Repug voter suppression: New G.O.P. Bid to Limit Voting in Swing States

[boutons_deux]

Pivotal swing states under Republican control are embracing significant new electoral restrictions on registering and voting that go beyond the voter identification requirements that have caused fierce partisan brawls.

The bills, laws and administrative rules — some of them tried before — shake up fundamental components of state election systems, including the days and times polls are open and the locations where people vote.

Republicans in Ohio and Wisconsin this winter pushed through measures limiting the time polls are open, in particular cutting into weekend voting favored by low-income voters and blacks, who sometimes caravan from churches to polls on the Sunday before election.

Democrats in North Carolina are scrambling to fight back against the nation’s most restrictive voting laws, passed by Republicans there last year. The measures, taken together, sharply reduce the number of early voting days and establish rules that make it more difficult for people to register to vote, cast provisional ballots or, in a few cases, vote absentee.

In all, nine states have passed measures making it harder to vote since the beginning of 2013. Most have to do with voter ID laws. Other states are considering mandating proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate or a passport, after a federal court judge recently upheld such laws passed in Arizona and Kansas. Because many poor people do not have either and because do ents can take time and money to obtain, Democrats say the ruling makes it far more difficult for people to register.

Voting experts say the impact of the measures on voter turnout remains unclear. Many of the measures have yet to take effect, and a few will not start until 2016. But at a time when Democrats are on the defensive over the Affordable Care Act and are being significantly outspent by conservative donors like the Koch brothers, the changes pose another potential hurdle for Democratic candidates this year.

Republicans defend the measures, saying Democrats are overstating their impact for partisan reasons. The new rules, Republicans say, help prevent fraud, save money and bring greater uniformity to a patchwork election system.

“We think they’re stoking these things for political gain,” said Alex M. Triantafilou, the chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party in Ohio. “We think there’s an effort here to rally the Democratic base in a year that they otherwise wouldn’t be rallying.” duh!

Democrats and other critics of the laws say that in the face of shifting demographics, Republicans are trying to alter the rules and shape the electorate in their favor. Those most affected by the restrictions are minorities and the urban poor, who tend to vote Democratic.

“What we see here is a total disrespect and disregard for cons utional protections,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina N.A.A.C.P. and leader of the Moral Mondays movement, which opposes the changes.

The flurry of new measures is in large part a response to recent court rulings that open the door to more restrictive changes.

Last year, the Supreme Court struck down a central provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The decision allowed a number of mostly Southern states to alter their election laws without the prior approval once required from the Justice Department. A few weeks later, free of the mandate and emboldened by a Republican supermajority, North Carolina passed the country’s most sweeping restrictions on voting.

The law did away with same-day voter registration and a popular program to preregister high school students to vote. It cut early voting to 10 days from 17, mandated a strict photo identification requirement that excluded student and state worker IDs and ended straight-ticket party voting, all of them measures that are expected to hurt Democrats, election law analysts said. The Supreme Court decision also cleared the way for Texas to ins ute its strict photo identification requirements.

In February, the Ohio legislature moved to reduce early voting by one week, do away with registering and voting on the same day prior to Election Day, and place new restrictions on absentee ballot application mailings. And a little over a week ago, the Wisconsin Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, to shorten early voting, including cutting it altogether on weekend days.

In so doing, Republicans in these states shifted their strategy away from concerns over fraud, which have proved largely unfounded, to a new rationale that suggests fairness: uniformity.

Republican lawmakers and election officials argue that to avoid voter confusion and litigation urban and rural counties should follow the same rules.

In Ohio, the hodgepodge of rules raised concerns in both parties. Some urban counties had large enough budgets to send out absentee ballot applications and some smaller rural ones did not, election board directors said. Early voting hours also varied.

“Every voter should have an equal opportunity to vote under the same set of rules,” said Ohio’s secretary of state, Jon A. Husted, a Republican.

In addition, Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican, signed a measure that cut “Golden Week,” during which voters could register and vote on the same day, over concerns about potential fraud. He also signed a measure that shifts the responsibility of automatically mailing absentee ballot applications to the secretary of state, instead of counties. The law leaves it up to the Legislature to finance the process, which until now was paid for by counties.

Citing the absence of evidence do enting organized fraud in Ohio, critics said the moves would lead to even longer lines in urban districts already plagued by them.

“They know when they are taking away early voting exactly who it’s affecting,” said Ed FitzGerald, the executive of Cuyahoga County and a Democratic candidate for governor.

Mr. Husted said that with 29 early voting days, Ohio would offer more early voting than most states. As for the loss of the Sunday before the midterm election (but not before a presidential election), he said a bipartisan task force of election board directors had agreed, after a heated debate, on how to divvy up the days.

