It's about the supression, stupid!

[RandomGuy]

Republican crocodile tears about non-existant voter fraud have suckered a lot of people into thinking they give a shit about it.

The reality is that the only problem voter ID laws are really intended to solve is that some groups targeted by these laws tend to vote for Democrats.

All you have to do to peek behind the mountain of bullshit concerns about voter fraud, is look at what they tell each other when they are talking to each other, and not trying to trick independents into thinking it is a good idea:

EuOT1bRYdK8


When asked about whether ANY election in his state was EVER materially affected by voter fraud... he backpedaled faster than a unicyclist at a cliff's edge, and completely dodged, and continues to dodge, commenting on it.

18 seconds of truth. That's all it takes to show this cynical Republican bullshit for what it is.

[Clipper Nation]

Republicans are THE biggest voter fraudsters, tbh..... the vote-flipping during the primaries and the rigged voice vote and disenfranchising of Paul delegates at the RNC prove it.....

[Wild Cobra]

Republican crocodile tears about non-existant voter fraud have suckered a lot of people into thinking they give a shit about it.


I have given serious thought about it ever since the left accused the electronic voting machines of being rigged by republicans. Then it turns out Bush wins in Ohio in 2004 and has three voting systems. A clear win on both the other two voting systems that have been in place for years, and a clear win on the electronic systems for Kerry. Looks like someone rigged these machines for democrats!

Now keep inn ind this did all start with the liberals conspiracy theory.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/Elections/2004/Ohio2004.jpg

[RandomGuy]

I have given serious thought about it ever since the left accused the electronic voting machines of being rigged by republicans. Then it turns out Bush wins in Ohio in 2004 and has three voting systems. A clear win on both the other two voting systems that have been in place for years, and a clear win on the electronic systems for Kerry. Looks like someone rigged these machines for democrats!

Now keep inn ind this did all start with the liberals conspiracy theory.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/Elections/2004/Ohio2004.jpg

OMFG... you need to get this to a prosecutor right away!!

[RandomGuy]

bla bla bla, I am ignoring the OP bla bla bla

What no comment?

Republicans are so righteous the only way they can possibily lose is if the other side is cheating?

you going for that bullshit?

[BradLohaus]

whether ANY election in his state was EVER materially affected by voter fraud...

Should have just said the mafia.

[SA210]

Suppression..

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202992

[Wild Cobra]

What no comment?

Republicans are so righteous the only way they can possibily lose is if the other side is cheating?

you going for that bullshit?
Wow...

You are acting the impatient child...

Do you know what work is? I just got off work an hour ago. That posting was soon before I left for work.

Please tell me that you don't expect Spurstalk to be more important than work. maybe it is for you, but not for me.

[Wild Cobra]

What no comment?

Republicans are so righteous the only way they can possibily lose is if the other side is cheating?

you going for that bullshit?
Yes and no. A few election cycles ago there was obvious cheating in the state of Washington to get a democrat governor elected. The chart I posted actually came from a democrat pundit trying to show republican cheating, but I think it backfired on him.

On the issue of "possibly cheating." Voting is a sacred right of citizens, and we need to do what is possibly to insure cheating does not take place, but people on either side. The only reason i see for democrats to resist such uncomplicated measures is because they believe they cannot win without cheating.

[ChumpDumper]

lol obvious cheating

[Wild Cobra]

lol obvious cheating
You didn't see our local news accounts.

[ChumpDumper]

Let me guess. Some guy made an accusation and didn't back it up, and some other guy countered with another accusation he didn't back up.

No charges were filed.

No arrests were made.

No fraud was proved.

Am I close?

[Wild Cobra]

It is difficult to prove eye witness accounts when it becomes a he said she said situation. However, the accusers word made sense completely.

[ChumpDumper]

And the person you believe was accusing Democrats.

Shit writes itself tbh.

[Wild Cobra]

And the person you believe was accusing Democrats.

Shit writes itself tbh.

I'm done with you on this topic Chump. Too much happened long enough ago, I cannot give you an accurate account, and it would be a long one. Besides, you not seeing the same news I did since it was a local Northwest event, just means it would be even harder to relay to you. You have probably seen no news, or very limited on the topic.

[ChumpDumper]

No need. I already described it perfectly.

You're an easy read, WC.

[Homeland Security]

I was going to post something snarky about how voter ID suppresses the four key Democratic constituencies of dead people, imaginary people, felons, and people trying to vote multiple times...

but since I don't believe in democracy or voting anyway it wouldn't make much sense to fight on that hill.

Under my plan, most minorities would be better off and would receive extensive benefits funded by confiscation of wealth from the enemies of the state.

[CosmicCowboy]

Texas has a long and well documented history of voter fraud. Hell, it's what got LBJ elected to congress.

[ChumpDumper]

Anything that happened less than fifty years ago?

[CosmicCowboy]

Anything that happened less than fifty years ago?

Of course...

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Vote_fraud_in_Texas

[RandomGuy]

And the person you believe was accusing Democrats.

Shit writes itself tbh.

:lol

Would you expect anything else?

Anything bad said about Democrats must be true, no matter how thin the corroberating evidence. Any contradicting evidence is dismissed as "part of the conspiracy".

Same bullshit confirmation bias that propagates 9-11 conspiracy theories and "faked moon landing" hoaxes.

I am not so naive as to think no election in the modern US has ever been effected by fraud of some type, but if WC thinks it was a Democrat conspiracy, I would be really really really skeptical of his claim unless supported by some very solid outside evidence.

[RandomGuy]

Of course...

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Vote_fraud_in_Texas

How much of that fraud is covered by existing laws, and how much will be prevented by the proposed voter ID law?

For someone who pisses and moans about establishing new beaurocracy and increasing goverment size, are you comfortable with a new redundant law that increases beaurocracy and increasing goverment size to solve a problem that is, by any realistic measure, non-existant?

[ChumpDumper]

How much of that fraud is covered by existing laws, and how much will be prevented by the proposed voter ID law?All and none, respectively.

CC knows this.

CC doesn't care.

CC roots for his team.

lol wikipedia

[RandomGuy]

Before you try to answer CC... I have researched a few of those.

Shockingly, the "fraud"... wasn't. A lot of what gets listed as fraud ends up being simple clerical errors and record keeping lags.

[RandomGuy]

All and none respectively.

CC knows this.

CC doesn't care.

CC roots for his team.

Eyup.

[RandomGuy]

Suppression..

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202992

RON PAUL>>> WHOO HOOO!!!! :rolleyes


6BWJFnLjZGo

[vy65]

RON PAUL>>> WHOO HOOO!!!! :rolleyes


6BWJFnLjZGo

Strong defense of team blue

[ChumpDumper]

Strong defense of team blueActually I recall Perry's saying much the same thing as Stewart.

[SA210]

RON PAUL>>> WHOO HOOO!!!! :rolleyes


6BWJFnLjZGo

I know, you prefer Obama's treatment for 5 year olds a lot better. :tu

f785rP5zqiM

[ChumpDumper]

Hey, let the Catholic church help those Pakistanis.

[RandomGuy]

Strong defense of team blue

More of an indictment of team red.

Have you figured out the difference between legal and moral yet?

[CosmicCowboy]

How much of that fraud is covered by existing laws, and how much will be prevented by the proposed voter ID law?

