Appalling, disturbing, shameful.

Those are the words that jumped to mind when we read about Republican election commissioner Robert Spindell crowing about what he said were successful efforts by the GOP to tamp down minority turnout in Milwaukee in the 2022 mid-term elections.

Spindell, who served as a fake Republican elector for former President Donald Trump in the hotly contested 2020 presidential election, sits on the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which is charged with overseeing the fair conduct of state elections.

He said he was merely touting efforts by the GOP to counter liberal messaging in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee and that he does not support suppressing voter turnout.

His words belie that.

In an email newsletter Spindell said that Republicans “can be especially proud” of lowered turnout in Milwaukee during the 2022 election “with the major reduction happening in the overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic areas.”

According to the Associated Press, Spindell’s email detailed a number of those strategies targeting those communities. Among them, “Negative Black Radio Commercials.”

If that’s not supporting voter suppression and trying to discourage Black and Latino Americans from voting in the state’s largest city, we don’t know what is.

Instead of tamping down minority participation in elections, we would suggest Spindell — and other Republicans — take note of a recent column by Rachel Ferguson, director of the Free Enterprise Center at Concordia University in Chicago.

Ferguson noted that Black voters supporting Democrats dropped from 90% to 86% in 2022. And the Latino vote for Democrats dropped from 69% to 60%,

She argues Republicans should be wooing Black and Brown voters by espousing policies “that do justice to the historic struggle of minority communities while favoring conservative policies.”

Ferguson cites several opportunities for the GOP to attract minority support — and votes. Among them are things like border security: “First it shouldn’t be assumed that Black and Latino voters are unconcerned with border security. Legal immigrants can be surprisingly frustrated with leniency for those who didn’t have to exhausting process they did.”

Inadequate schools and rising crime rates. Ferguson contends minority parents support school choice, despite stern Democrat opposition, and notes that while Black Americans want to be treated better by police, polls show 80% wanted the same or more police in their neighborhoods.

She argues that many Black and Latino voters belong to churches that are conservative about sexuality and gender — and the push for adolescent transgenderism and polyamory “is a bridge too far for many of these religious folk.”

Those are some of the policy issues Republicans can focus on to gain support at the polls in minority communities. That’s a far better long-term strategy for the GOP and they should reject Spindell’s misguided cheerleading for efforts to stifle voter participation in Wisconsin’s minority communities.

— Kenosha (Wisc.) News