Mr. Husted reiterated that he intended to mail absentee ballot applications to all Ohio registered voters and would protest any attempts to cut financing. Democrats, he said, can mobilize for 29 days to get out absentee ballots, which will arrive in people’s homes. They can encourage people to return them by mail, in person or by placing them in a drop box, which can be done on a Sunday.

Also in the name of uniformity, the Wisconsin Legislature moved a little over a week ago to limit early voting, including on weekend days.

On Thursday, Governor Walker vetoed a portion of the bill that limited early voting hours to 45 per week, but he kept in place the weekend ban and a cap at 55 hours. To handle the number of early voters who showed up in 2012, Milwaukee would have 11 seconds to process each ballot under the new law, the city’s Democratic leaders said.

State Senator Dale Schultz was a rare Republican who voted against the bill, saying the party was “fiddling with mechanics rather than ideas.”

“Making it more difficult for people to vote is not a good sign for a party that wants to attract more people,” he said.

The recent efforts were not the first change to voting laws in Wisconsin since Republicans took control of state government in the 2010 election. In 2011, early voting was trimmed back. That year, Mr. Walker also approved a strict photo identification measure, which drew lawsuits. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to rule soon.

As the battle over voting laws escalates, Democrats are intensifying their own efforts to make voting more accessible. Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, said Democrats had their own partisan agendas for doing so since an expanded electorate would benefit mostly Democrats.

“It’s not just out of the goodness of their own hearts they are doing this,” he said.

In the last year Democrats have made a concerted effort to make it easier for people to sign up to vote, including online, and to cast their votes. This push has been most effective in Democratic-controlled states like California, Colorado and Maryland. But even other states, like Arizona and Kansas, have ins uted online registration.

Democrats have also filed a spate of federal and state lawsuits to combat the measures, including Justice Department lawsuits against North Carolina and Texas. A state lawsuit is expected soon in Ohio, where Democrats are also gathering signatures to put a cons utional amendment on the ballot this November that would reverse some of the restrictive voting measures. And they are mobilizing grass-roots organizations in places like North Carolina, starting a voter education and registration campaign and distributing wallet-size cards with updated voter information.

Other Democrats are trying to draw attention to possible changes, even at the local level. Recently, a group of officials in the Cincinnati area took part in a 90-minute bus ride and walk to a proposed early voting site as a protest over how long the trip took from one inner-city neighborhood.

There is movement in Congress, too, where a bipartisan bill has been introduced to address concerns prompted by the Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act. Democrats, though, say it is not far-reaching enough. And a bipartisan presidential commission recently issued a report recommending more online voting and expanded early voting.

In all the back and forth, it remains unclear how big an impact the laws will have and whether the strategy will be successful for Republicans.

“The case has not been made that these things so far have had a huge effect on turnout,” Mr. Hasen said. “But laws are getting stricter and stricter, so the question is will Texas’ ID law and the omnibus bill in North Carolina have such an effect?”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/30...?from=homepage

[boutons_deux]

Miami-Dade blocks voters standing in line from using the bathroom

Earlier this year, the Miami-Dade County Elections Department quietly implemented a policy to close the bathrooms at all polling facilities, according to disability rights lawyer Marc Dubin. Dubin said the policy change was in “direct response” to an inquiry to the Elections Department about whether they had assessed accessibility of polling place bathrooms to those with disabilities.“I was expecting them to say either yes we have or yes we will,” Dubin said.

Instead, he received a written response announcing that the county would close all restrooms at polling places “to ensure that individuals with disabilities are not treated unfairly,” a January email stated. “[T]he Department’s policy is not to permit access to restrooms at polling sites on election days,” Assistant County Attorney Shanika Graves said in a Feb. 14 email.

Note that due to the state of Florida's bang-up job of being generally incompetent at running elections, some voters in the county had to wait in line for six hours or longer to be able to vote in the 2012 elections. Now the state is going to intentionally close all the bathrooms near the polling places, supposedly because they can't be bothered to determine which ones are accessible to the disabled. Brilliant.This would seem itself to disenfranchise voters with medical conditions that prohibit standing for six straight hours without a bathroom break, so I expect this will not be the last we hear of this.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...m?detail=email

What a state! What a country! sacred, inalienable right to vote in democratic elections!

[Winehole23]

boutons isn't right about much, but he's right to slam the GOP for working so hard to decrease voting.

[boutons_deux]

boutons isn't right about much, but he's right to slam the GOP for working so hard to decrease voting.

Boutons is right about everything.

Dirty tricks: Koch-backed group mails out misleading voter registration info in NC

An election mailer sent out to North Carolina voters by a Koch brothers-backed advocacy group contains misleading and incorrect voter registration information that may suppress voting, reports the News Observer.

