But when Democrats started winning elections in states Republicans thought they had a lock on, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, the GOP took decisive action. Not to protect election workers, of course, or even to protect the right of people to vote. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Instead, they cracked down on "voter fraud" crimes like "voting while Black" and "voting while disabled" and "voting while a college student" and "voting while caring about Social Security."
Seriously: these new GOP election laws specifically target racial minorities, disabled and elderly people who need to vote by mail, and college students. All of whom, by coincidence, tend to vote more Democratic than Republican.
The Republican Party nationwide has also been recruiting an army of "poll watchers" to threaten and intimidate voters under the rubric of preventing fraud.
As The New York Times noted following the last election, these self-appointed stormtroopers often harassed and made life miserable not only for voters but for the election workers simply trying to make the elections work:
"That year, a Tea Party-affiliated group in Houston known as the King Street Patriots sent poll watchers to downtown polling locations. The flood of the mostly white observers into Black neighborhoods caused friction, and resurfaced not-too-distant memories when racial intimidation at the polls was commonplace in the South. "
"'Two poll watchers stood close to the black voters (less than 3 feet away) and engaged in what I describe as intimidating behavior,' Ms. Wilson wrote in an email to the Harris County clerk that was obtained by The Times through an open records request."
And when the poll watchers weren't trying to intimidate voters of color, they were trying to gum up the election works in districts likely to go Democratic with the goal that the results would ultimately be thrown out.
As the Times' writers added:
"'The behavior in the room changed dramatically in the afternoon: The rage in the room from Republican challengers was nothing like I had ever experienced in my life,' wrote Anjanette Davenport Hatter, another election worker.
"Mr. McKernan wrote: 'Republicans were challenging everything at the two tables I could see. When the ballot envelope was opened, they would say they couldn't see it clearly. When the next envelope was opened, they made the same complaint. They were objecting to every single step down the line for no good reason.'
"The chaos provided some of the basis for Michigan officials to debate whether to certify the results"
But while the Republican poll watchers could harass and try to intimidate voters they thought "looked like Democrats," and even slow down the voting and vote-counting processes, they didn't have the uniforms, badges, and guns that would put the fear of imprisonment or death into voters.
DeSantis apparently wants to change that, and Republicans pursuing their GOP War On Democracy are committed to follow his example.
A law similar to Florida's was just introduced into the Georgia legislature, and more will surely follow.
Ukrainians are showing us today how valiantly people can fight to defend their democracy.
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