Republicans cry ‘rigged election,’ but they’re the ones trying to cheat

To the editor: Don Quixote tilting at windmills comes to mind after reading about Arizona Republicans’ effort to enact election changes that purportedly address a problem, voting fraud, that simply doesn’t exist.

But Don Quixote was harmless, and these legislators’ efforts are anything but.

The proposals in Arizona and in other states like Georgia are shamelessly aimed at reducing the number of Democratic voters whose numbers in the last election turned some red states blue and, in Arizona’s case, turned it into a swing state.

Irony also comes to mind. While former President Trump maintains he lost because of a rigged election, and a majority of his party joins in that delusion, Republicans in the states proposing new restrictive voting laws aim to show the country how to actually rig an election. They want to make it harder for Democratic-leaning constituencies to cast their ballots.

Nothing good can come from applying a remedy to a disease that doesn’t exist.

Agustin Medina, South Pasadena

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To the editor: The GOP is showing its true colors once again. If it can’t win by having decent candidates, it will cheat any way it can.

The Republicans’ use of gerrymandering and their attempts to make it harder to vote by mail and impede the ability of minorities to vote are all being brought into play. I’ve lost track of how many GOP proposals there are to restrict voting that are aimed at people who are not white and affluent.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida last week, they even wheeled in a golden statue of “he who I will not name.” It is sickening, but it is what we have come to expect from a party that has fully embraced racism and fascism.

Democrats need to pay attention and fight back, or else democracy in this country is doomed. We are Germany in the 1930s. How we go forward remains to be seen.

Scott Hughes, Westlake Village

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.