For someone who pisses and moans about establishing new beaurocracy and increasing goverment size, are you comfortable with a new redundant law that increases beaurocracy and increasing goverment size to solve a problem that is, by any realistic measure, non-existant?

:lmao

now that's some weak sauce shit.


increases beaurocracy and increasing goverment size

Have you ever voted?

They already have volunteer poll watchers. No need to increase anything.

[ChumpDumper]

:lmao

now that's some weak sauce shit.You didn't answer the question.

That's some weak sauce shit.

[CosmicCowboy]

You didn't answer the question.

That's some weak sauce shit.

Chump fails AGAIN.

No additional bureaucracy needed because we already have poll watchers.

[ChumpDumper]

Chump fails AGAIN.CC fails AGAIN.

How much of that fraud is covered by existing laws, and how much will be prevented by the proposed voter ID law?




You idiot.

[vy65]

More of an indictment of team red.

Have you figured out the difference between legal and moral yet?

Actually it's an indictment of both teams.

Yah, I know all about that difference. Have you figured out who's responsible for appointing the AG, jackboot?

[CosmicCowboy]

CC fails AGAIN.

How much of that fraud is covered by existing laws, and how much will be prevented by the proposed voter ID law?




You idiot.

Oh, I just ignored that shit. We have been over and over this same ground.

You and RG will just vomit out blue team talking points that there is no voter fraud and Republicans just want to disenfranchise the poor ignorant vunnerables.

I will say that we don't have any idea how much voter fraud we have because we have never checked for it. No checking = no valid data for either side to use.

It just devolves into a pointless waste of time.

[ChumpDumper]

Oh, I just ignored that shit. We have been over and over this same ground.

You and RG will just vomit out blue team talking points that there is no voter fraud and Republicans just want to disenfranchise the poor ignorant vunnerables.

I will say that we don't have any idea how much voter fraud we have because we have never checked for it. No checking = no valid data for either side to use.

It just devolves into a pointless waste of time.Sorry, there are already checks, genius. Stay out of the conversation if you just want to remain an ignorant bitch.

[CosmicCowboy]

Sorry, there are already checks, genius. Stay out of the conversation if you just want to remain an ignorant bitch.

What checks are there that the person voting is who they say they are?

[CosmicCowboy]

*crickets*

[ChumpDumper]

lol trying to change the subject like the bitch you are.

You're back to proving that voter impersonation actually happens.

Which you can't.

And never could.

And would be the only reason for voter ID laws.

Therefore, you have no reason for voter ID laws.

QED.

[Wild Cobra]

*crickets*
Yep.

I think Chump refuses to admit he likes voting at as many polling places as he can make it to in one day.

[ChumpDumper]

*crickets*

[ChumpDumper]

Ye.

I think Chump refuses to admit he likes voting at as many polling places as he can make it to in one day.WC likes to lie at every opportunity.

Tell me how your fantasy would work out practically.

Thanks in advance.

[jack sommerset]

What checks are there that the person voting is who they say they are?

None. God bless

[ChumpDumper]

None. God bless
Who ever went through the trouble of impersonating a voter?

Think about how that is supposed to play out, geniuses.

lol think

You god can't even help you with that.

Ron bless.

[CosmicCowboy]

lol trying to change the subject like the bitch you are.

You're back to proving that voter impersonation actually happens.

Which you can't.

And never could.

And would be the only reason for voter ID laws.

Therefore, you have no reason for voter ID laws.

QED.

Duh

There is no data to prove it one way or the other because we don't check.

Keep vomiting blue team talking points Chump.

[jack sommerset]

Who ever went through the trouble of impersonating a voter?

Think about how that is supposed to play out, geniuses.

lol think

You god can't even help you with that.

Ron bless.

Brother, I would think people who are not eligible to vote. Approx 12 million illegals live in the USA and I'm sure a lot of them make it down to the polls on election day to vote. Nothing to stop them. Its easier to vote than it is to get here. Lots of hostility in your post, brother. God bless

[ChumpDumper]

Duh

There is no data to prove it one way or the other because we don't check.

Keep vomiting blue team talking points Chump.Duh, indeed.

Actually there have been a couple of voter impersonation convictions in the past couple of decades. If nothing was checked, how could they have happened, genius?

Keep vomiting up your ignorance, idiot.


Brother, I would think people who are not eligible to vote. Approx 12 million illegals live in the USA and I'm sure a lot of them make it down to the polls on election day to vote. Nothing to stop them. Its easier to vote than it is to get here. Lots of hostility in your post, brother. God blessI think you have never actually voted. Lots of stupidity in your post, sister. Ron bless.

[ChumpDumper]

lol "I would think"

lol "I'm sure"

[CosmicCowboy]

Duh, indeed.

Actually there have been a couple of voter impersonation convictions in the past couple of decades. If nothing was checked, how could they have happened, genius?

Keep vomiting up your ignorance, idiot.



Which proves that the REALLY stupid and blatant ones managed to get caught.

And when they can actually find voter impersonation when they aren't even looking for it maybe....just maybe...knee jerk blue teamers like you might admit that it might be more prevalent than your playbook says.

And all I am saying is there is no data. You can't prove there is no vote fraud and I have no data to verify that there is. It is very logical however, that if you intentionally leave the barn door open you can't control what goes in or out.

[ChumpDumper]

Which proves that the REALLY stupid and blatant ones managed to get caught.

And when they can actually find voter impersonation when they aren't even looking for it maybe....just maybe...knee jerk blue teamers like you might admit that it might be more prevalent than your playbook says.

And all I am saying is there is no data. You can't prove there is no vote fraud and I have no data to verify that there is. It is very logical however, that if you intentionally leave the barn door open you can't control what goes in or out.OK, walk me through the process of voter impersonation.

Step by step.

Go.

[Wild Cobra]

OK, walk me through the process of voter impersonation.

Step by step.

Go.
Good idea. That way you can tell us from experience what works, and what doesn't.

[ChumpDumper]

Good idea. That way you can tell us from experience what works, and what doesn't.If one wants tips on stalking women, one will ask you.

[CosmicCowboy]

Simple.

I walk into your precinct polling place and tell them I'm Chumpdumper.

They have me sign by your name and take me over to the voting machine.

I vote for Romney and walk out.

It's not like they have security cameras and even if I'm caught it's only a misdemeanor.

More likely I just register a bunch of bums and vote for them.

[ChumpDumper]

Simple.

I walk into your precinct polling place and tell them I'm Chumpdumper.

They have me sign by your name and take me over to the voting machine.

I vote for Romney and walk out.

It's not like they have security cameras and even if I'm caught it's only a misdemeanor.What is my name?

Where do I live?

Where do I vote?

Misdemeanor? Could you show me the law? Thanks in advance.
More likely I just register a bunch of bums and vote for them.How many? In the same voting station?

As always, you have not thought this trough.

[Edward]

Isn't your name ChumpDumper?

[Wild Cobra]

Isn't your name ChumpDumper?
And here I thought it was DumbChump.

[CosmicCowboy]

What is my name?

Where do I live?

Where do I vote?

Misdemeanor? Could you show me the law? Thanks in advance.How many? In the same voting station?

As always, you have not thought this trough.

:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao

In the REAL world I'm a bum hired by a group like ACORN.

