NBA Coaches Speak On Voter Suppression and Their Views On Preventative Measures

Ben Ginsberg, who is the single most prominent Republican election lawyer in the country, wrote a piece published Sunday by The Washington Post with a message for current President Donald Trump. 

The article called out President Donald Trump and his legal team for engaging in a widespread attempt to suppress votes in the 2020 election under the guise of sniffing out voter fraud.

The scary part about the president’s message is that it encourages his supporters to act almost as law enforcement intimidating anyone supporting opposite views. We have all been bracing for today, Election Day, and the potential for post-election violence.

This concern touches us all, including professional sports franchises. “We’ve tried to do as much as we can to make (voting) a great opportunity,” Atlanta Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce says. “But you know something is bound to happen, because it always happens.”

The simple act of voting has not been this dangerous on a national level, for maybe a century. But it’s in line with a pattern of discrimination, says Warriors coach Steve Kerr.

“Maybe the angriest I’ve been over the last few weeks has just been seeing the long lines in Georgia, in Michigan and in various places,” he said.  Adding, “Voting should be easy, right? Everybody should have easy access. We should be doing everything possible to provide people as safe and easy experience. And yet it seems like we do the opposite.”

“As a privileged white man, I’ve never had to wait more than five minutes to vote, in any of the precincts where I’ve gone. And, to be frank, in the places where I’ve lived, if people had to wait – privileged white people who live in the town – if they had to wait more than 10 minutes, there would be a commission that would be undertaken. There would be an investigation and things would be fixed the next day.”

Things are not that simple in many urban areas where thousands are forced to travel miles to vote. And many of them don’t have modes of transportation. We are praying that the early voting process makes this process more seem less. Even though we know suppression will happen in some form