens: your voice doesn't matter. When people feel their vote doesn't matter, they lose faith in the democratic process and stop showing up. This is why it's imperative that we stop Trump's voter fraud lies from creating more harmful voter suppression policies.

It's a marked contrast, the Courage Campaign notes, to Trump's repeated claim that there was rampant voter fraud in the presidential election. "His lie would almost be funny if it weren't so dangerous," the Campaign states.

Trump continued voicing his accusation even after his inauguration, as noted in a February 7 Time commentary:

The Trump administration continues to double down on its false and widely-criticized assertion that 3 to 5 million non-citizens illegally voted in the 2016 election.

On Sunday, White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller claimed 14% of non-citizens are registered to vote. "We know for a fact, you have massive numbers of non-citizens registered to vote in this country," he said, appearing on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos. "The White House has provided enormous evidence with respect to voter fraud."

Actually, it hasn't. Nevertheless, President Trump announced earlier this month, despite the lack of evidence, that Vice President Mike Pence will lead a federal investigation into voter fraud.

Wendy Weiser and Douglas Keith, authors of the Time column, conclude: "Like voter fraud generally, non-citizen voting is incredibly rare."

Federal Election Commission Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub wrote a March 22 letter to Trump asking him to prove his charge of massive voter fraud in 2016:

I write to you today to request that you share your evidence of widespread voter fraud in New Hampshire [where Trump claims the voter fraud scheme was particularly egregious] with the public and with the appropriate law-enforcement authorities so that your allegations may be addressed promptly and thoroughly.

Trump has evaded the call to provide proof by saying that his claim will be part of a future investigation, but Weintraub rejects this response:

Your allegations are not properly a matter for a future investigation to take up, as you cannot have responsibly alleged this scheme without already having sufficient facts in hand to do so.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Connecticut) charges that Trump and his staff are conducting a campaign intended to mislead Americans:

"When your castle is constructed on utter falsehood, one of the things you have to do over time is take all of the power out of the truth," Himes said on CNN's "New Day" Tuesday.... "That's a huge win for a White House that wants to both distract the attention of the American people but also for whom doing away with an absolute sense of truth with any power to it is really important."

He was speaking about the administration response to the claims about Trump Campaign ties to Russia, but his words apply to the Trump strategy of creating "alternative facts" in general.

Trump's claim that 3-5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election -- an outright lie -- poses a peril to democracy. It should be vocally dismissed and condemned.