I go out into the shithole areas and register other street bums. Acorn pays me for every one I turn in.

I know they aren't gonna vote.

I turn in their voter registrations with all their information.

I (or the dudes at ACORN) now HAVE all the information needed to vote for them.

Me and my friends just go on election day and vote and vote and vote.

We celebrate at the end of the day with a big iced tub of 40's compliments of ACORN.

You can't say it doesn't happen because again, WE DON'T CHECK ID'S SO WE DON'T HAVE ANY DATA.

[ChumpDumper]

Actually if you're convicted of doing the deed, it's a felony.

http://law.onecle.com/texas/election/64.012.00.html

I'm all for making the willfully illegal attempt a felony.

[Wild Cobra]

CC, you forgot that ACORN can buy all the data they need from the US postal service when they request name and addresses for bulk mailings.

[ChumpDumper]

:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao

In the REAL world I'm a bum hired by a group like ACORN.

I go out into the shithole areas and register other street bums. Acorn pays me for every one I turn in.

I know they aren't gonna vote.

I turn in their voter registrations with all their information.

I (or the dudes at ACORN) now HAVE all the information needed to vote for them.

Me and my friends just go on election day and vote and vote and vote.

We celebrate at the end of the day with a big iced tub of 40's compliments of ACORN.

You can't say it doesn't happen because again, WE DON'T CHECK ID'S SO WE DON'T HAVE ANY DATA.Actually, the reason the election boards knew there were so many fraudulent registrations from ACORN is because ACORN flagged them all as fraudulent. They had to turn them in because not doing so would be breaking the law.

Man, just keep flaunting your ignorance. This is fun. Throw me another softball talking point from your email list.

[ChumpDumper]

CC, you forgot that ACORN can buy all the data they need from the US postal service when they request name and addresses for bulk mailings.That's how you find the addresses of the women you stalk.

[ChumpDumper]

Seriously, I'm not even against the principle of voter ID laws -- but don't pretend the laws being pimped aren't designed to suppress legal voters.

[CosmicCowboy]

Actually, the reason the election boards knew there were so many fraudulent registrations from ACORN is because ACORN flagged them all as fraudulent. They had to turn them in because not doing so would be breaking the law.

Man, just keep flaunting your ignorance. This is fun. Throw me another softball talking point from your email list.

:lmao listen to the dumb ass prick talking about talking points!

That one about "they turned themselves in" takes the fucking cake.

FBI was all over their cheating asses when they finally came to Jesus.

[Wild Cobra]

That's how you find the addresses of the women you stalk.
Do you realize how foolish you look when you resort to that same slander? We all know you are losing your case when that happens.

[CosmicCowboy]

Enjoy your blissful ignorance Chump. I'm headed to the ranch.

[Edward]

:lmao listen to the dumb ass prick talking about talking points!

That one about "they turned themselves in" takes the fucking cake.

FBI was all over their cheating asses when they finally came to Jesus.
So if the FBI was all over there asses then the alleged voter fraud was caught before it affected the polls amirite?

[ChumpDumper]

:lmao listen to the dumb ass prick talking about talking points!

That one about "they turned themselves in" takes the fucking cake.

FBI was all over their cheating asses when they finally came to Jesus.Sorry, it happened just like I said it did. They flagged the fraudulent registrations and turned them in. Prove me wrong.


Do you realize how foolish you look when you resort to that same slander? We all know you are losing your case when that happens.Do you realize that you still don't use that word. And that you were doing the exact same thing first? Don't dish it out if you can't take it.


Enjoy your blissful ignorance Chump. I'm headed to the ranch.GFYR, you ignorant bitch.

[Blake]

Do you realize how foolish you look when you resort to that same slander? We all know you are losing your case when that happens.

We all know you are a fool at post #1.

No slander, just truth.

[ChumpDumper]

So if the FBI was all over there asses then the alleged voter fraud was caught before it affected the polls amirite?There was never going to be any vote fraud.

CC truly believes there was a grand plan for the Dallas Cowboys to vote in Las Vegas. That's how much he believes his email talking point list.

[Spurminator]

Acorn!

[Wild Cobra]

We all know you are a fool at post #1.

No slander, just truth.
I an not RandomPropaganda.

[Edward]

I know CD, I was just humoring his story. ACORN's internal auditors caught the voter fraud and reported it properly. That's what happened, plain and simple.

[Wild Cobra]

I know CD, I was just humoring his story. ACORN's internal auditors caught the voter fraud and reported it properly. That's what happened, plain and simple.
What about the ones not obvious?

[ChumpDumper]

What about the ones not obvious?Explain what you mean and how you think they could be used to cast fraudulent votes.

[Wild Cobra]

Explain what you mean and how you think they could be used to cast fraudulent votes.
And after I do that, this is where you start into your childish "why game" mode.

Am I correct?

Sorry. I'm not playing your game.

[ChumpDumper]

And after I do that, this is where you start into your childish "why game" mode.

Am I correct?

Sorry. I'm not playing your game.No, you are incorrect.

I seriously want to know how you think this massive vote fraud conspiracy worked.

This is about the point where everyone starts whining and bails out, so don't feel alone if you choose to. Plenty of fail to go around with you guys.

[Blake]

I an not RandomPropaganda.

You're an ass talker.

And a fool.

[DarrinS]

Same people are also suppressed from buying a gun.

[ChumpDumper]

Same people are also suppressed from buying a gun.Wow. Darrin found a new way to fail again!

[boutons_deux]

Voter Purges in Florida and Colorado Find Almost ‘No Confirmed Noncitizens’

Colorado, which along with Florida was initially denied access to the database, says that an automated check of more than 1,400 names has flagged 177 people as possible noncitizens. Colorado has asked the Department of Homeland Security, which maintains the database, to assign a person to verify their status.

“For the moment, we have no confirmed noncitizens, but I would expect that most of those people would come back as noncitizens,” says Andrew Cole, a spokesman for Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler.

Both states are planning new purges before November. Voter purges are currently ongoing dozen states, all of which have Republican election officials.


http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/07/812871/voter-purges-in-florida-and-colorado-find-almost-no-confirmed-noncitizens/

[boutons_deux]

Ohio Secretary Of State Backs Down, Allows Local Officials To Set Early Voting Hours

yes on Sep 7, 2012 at 2:52 pm

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R)
After previously trying to restrict early voting, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) today reversed course on his decision to block county boards of elections from setting their own early voting hours in the days leading up to the November election.

Last month, Husted and Ohio Republicans led an effort to limit early voting hours in Democratic counties, including those with major cities like Columbus and Cleveland, while expanding early voting in Republican counties. After the ensuing uproar, Husted moved to restrict voting hours across the state, only to have his cuts to early voting restored by a federal court.

Husted responded to the ruling by refusing to comply with the court order. Expanding voting hours, he claimed in Directive 2012-40, will “only serve to confuse voters.” Therefore, the directive read, he was “prohibit[ing] county boards of elections from determining hours for the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday before the election.” The move led Judge Peter Economus to set a hearing for September 13: “The Court ORDERS that Defendant Secretary of State Jon Husted personally attend the hearing,” his release read.