The information contained on a “official application form” was sent to potential voters by Americans for Prosperity, a national conservative group based in Arlington, Virginia.
Hundreds of people who received the packet have contacted the State Board of Elections complaining that the information in it is confusing, contradictory, and in some cases, incorrect.

Joshua Lawson, a public information officer at the State Board of Elections said, “The phone calls have consistently been all day, every day.”

According to the State Board, the voter registration form contains two different due dates: 25 or 30 days before the election.

The form also states that it should be sent to the State Board of Elections, and comes with an envelope addressed to board — although the form is supposed to be sent to the N.C. Secretary of State’s office.

The form also contains an incorrect phone number for voters to call if they have any questions — directing them to Secretary of State’s office which does not handle elections — and a wrong zip code.

Voters are also told that, after registering, they will be notified of their precinct by their local county clerk.

“There’s no county clerk that would do these things,” explained Lawson. “It would come from the county board of elections or the elections director, under their signature.”
Alison Beal of Wake Forest received one of the forms at her home, but it was addressed to her brother-in-law, who lives in a different county. Beal said she is not a member of Americans for Prosperity and stated that her brother-in-law wouldn’t be a member either.

Beal said that while she thinks the false information could be an honest mistake, it could also deter people from registering.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/d...e+Raw+Story%29

Repug governing policies: LIE, CHEAT, STEAL, DEFRAUD, SLANDER

[Winehole23]

Boutons is right about everything.

I'll stick with "blind squirrel sometimes gets the nut"

[boutons_deux]

I'll stick with "blind squirrel sometimes gets the nut"

speak for yourself, tree rat

[boutons_deux]

Another elderly woman is disenfranchised by the GOP’s war on voting


It happened to 92-year-old Ruby Barber and 84-year-old Dorothy Card in Texas.

In Tennessee, 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper and 93-year-old Thelma Mitc — who had cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years — faced similar problems,

as did 86-year-old World War II vet Paul Caroll in Ohio,

97-year-old Beth Hiller in Kansas and a

92-year-old Alabama woman who was too embarrassed by the incident to reveal her name to the media.

Even 90-year-old former Speaker of the House Jim Wright had to jump through a number of hoops to get a suitable ID from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

In Yesterday’s Guardian, 87-year-old Wisconsin resident Rut e Frank spoke out about her own experience:

On October 2011, an article appeared in my local paper reporting that, in order to vote in the next election, everyone was going to need a state-issued iden y card for the first time. At 85 years old, I didn’t have one, because I’m handicapped and so I never drove a car or needed an ID.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/a...e+Raw+Story%29

Repugs LOVE AMERICA SO MUCH!

[boutons_deux]

Judge Slams Voter Suppression Law — ‘Why Does The State Of North Carolina Not Want People To Vote?’




Voting rights advocates in North Carolina caught a lucky break on Thursday, where it was revealed that the panel of three judges who would consider that state’s comprehensive voter suppression law included one Clinton appointee, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, and two Obama appointees, Judges James Wynn and Henry Floyd. Last month, a George W. Bush appointee to a federal trial bench in North Carolina allowed the law to go into effect during the 2014 election, the panel of three judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit are now considering whether to affirm or reverse that decision. They heard oral arguments in the case on Thursday.

Several provisions are at issue in this case that all make it more difficult for residents of North Carolina to cast a vote. One provision cuts a week of early voting days. Another restricts voter registration drives. A third implements a strict voter ID law, although that provision does not take effect until 2016, so it would be reasonable for the court to decide not to suspend it during the 2014 election.

One provision that received a great deal of attention from the judges during Thursday’s oral arguments in this case is a change to the state law that causes ballots to be tossed out if a voter shows up in the wrong precinct. For the last decade, voters who showed up at the wrong precinct would still have their votes counted in races that were not specific to that precinct, so long as they voted in the correct county. The new law prohibits these ballots from being counted at all. According to the Associated Press, that means thousands of ballots will be thrown out each election year.

Judge Wynn, the only member of the panel who lives in North Carolina, appeared baffled by this provision. Explaining that he lives very close to a precinct that is not his assigned polling place, he asked the state to justify why his vote should be thrown out if he did not travel to a precinct that is further away from his home. At one point, his questions grew quite pointed —

“Why does the state of North Carolina not want people to vote?” Wynn asked. At another point, he described a hypothetical grandmother who has always voted at the same place. Why not “let her just vote in that precinct?” he wondered?

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/29/3573080/judge-slams-voter-suppression-law-why-does-the-state-of-north-carolina-not-want-people-to-vote/

red states! What's not to love?