Voter ID laws have been passed in eleven Republican-controlled states
since the 2010 midterm elections; yet studies have shown that alleged cases of
voter fraud are virtually nonexistent. The voters most likely
to be turned away at the polls for not having valid state-issued IDs are groups
targeted for suppression - African Americans, Latinos, students and younger
voters, senior citizens, and now women -- groups that traditionally support Democrats.
In an effort to build support for voter ID laws, the
Republican National Lawyers Association published a report that identified only
400 prosecutions for the entire country during a span of ten years. That’s not even
one prosecution per state per year. Yet, an estimated 5 million voters will be
disenfranchised - enough to alter election outcomes
nationwide year after year.
Do you smell a rat? In
the state of Wisconsin alone, voter registration hours were lengthened in
Republican districts and shortened in Democratic districts. This is a fact.
Smell the rat! And Texas intends to go one step further:
"What I have used for voter registration and for identification for the last 52 years was not sufficient yesterday when I went to vote," said District Court Judge Sandra Watts. Imagine that! A District Court judge who is not allowed to vote! Watts has voted in every election for the last past 49 years; the name on her driver's license had been unchanged for 52 years; and the address on her voter registration card has remained the same for two decades.
Imagine her surprise when District Court Judge Sandra Watts was told by voting officials that she would have to sign an affidavit confirming her identity.
Why? The middle name printed on her driver’s license is her maiden name. The middle name printed on her voter registration card is her original middle name recorded at birth. It was enough to raise a red flag under new and more restrictive laws.
Is this
an unintended consequence of new voter ID laws in the Lone Star State? Hardly! This is why:
Meet
Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for Governor in Texas. In case you
haven’t noticed, Wendy Davis is a woman, and the good ole boys of the Lone Star
State don’t want women to vote for her.
Nothing
stays in stasis forever. Once you establish election chicanery as standard
operating procedure, it metastasizes cancer-like through the entire system. Today it
may be Republicans doing this to Democrats; tomorrow it may be the Manchurian candidate from Chargoggagogg-manchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg doing this to Republicans.
This year, I am writing a book on voter suppression. I have
interviewed canvassing commissioners of both parties, Democrat and Republican.
There is no daylight between them on how to run a fair and honest
election. Politicians, however,
are another story and especially notorious for chicanery and corruption.
In Florida last year, Governor Grifter-Scott ordered
the purge of 180,000 names from state voter rolls. Canvassing commissioners, both
Democrat and Republican, examined these lists and found all to be bogus - not
even one name.
How can you have full faith and confidence in the legitimacy of elections when results are rigged along party lines! The question is
rhetorical: You can’t. How can you vote in good conscience for a candidate or party that
wants to deprive you of a fundamental right? The
question is rhetorical: Don’t!
(More references with commentary in the comment section below)
Wendy Davis; started work at age 14, worked two jobs during college in Texas, on to Harvard, successful lawyer, business owner. Watch the Tea Party-Koch-Rove $$$ consortium trash her.
ReplyDeleteI become more convinced that we should have a voting commission that would set times, districts, choice of machines, type of ID necessary, etc., and take those decisions away from partisan politicians.
ReplyDeleteWhen the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year (June 2013), one of the most disastrous consequences of this decision is the disenfranchisement of up to 800,000 registered voters - in Texas alone - who do not have government issued IDs. Hispanics are 46% to 120% more likely than whites to lack identification. The hardest hit group of all are …
ReplyDeleteWomen! According to the Brennan Center, a third of all women have citizenship documents that do not match their legal name.
Obtaining a valid photo ID in Texas is not easy: First, you must obtain a birth certificate for $22 (previously considered a “poll tax”). The distance to a local DMV office: Up to 250 miles depending upon where you live. Hispanic citizens are TWICE as likely - compared to whites– to lack a car and TWICE as likely to lack a new voter ID.
“A law that forces poorer citizens to choose between their wages and their franchise unquestionably denies or abridges their right to vote,” wrote a federal court last year when it blocked the law.
According to this database, there have been only TWO (2) successful prosecutions of voter fraud in the state of Texas since the year 2000. Only TWO prosecutions in 12 years compared to a potential 800,000 disenfranchised voters.
Smell the rat! Are you angry enough yet?
Smell the "traditional values?" When they "take back America" and everything is all right again, women won't vote, wont have jobs and we won't need slavery only because it won't be economical to own when you can rent people and dispose of them when you don't need them any more. WAKE THE FUCK UP AMERICA!!!!
DeleteWhat did all y'all think traditional values meant?
But wait until you need to renew your Florida license. You'll need all that paperwork all over again - birth certificate, Social security card (not just the number,) utility bills and all that jazz. How many of you have your original card? Mine was written in cuneiform on a clay tablet.