Facing a direct court order, Husted has chosen instead to back down. This afternoon, Husted’s office released Directive 2012-42 with a brief message: “Directive 2012-40 is hereby rescinded.” As a result, county boards of elections will now be allowed to set their own hours, pending Husted’s appeal of the Obama for America v. Husted decision.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/07/814821/jon-husted-backs-down/

The big question in "dynamic, modern" America, why isn't ALL voting moved to Sat + Sun, rather than Tuesday, to enable the maximum citizen voting participation with the minimum of obstacles like trying to vote on a workday?

Is America so scared of change it can't move away from Tue?

[boutons_deux]

3 Ways the GOP Has Already Disenfranchised Thousands of Swing-State Voters

1. Criminalize Voter Registration Drives

This strategy can best be seen in—surprise—Florida. According to a new report [4] by Project Vote, at least 23 states have new rules for groups that conduct voter registration drives. The strictest of these require volunteers to undergo state trainings, set tight timetables for turning in registration applications and ban paying field workers based on the number of registrations filed. These kinds of new rules target groups like Project Vote [5], which once assisted low-income advocates such as ACORN in its drives.

Florida’s voter registration restrictions, which went into effect July 2011 and stayed in effect until this June (when they were thrown out by a federal court) also had big fines for any mistakes made with registration forms. A recent New York Times report [6] noted that groups that previously registered voters in Florida, such as the League of Women Voters, Rock the Vote and Florida Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), stopped while the law was in effect. Compared to this period a year before the 2008 election, Florida has 250,000 fewer new Democratic registrants, the Times said.

A just-released paper [7] by Dartmouth College’s Michael Herron and the University of Florida’s Daniel Smith traces the disproportionate impact of Florida’s suppression laws on likely Democrats. It noted that Rock the Vote registered 140,000 people in 2008, “primarily college students,” but did not resume registering voters once the new law took effect in July 2011. It found there were 79,000 fewer new voter registration applications between 2007 and 2011, of which 15,000 fewer applications were from people under 21. While Florida’s 2011 election law reforms affected voters across all ethnic groups, the political scientists found it was “more pronounced for Democratic registrants.”

While voter registration groups have been busy in Florida since early June’s federal court ruling, they still lost a year—thanks to the GOP. Floridians who are eligible to vote must register 29 days before the November election, so there is still time left. But the GOP didn’t stop there. If you moved from one county to another in Florida since the last election, you have to file a change of address form, or else you will be given a provisional ballot on Election Day.

Academics expect Florida will issue 300,000 provisional ballots on Election Day, a large number that will slow down polling place voting. Moreover, Florida’s November ballot will be the longest ever—also because of legislative changes—and that too will mean polling place delays. None of these complicating steps needed to happen. They were adopted by Republicans who want to erect barriers.

In Wisconsin, the GOP-controlled Legislature passed a law that requires anyone registering voters to be certified by the local election office where that new voter is a resident. Before the law, those working on registration drives could get a statewide certification. This new local requirement "is a real pain," said Andrea Kaminski of the Wisconsin's League of Women Voters, because the state has 1,750 local election jurisdictions. "I can tell you the numbers, but I can tell you it has hurt our efforts."

2. Disenfranchise Felons—Again

Florida’s shady reputation extends to its shameful treatment of former felons, of whom an estimated 200,000 lost their right to vote in 2012 because the state’s GOP Tea Party Governor Rick Scott and legislature reversed a voting rights reform from the previous governor, moderate Republican Charlie Crist. In 2011, Scott and the GOP passed a law that requires nonviolent offenders who have completed their sentence to wait five years before applying for a clemency board hearing to regain voting rights. All other former offenders must wait seven years.

According to the Sentencing Project’s latest numbers, as of 2010 there were 1.3 million ex-felons living in Florida—almost one out of every 10 voting-age adults. A recent report [8] in the Nation estimated that 200,000 former felons would have been eligible to vote this fall were it not for the state’s new disenfranchisement policy. “Blacks are 13 percent of registered voters in Florida, but 23 percent of disenfranchised felons,” it said.

Florida is not alone [9] in its treatment of former felons when it comes to voting rights. In Virginia, another 2012 swing state, there are about 350,000 ex-felons [9] who have not regained their voting rights. And in Iowa, another swing state, there are at least 12,000 [10] parolees and federal probationers, according to the Sentencing Project, many of whom just lost their voting rights. Last year, Iowa’s new Republican Governor, Terry Branstad, rescinded an executive order that had returned voting rights to ex-felons.

Nationally, there are 5.85 million disenfranchised felons, the Sentencing Project reports [10], with three-quarters living outside prisons and jails. Curiously, ex-felons are not a monolithic Democratic voting block, said Michael McDonald of George Mason University, a nationally known expert on voter turnout. Many who regain their voting rights are white-collar criminals who support Republicans. However, in states such as Florida, a disproportionate number come from communities of color where voting histories typically are pro-Democrat.

3. Spread Propaganda That Voters Will Be Policed

Every war has a propaganda component and the GOP’s war on Democratic voters is no exception. In Florida, Colorado, Michigan, Kansas and New Mexico, top state election officials have decried the alleged presence of tens of thousands of non-citizens on their voting rolls, which would be illegal. (The reality is the numbers are very small.) They have said the state must take steps to police the rolls and polls. This deliberate posturing has already had a negative impact on voters, according to Florida’s Ion Sancho, who is the supervisor of elections in Leon County, where the state capital is located.

In Florida, Scott and his handpicked secretary of state this summer claimed that there were more than 180,000 non-citizens on voter rolls and a massive purge was needed. They later took back that assertion, walking back from the poised purge and saying they’d study the issue after November. But the Florida GOP knew exactly what it was doing by making the false claims and preying on people’s fears. Sancho said his office keeps getting calls from would-be voters who think they lack the proper identifying documents to get a ballot in November.

“The newspapers talked about a purge—there wasn’t a purge,” he said. “And Florida did not change its voter ID law. But all this information is confusing young voters, confusing minorities, and nothing has changed [with voter ID requirements]. Nothing.”

Worse, where there have been changes in voting procedures, such as with moved or consolidated polling places after state and congressional redistricting, new requirements for filing change-of-address forms, and shortened early voting periods and new weekend voting hours, the state has yet to launch any public education efforts to avoid chaos this fall.

“Where are the public education efforts by the secretary of state,” Sancho asks. “Where are the public service ads in the state of Florida?” The answer is they are not on the air—not yet. And that is largely true in other swing states like Pennsylvania, where the state is now unrolling a new voter ID program that may affect hundreds of thousands of urban voters who do not have driver’s licenses.

http://www.alternet.org/print/3-ways-gop-has-already-disenfranchised-thousands-swing-state-voters

It's The (Repug Anti-) American Way

[RandomGuy]

WE DON'T HAVE ANY DATA.

So why do we need a new law and new beaurocracy to solve a problem we have no information on, other than it will likely disenfranshise a lot of legimitate voters?

The fraud this is supposed to prevent is already criminalized, as noted.

More fact and explanation fail.

The longer Republicans fail to produce actual instances and real, MATERIAL fraud, the more it looks like a cynical bullshit ploy to supress hostile voting blocks by a political party, which is what *I* think it is.

But, if you Republicans think that this will be effective, you are underestimating how much this is really pissing people on the left off.

Here is a fair example, and I wouldn't ask anyone to read the whole thing, or even agree with it, but what you should note is the tone and, more importantly, the results.


Like others here I was fuming when the GOP voter-muzzling efforts began rolling in earnest last year. My outrage was tempered only by a sneaking soupcon that the whole operation might maybe, just maybe, blow up in the faces of the GOP by focusing attention on voter registration and simply angering otherwise apathetic people to vote. I had my doubts, but recent updates from fellow organizers are beginning to convince me otherwise. I got a recent Florida-focused memo from an old pal in The Resistance as they've been calling themselves (one of the anti-Tea Partiers that sprang up in 2010) and wanted to share the good news. The massive registration of the growing Puerto-Rican population and the in-your-face defeats of GOP voter suppression practices are especially sweet.

.
Pathetic, desperate Republican vote-suppression attempts are FAILING even in Florida and Colorado, two of the states these crooks have targeted most aggressively in their neo-Jim Crowism. Our former distaste for the GOP has, in the last four years, turned into a fiery hatred of this band of plutocratic, corrupt, anti-democracy traitors masquerading as a political party- we want to crush the Republicans and smash their spirit, and there's no better way to do that than to get our voters out to the polls. We're happy to report that the Republican strategy is backfiring massively. Our group is mostly based in the West, but in the last few weeks our small contingent in Florida alone has managed to:

- Register thousands of Puerto-Ricans and fire them up to vote in November. The mass Puerto-Rican migration into Florida, both from the island and from New York, has been one of the least-noticed demographic transformations of the past decade. It's ironically a result largely of anti-union and job-wrecking policies in both Puerto Rico and Bloomberg's New York that have been pushing out the Puerto-Rican population, with massive migration not only to hubs like Orlando and Miami but increasingly to Tampa, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Gainesville and even Pensacola. GOP anti-Latino and anti-working class policies have angered Puerto Ricans into becoming a very pro-Democratic bloc, and they're American citizens with full voting rights. Still, until 2012, this population has had rather low voter participation. But a mobilized, high-voting Puerto-Rican population is the Florida Republicans' worst nightmare, and we're working hard to make that nightmare come true for them. Rick Scott's voter suppression fail in Florida has been targeted in major part to discourage Puerto-Rican registration and voting, and the focused efforts of our and other grass-roots groups in the state are more than making up for it.

- Aggressively confront GOP lackeys in municipalities who try to put up administrative barriers to voting, or crooked Florida officials or employers who try to interfere with the sacred right to vote on Election Day. Just as in 2000, many employers with large numbers of minorities and young people in their work forces are flouting the law by intimidating their workers against voting, imposing double shifts or otherwise putting up barriers to going out and voting on Election Day. With every single instance that our grapevine has heard, we've notified the appropriate volunteers and legal teams and forced the vote-suppressors to back down. This is one of those areas where being a royal pain-in-the-ass will solve the problem in 90+% of cases. Most of these GOP bootlickers don't believe in their "cause" since the Republican Party doesn't really have a cause anymore outside of encouraging corruption, they're largely dupes or paid-off stooges of the Koch Brothers or other sources. So once they learn that we'll make their lives miserable, they tend to back down. And the rest? Then we sic our nastiest lawyers and rabble-rousers on them and make their lives even more miserable.

- Massively step up vote-count monitoring efforts with our team. Given what happened in 2000 and 2004 as well as the current polarization, if there's even a hint of Republican tampering with the vote count or voting machines, there'll be riots in 2012 that'll make those of the 60's look like a picnic. We've massively boosted our volunteer and staff vote monitoring efforts throughout Florida to demand paper trails, documentation, corroboration and full, redundant transparency of every single vote, no exceptions. We've made it clear that we're watching every move, every tally, every software tweak, every machine and every voting center to ensure an accurate count, and that any attempts to alter the vote count will bring immediate legal attacks and prosecution for a felony, with harsh penalties in the wake.

- Ensure that multilingual ballots are available where pertinent in Spanish, Tagalog, Hindi, Bengali, Haitian Creole, Chinese, Portuguese, French, Hmong, Laotian or other relevant languages, all of which increase voting participation in often marginalized minority communities in Florida. By federal mandates, ballots can be requested in a language with a significant presence in a given community, and with the help of motivated volunteers in our own diverse community, we've been able to help draw up and provide the relevant ballots as well as to provide voter education.

- Couple higher naturalization of immigrant communities with voter registration. In states like Florida in particular, there's a large pool of naturalization-eligible immigrants who haven't yet had a chance to naturalize, or for whom Republican interference has sometimes deliberately contributed to administrative delays. We've been aggressively in touch with the relevant community leaders and authorities to accelerate naturalization, voter registration and GOTV efforts in general. We've been making major gains in the voter rolls not only in Florida and Colorado, but in every state where our teams have been working.

- Provide information and actively boycott companies, casinos and products owned by the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Rupert Murdoch, the Waltons and other communities trying to use Citizens United to pour in money for GOP Super-Pacs and subvert democracy, while supporting their competitors. The Koch Brothers are repulsive for more reasons than we can name, a pair of silver-spoon-fed heirs to a fortune who've never had to work an honest day since they inherited billions from Daddy, but feel moved to attack the rights and needs of 99% of Americans in service of their filthy fantasy of a US run by a sort of quasi-feudalism. We've come to thoroughly hate these crooks, and we've spread the information (available on many Websites) to boycott their products and have a tangible effect. Since the Koch Brothers especially have oil interests, we've been hurting them (and helping the environment) by carpooling and using public transportation at every opportunity. Also makes it much easier to team up for a good pizza after a hard day's work!

- Confront, humiliate and otherwise discourage Republican hired thugs who try to attack or intimidate voter registration and GOTV volunteers. I know some of you have dealt with this in other states, too, but the Kochs and other jerks have been giving money to losers to go and obstruct voter registration teams out int he field. Initially we paid them little heed, but when they got persistent, we began responding them with the harshest, most degrading, most personally humiliating comments we could, and gradually these have been wearing down even the paid-off idiots. Strong, smart and deservedly malicious insults really can have an effect on these GOP chumps without the need for anything further (though one idiot who got in the personal space of one of our volunteers got an inadvertent elbow to the nose, which made us quite happy to see).

- Team up with local businesses to run voter registration drives in the state. Starbucks is well-known for this, but many local shops from florists to pizza parlors and bars have been joining up. It's great PR for them, and a great opportunity to register voters- with large numbers of youth and minority voters- in the process, and since it's on private property, there's absolutely nothing the GOP voter-suppression losers can do about it.

- Boosting our GOTV with simple, unqualified messages focusing on Republican attempts to sabotage Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Yes, it's tapping into people's fears, but that's because the modern GOP is very much a dangerous organization that we should fear, loathe and vigorously fight. No elaboration, no hedging, no hesitation- just hitting the Republicans where it hurts them most.

- Further boosting GOTV with the framing of our pitches. Others have diaried this before, but even subtle shifts in word choice matter tremendously in boosting Dem turnout. Browse this research article (Proc Nat Acad Sciences): http://www.pnas.org/... also discussed at http://www.physorg.com/... and at DKos: http://www.dailykos.com/...
In every pamphlet we send out or call we make, this is crucial: little word changes that personalize the election, provide voters with a distinct identity and linked behavior (the way e.g. social and religious groups do), and also emphasize empowerment and participation in a civic duty (“being a voter” vs. “doing the chore of voting”) dramatically increase turnout. Also as commenters noted, we don’t simply frame the vote as a weak choice (“Will you vote” or “Please vote”), but as a default, necessary action in people’s minds, that itself promotes social and peer-group expectations (“What time/where will you vote in 2012? Here are the ways to do it…”). If any of you work in marketing (or have such friends in your social network), we'd love to hear further suggestions. With voters today so busy and so many issues crowding the day, understanding this kind of subtle psychology is essential to our GOTV efforts.