It's not just a war on women, it's a war on all of us -- show me your papers, says the man in the leather trench coat - and it's your ass if you can't.
And of course pond scum like Rand Paul insist that his party is the origin and sole support of the civil rights movement, keeping up the tradition of Bizarro World where everything they say is its opposite.
In this article posted more than two years ago, I wrote:
ReplyDelete“No longer a contest between rivals, politics has devolved into a contest to win by any and all means necessary (even in violation of democratic principles); and the weapons of partisan warfare are fear, deceit, pandering, legislative chicanery, and ruthless guerilla assaults against the assets of the opposition party [my bold].
Consider the asymmetry between union busting and the Citizens United decision. If Citizens United opened the door to unlimited corporate funding of political speech, events in Wisconsin have closed the door on union funding for Democrats. All told, union busting, Gonzo-gate, voter caging, voter ID cards, and the smear of Acorn are manifestations of a GOP master plan to eliminate traditional bases of Democratic support.
In theory, true democracy is predicated on choice, and choice connotes a policy debate between rivals. If one party, however, employs ruthless tactics to cripple the opposition beyond viability, what we have left is essentially a one party system with only token opposition. In other words: A democracy in name only. Wisconsin is where the GOP changed the dynamics of democratic engagement from contest to conquest.”
Let’s look at the demographics behind this strategy: 96% of African-Americans and 71% of Latinos voted for Democrats in 2012. Increasing numbers of women identify or lean with Democrats - 58% to 33% representing a 25-point advantage for Democrats.
It is clear that women and minorities represent major constituencies for the Democratic Party, and a major threat to Republicans. Thus, in order to suppress election turnouts for Democrats, the GOP has embarked upon a strategy of voter suppression.
The GOP is especially alarmed in Texas where women and minorities far outnumber a declining base of white male voters. How can the GOP win without changing policy positions that appeal to these groups? By suppressing the vote with unfair redistricting and voter ID laws!
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott admitted as much. There is nothing illegal in targeting Democrats, he alleges, even if women and minorities become collateral damage. No kidding! Abbot said as much in a brief filed in federal court – just hours after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.
In other words, Texas Republicans purposefully redrew district lines to strengthen their grip of power and are trying to argue that their strategy is only designed to rig elections in an effort to make Democrats extinct rather than suppress minority voters. An incredibly unethical and fraudulent argument masquerading as a tacit admission of guilt!
How do we usually regard one-party rule? I believe the correct word is “totalitarianism.”
Which is the most traditional of values, of course. The Tea Party would have called the Magna Carta Communism.
ReplyDeleteI am agreeably in agreement with the thesis presented by the excellent blogger (O)CT(O)PUS. I also wrote on this topic awhile ago (voter suppression, not Wendy Davis). I won't provide a link because that would be "blog whoring", which Octo dislikes (I say that, BTW, not to be disagreeable to be be agreeable). Hopefully (going forward) the Democratic side will have enough votes to simply overwhelm the cheaters and their cheating attempts... other than that I'm not sure what could be done. This is clearly going to be the Republican strategy from now on (not that it wasn't before, but now it's just about all they got left).
ReplyDeleteDervish,
DeleteYou have my permission to link to your article. To win this contest in order to preserve democracy, we need everyone onboard.
The title of my post is "Disenfranchise & Dilute Is Repub Strategy To Win Future Elections" and was originally published on 6/27/2013 (and received zero comments). This link is to my 2 commentaries on the topic of voter disenfranchisement by Republicans... although the second one mentions other bloggers and other blogs, so might fall into the category of being disagreeable that is offensive to Octopus. BTW, when I say it may be offensive to Octopus that isn't an attempt to be snarky. That Octo has a bad opinion of me genuinely concerns me... he seems like a good guy and I have nothing bad to say about him.
ReplyDeleteNow that the Republicans have a toehold in many states they are pushing through with voter suppression laws in the hopes of being able to control the national election in 2016. I am hoping there is enough of a sour taste in the American mouth that this year's state and local elections will topple part of the GOP mountain. Beyond that, I think we all need to become more proactive as we come into 2016 by volunteering to drive voters to register, helping raise funds for those that need documents they can't afford and then making sure these people have a ride to the polls. 2016 is going to decide the path of this country for a long time to come. These scumbags aren't even trying to hide their agenda anymore.
ReplyDeleteTwo good reasons that you STILL don't mess with Texas.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzePqXEJrBY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEJh2FFUUoU
Not to mention that Wendy Davis is a stunningly beautiful and powerful woman.
Texas may be the key to the future. I am certainly tired of this idea that Texas is hopelessly conservative.