- Massive increases in voter registration drives and GOTV on college campuses, with student leaders often teaming up and chiming in. This has naturally been a target of GOP voter-suppression efforts in Florida as in other states, and our intensive focus on college campuses has more than counteracted their own corruption. College campuses and even some high schools with recently-turned 18-year-olds continue to be a focus for our voter registration drives.
.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/09/1129498/-Dismantling-the-GOP-voter-suppression-machine-a-field-report


As I said, take the slant with a grain of salt, but keep in mind GOP efforts at voter supression have consequences.

I will, as a Democrat find it funny when Republicans start losing elections in states where they are actively seeking to supress Democratic blocs, for the simple reason that these blocs have the capacity to self-organize and are getting really mad about the obvious bullshit.

[RandomGuy]

Originally Posted by RandomGuy

How much of that fraud is covered by existing laws, and how much will be prevented by the proposed voter ID law?


:lmao

now that's some weak sauce shit.



It isn't "weak sauce" to ask for some decent evidence before changing public policy.

That is how governments should work. Identify real problems, gather information abou them, and impliment effective, balanced solutions.

[RandomGuy]

No, you are incorrect.

I seriously want to know how you think this massive vote fraud conspiracy worked.

This is about the point where everyone starts whining and bails out, so don't feel alone if you choose to. Plenty of fail to go around with you guys.

Pretty much.

After they have exhaused their emailed talkiing points, it becomes of alot of hand-waving.

LOL "randompropaganda" from the "I got it from an email" crowd. :lmao

[CosmicCowboy]

Pretty much.

After they have exhaused their emailed talkiing points, it becomes of alot of hand-waving.

LOL "randompropaganda" from the "I got it from an email" crowd. :lmao

Describes you perfectly.

[boutons_deux]

Is John Roberts Coming for Your Vote?

Watching the almost uniform sea of white faces in attendance at the 2012 Republican National Convention called to mind one of the defining hallmarks of all reactionary movements of the modern era: Whatever their particular social and historical contexts, they seek not a new future free of past injustices but a return to mythologized past glories.

For today’s tea-party-dominated Republicans, the glorified past is steeped in racial- and gender-based nostalgia. It is a vision of America drawn from simplistic and distorted allusions to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, the infantile hyper-individualism of Ayn Rand and, on a more mundane level, patriarchal 1950s sitcoms like “Leave It to Beaver.” It is a vision in which clean-cut, white, Christian men hold all positions of responsibility and lead prosperous suburban lives with dutiful and well-coiffed spouses like June Cleaver at their sides. It is a vision in which racial minorities, to the extent that they are ever seen, happily accept their second-class citizenship.

The catalog of suppression techniques included the poll tax, first enacted in Georgia in 1871 and, by 1904, adopted throughout the former Confederacy; the literacy test, first imposed by South Carolina in 1882; white-only primaries; and state laws and local ordinances that made it difficult for black voters to establish residency and register. And where all else failed, the old South was never above outright intimidation of black voters and African-Americans seeking elective office.

Advertisement
The net effect on the franchise was devastating. The Georgia poll tax alone, estimates California Institute of Technology historian J. Morgan Kousser, resulted in a 50 percent drop in black voter turnout. The turnout of poor whites also plummeted, decreasing, according to Kousser, between 16 and 28 percent.

The Supreme Court was a willing participant in the suppression regime, unanimously rejecting a constitutional challenge brought by a 28-year-old impoverished white man to the Georgia poll tax in 1937 (Breedlove v. Suttles). It was not until 1966, after ratification of the 24th Amendment (prohibiting poll taxes in federal elections) and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that the high court declared all poll taxes illegal under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections).

There are already petitions from North Carolina and Alabama pending before the Supreme Court of Chief Justice John Roberts that seek to invalidate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act—the all-important provision that requires states and localities with a legacy of electoral discrimination to obtain “preclearance” from the Justice Department or the courts before implementing new laws. The Roberts court is already on record, in a 2009 case from Texas, questioning the continued viability of Section 5 (Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder). The Roberts court has also approved photo ID statutes, having upheld in 2008 Indiana’s highly restrictive ID law (Crawford v. Marion County Election Board).

Whether or not Obama is re-elected, and no matter how creative the formal legal challenges to suppression are, overcoming the entrenched bias of the Roberts court is doubtful at best. However, this is not 1937 or 1957.

Compare the abundance of white faces at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., with the multicultural, multiracial faces at the Democratic Party’s meeting in Charlotte, N.C. Whatever we may think of the current policy shortcomings of the Democrats—and there are many—that multicultural, multiracial base is the nation’s authentic present and its certain future. Sooner or later, that base will lay the tea party’s corrosive nostalgia—and voter suppression along with it—to rest. It’s only a question of time.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_john_roberts_coming_for_your_vote_20120905/

[CosmicCowboy]

Is John Roberts Coming for Your Vote?

Watching the almost uniform sea of white faces in attendance at the 2012 Republican National Convention called to mind one of the defining hallmarks of all reactionary movements of the modern era: Whatever their particular social and historical contexts, they seek not a new future free of past injustices but a return to mythologized past glories.

For today’s tea-party-dominated Republicans, the glorified past is steeped in racial- and gender-based nostalgia. It is a vision of America drawn from simplistic and distorted allusions to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, the infantile hyper-individualism of Ayn Rand and, on a more mundane level, patriarchal 1950s sitcoms like “Leave It to Beaver.” It is a vision in which clean-cut, white, Christian men hold all positions of responsibility and lead prosperous suburban lives with dutiful and well-coiffed spouses like June Cleaver at their sides. It is a vision in which racial minorities, to the extent that they are ever seen, happily accept their second-class citizenship.

The catalog of suppression techniques included the poll tax, first enacted in Georgia in 1871 and, by 1904, adopted throughout the former Confederacy; the literacy test, first imposed by South Carolina in 1882; white-only primaries; and state laws and local ordinances that made it difficult for black voters to establish residency and register. And where all else failed, the old South was never above outright intimidation of black voters and African-Americans seeking elective office.

Advertisement
The net effect on the franchise was devastating. The Georgia poll tax alone, estimates California Institute of Technology historian J. Morgan Kousser, resulted in a 50 percent drop in black voter turnout. The turnout of poor whites also plummeted, decreasing, according to Kousser, between 16 and 28 percent.

The Supreme Court was a willing participant in the suppression regime, unanimously rejecting a constitutional challenge brought by a 28-year-old impoverished white man to the Georgia poll tax in 1937 (Breedlove v. Suttles). It was not until 1966, after ratification of the 24th Amendment (prohibiting poll taxes in federal elections) and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that the high court declared all poll taxes illegal under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections).

There are already petitions from North Carolina and Alabama pending before the Supreme Court of Chief Justice John Roberts that seek to invalidate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act—the all-important provision that requires states and localities with a legacy of electoral discrimination to obtain “preclearance” from the Justice Department or the courts before implementing new laws. The Roberts court is already on record, in a 2009 case from Texas, questioning the continued viability of Section 5 (Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder). The Roberts court has also approved photo ID statutes, having upheld in 2008 Indiana’s highly restrictive ID law (Crawford v. Marion County Election Board).

Whether or not Obama is re-elected, and no matter how creative the formal legal challenges to suppression are, overcoming the entrenched bias of the Roberts court is doubtful at best. However, this is not 1937 or 1957.

Compare the abundance of white faces at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., with the multicultural, multiracial faces at the Democratic Party’s meeting in Charlotte, N.C. Whatever we may think of the current policy shortcomings of the Democrats—and there are many—that multicultural, multiracial base is the nation’s authentic present and its certain future. Sooner or later, that base will lay the tea party’s corrosive nostalgia—and voter suppression along with it—to rest. It’s only a question of time.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_john_roberts_coming_for_your_vote_20120905/

All done by Democrats. It was Republicans that freed the slaves, Bot.

[Clipper Nation]

I love when dumbass neocons take credit for civil rights, while conveniently leaving out the fact that the GOP's shift towards neocon Bible-thumping bigotry started when the Dixiecrats switched parties in 1964 because of the Civil Rights Act.... do you really think we're that gullible, B?

[boutons_deux]

All done by Democrats. It was Republicans that freed the slaves, Bot.

It's the Repugs who stuffed the SCOTUS with extreme right-wing, pro-institution/anti-citizen JINOs

The Repugs who freed the slaves don't exist anymore, hell, even the Eisenhauer Repugs are gone, and and St Ronnie wouldn't have a chance in today's Repug extremism.

But keep dishonestly claiming emancipation for your side, which is more honestly characterized by the Repug racist Southern Strategy.

[Clipper Nation]

St Ronnie wouldn't have a chance in today's Repug extremism.
St. Ronnie will be winning the Repug nomination in 2016.... Ron bless

[CosmicCowboy]

I love when dumbass neocons take credit for civil rights, while conveniently leaving out the fact that the GOP's shift towards neocon Bible-thumping bigotry started when the Dixiecrats switched parties in 1964 because of the Civil Rights Act.... do you really think we're that gullible, B?

:lmao at you trying to rewrite history and make it look like Republicans were against the civil rights act.

[boutons_deux]

Florida Voter Purge Caught Just One Non-Citizen Voter

Months after Florida first began its purge of the state’s voter rolls, officials now have something to show for it: a single prosecutable case of voter fraud by an immigrant from Canada. Josef Sever, 52, is the only person found to have been falsely presenting himself as a US citizen in Florida, and voted in the last two presidential elections despite being a Canadian citizen. Earlier this month, a spokesman for Florida’s Secretary of State Ken Detzner told NPR that the state was investigating “several” possible cases of voter fraud. That number now appears to be down to just six other outstanding investigations into possible cases of voter fraud, in a state where 8.3 million people voted in 2008.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/10/819111/florida-voter-purge-caught-just-one-non-citizen-voter/

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao at you trying to rewrite history and make it look like Republicans were against the civil rights act.

FYI, 21 Democrats voted against it in the senate vs. 6 Republicans voting against it.

91 Democrats in the House voted against it vs. 35 Republicans voting against it.

[RandomGuy]

Describes you perfectly.

:rolleyes

"I'm rubber and you're glue..."?

Seriously?

[RandomGuy]

:lmao at you trying to rewrite history and make it look like Republicans were against the civil rights act.


By party and region
Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.

The original House version:

Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7–93%)
Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0–100%)
Northern Democrats: 145–9 (94–6%)
Northern Republicans: 138–24 (85–15%)
The Senate version:

Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5–95%)
Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0–100%)
Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98–2%)
Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84–16%)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

Republican and Democrat had less to do with it than region.

One could note that Republicans in any region voted less for it than their Democratic counterparts, percentage wise.

:lmao

[CosmicCowboy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

Republican and Democrat had less to do with it than region.

One could note that Republicans in any region voted less for it than their Democratic counterparts, percentage wise.

:lmao

Simple fact is a lot more Democrats voted against the 1964 voting rights act than Republicans.

You can spin and spin and spin but that is an irrefutable fact.

[TeyshaBlue]

So why do we need a new law and new beaurocracy to solve a problem we have no information on...

That's odd. I swear that's not the first time I've heard that question asked.:lol

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201988

[boutons_deux]

St. Ronnie will be winning the Repug nomination in 2016.... Ron bless

he raised taxes, so bullies Norquist and Rove would destroy St Ronnie, if he even made it far enough to be under consideration.

[CosmicCowboy]

That's odd. I swear that's not the first time I've heard that question asked.:lol

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201988

A little different scenario. It doesn't cost a dime to have voters show an ID to vote.

[ChumpDumper]

Simple fact is a lot more Democrats voted against the 1964 voting rights act than Republicans.

You can spin and spin and spin but that is an irrefutable fact.Simple fact is Republicans are passing these laws to suppress votes of people they think will legally vote Democrat and nothing else.

You can spin and spin and spin and try to change the subject and claim scoreboard 48 years ago but that is an irrefutable fact.

[boutons_deux]

Simple fact is a lot more Democrats voted against the 1964 voting rights act than Republicans.

You can spin and spin and spin but that is an irrefutable fact.

It's not spin. The southern/rural Dem racists were recruited into Repugs by Nixon's southern strategy after the civil rights battles and advances of the 1960s. The country is still fucked up by ignorant , "Christian", Bible-thumping assholes and issues.

So the racist Repugs of today are the descendants of the racist southern/rural Dems of the pre-Southern Strategy, eg, Texas.

The South is really a different country but would suffer mightily if it were a separate country, like Greece, and not bailed out by blue state taxpayers.

[RandomGuy]

Simple fact is a lot more Democrats voted against the 1964 voting rights act than Republicans.

You can spin and spin and spin but that is an irrefutable fact.

You have two pastures, and two seperate types of cows.

One year a disease sweeps through both herds, a total of 420 cows.

The ranchhands get the following data about the well and sick cows, with the number of well cows listed first, the number of cows that got really sick listed second.


Southern Pasture Holsteins: 7–87 (7–93%)
Southern Pasture Longhorns: 0–10 (0–100%)

Northern Pasture Holsteins: 145–9 (94–6%)
Northern Pasture Longhorns: 138–24 (85–15%)


Is it more important to know the rate of illness, or the total numbers in determining their individual herds susceptibility to the disease?

This should be an easy question for a rancher to answer, I would imagine.

Assuming of course, an honest, direct answer.

[TeyshaBlue]

Who in their right mind would put Holsteins on the South pasture?

[CosmicCowboy]

Who in their right mind would put Holsteins on the South pasture?

:lol

[TeyshaBlue]

It's obvious that by their very name, Hosteins are blue team cows and as such, should reside in the Northern pastures where they will support those racists bubba-longhorns in the southern pastures.

[CosmicCowboy]

And none of them really like the black angus.

[TeyshaBlue]

:lmao

[CosmicCowboy]

If they were really fair they would give both pastures back to the red brangus they stole it from.

[George Gervin's Afro]

You can spin and spin and spin and try to change the subject and claim scoreboard 48 years ago but that is an irrefutable fact.


:lmao

[Clipper Nation]

Simple fact is a lot more Democrats voted against the 1964 voting rights act than Republicans.

You can spin and spin and spin but that is an irrefutable fact.

It's irrefutable as long as you ignore context, maybe....

It's also irrefutable that today's GOP neocons originated from the "Solid South" Democrat machine that switched to the GOP because of the Civil Rights Act, but you'll just ignore that because it makes Team Red look bad....

[CosmicCowboy]

It's irrefutable as long as you ignore context, maybe....

It's also irrefutable that today's GOP neocons originated from the "Solid South" Democrat machine that switched to the GOP because of the Civil Rights Act, but you'll just ignore that because it makes Team Red look bad....

That's bullshit. Those guys are all dead or retired. Thanks for playing.

[RandomGuy]

That's bullshit. Those guys are all dead or retired. Thanks for playing.

... and everybody who replaced them was *completely* different. :rolleyes

[Homeland Security]

... and everybody who replaced them was *completely* different. :rolleyes

The neocon braintrust is a bunch of interventionist Jews who won the ear of guys like Cheney and Bush, you shit for brains. Their ideological forefather is Leo Strauss, not George Wallace.

[RandomGuy]

The neocon braintrust is a bunch of interventionist Jews who won the ear of guys like Cheney and Bush, you shit for brains. Their ideological forefather is Leo Strauss, not George Wallace.

Is this Jew conspiracy going to break up the US, as you so feverently hope?

[boutons_deux]

That's bullshit. Those guys are all dead or retired. Thanks for playing.

bullshit. the current, and future, southern racists are now Repugs, while the generations before 1970 were racist Dems.

combining the Repug Southern Strategy with the Repug lie "we are the party of God" to pick up the racist Southern Baptists and other Bible-thumpers was brilliant politics and a very effective way to create extreme, no-compromise polarization.

[Homeland Security]

Is this Jew conspiracy going to break up the US, as you so feverently hope?
Everything the neocons were ever going to accomplish already has been implemented. The bipartisan foreign policy consensus has continued to be neoconservative under Obama, largely because he was such a neophyte coming in and had no different ideas to assert.

If you read Bush's memoirs, you see that Obama has continued Bush's underpants-gnome vision of "spreading democracy" in the Middle East.

1) Topple existing regimes or let them be toppled
2) ???
3) Liberal democracy!

[Clipper Nation]

That's bullshit. Those guys are all dead or retired. Thanks for playing.

"Originated from" doesn't mean that the same exact Dixiecrats are still elected officials, dumbfuck.... what it means is that when they moved to the GOP, they brought a backwards, Bible-thumping, anti-civil-rights, pro-warmongering agenda with them that still persists in the mainstream GOP today, tbh....

[Clipper Nation]

The neocon braintrust is a bunch of interventionist Jews who won the ear of guys like Cheney and Bush, you shit for brains. Their ideological forefather is Leo Strauss, not George Wallace.

Wrong.... the neocon shit started before Cheney or Bush.... If the Dixiecrats didn't switch parties, Bush/Cheney would have been Democrats, tbh....

[Wild Cobra]

The constant misuse of the word neocon shows how ignorant people are.

[Homeland Security]

Wrong.... the neocon shit started before Cheney or Bush.... If the Dixiecrats didn't switch parties, Bush/Cheney would have been Democrats, tbh....

The central think tank for the neoconservative foreign policy exemplified by the Bush Administration was the Project for a New American Century, which started in 1997.

The Bush family has been Republican from time immemorial. George W. Bush's grandfather was a Republican senator from Connecticut.

Dick Cheney was born in Nebraska, and raised in Nebraska and Wyoming. His foreign policy views were shaped by an esteemed professor at Yale in Connecticut. Cheney's first political job was working for a Representative from Wisconsin.

So far as I know, among Nebraska, Wyoming, Wisconsin, and Connecticut, none of those states are in the South or marked by a bunch of former Dixiecrats switching parties.

I would suggest you just simply stop responding to my posts since you don't have the first fucking clue what you're talking about.

[Wild Cobra]

I would suggest you just simply stop responding to my posts since I don't have the first fucking clue what I'm talking about.

I'm also a troll

[boutons_deux]

:lol

Arkansas GOP Outraged About Voter Suppression After Candidate Gets Kicked Off The Voter Rolls (http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/02/3575137/arkansas-attorney-general-voter-registration/)


http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/AP875285161333-638x425.jpg

Arkansas Attorney General candidate Leslie Rutledge is crying foul (http://www.bluehogreport.com/2014/09/30/breaking-leslie-rutledges-voter-registration-canceled-candidacy-now-in-question/) over the cancellation of her voter registration form. Rutledge, the Republican nominee for Attorney General, was kicked off the voter rolls after it was discovered that she failed to cancel previous voter registrations in Washington, DC and Virginia, and re-register in Pulaski County when she moved.

Pulaski County Clerk Larry Crane, a Democrat, said he was legally obligated to remove her after receiving a letter flagging this issue.

Rutledge and Republican groups are calling the removal a “dirty trick” that was politically motivated. But what happened to Rutledge is in fact very common, and becoming even more common after the state implemented a number of strict voter restrictions, including a controversial voter ID law being litigated in court Thursday.

Democratic Party chair Vincent Insalaco pointed out (http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2014/10/01/forget-voter-registration-issue-leslie-rutledges-ignorance-of-law-and-attacks-on-county-clerk-make-her-unfit-to-be-attorney-general) in his statement that “a thousand eligible voters had their absentee ballots thrown out earlier this year following the implementation of more rigorous voting guidelines.”

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/02/3575137/arkansas-attorney-general-voter-registration/

[TeyshaBlue]

Not on thinkprogress:lol
Bridgeport State Rep. Christina Ayala arrested on 19 voting fraud charges

http://www.nhregister.com/government-and-politics/20140926/bridgeport-state-rep-christina-ayala-arrested-on-19-voting-fraud-charges


:facepalm

[boutons_deux]

More Repug voter suppression
Need an ID to vote? Sorry, your DMV office is closed. (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/02/1333799/-Need-an-ID-to-vote-Sorry-your-DMV-office-is-closed)


http://images.dailykos.com/images/6111/large/RTR377SC.jpg?1347660875

If you need an ID to vote in Wisconsin you may be out of luck depending on where you live.While thirty-five Democratic lawmakers (http://www.wkow.com/story/26670238/2014/09/30/democrats-call-on-wisdot-to-extend-dmv-hours-for-photo-id) have been pleading for the governor to extend hours at DMV offices across the state, Governor Walker has stated:


"I think you're gonna hear a lot of talk about it, but in the end, we've actually seen fewer people seeking free ID's recently than we've seen in the past couple years.
There's no barrier. That's a lot of hype and hysteria by some on the left."

Governor Walker, that is not hype. Across 40 counties there are DMV service centers that are only open two days a week or less. That is sixty percent (http://fox6now.com/2014/09/25/group-calls-on-dot-to-extend-hours-at-all-dmv-locations-so-voters-can-get-their-ids/) of the state DMV locations only being open a handful of days before the election.

Assemblyman Andy Jorgenson (D-Milton) has stated (http://host.madison.com/daily-cardinal/assembly-democrats-ask-dmvss-to-expand-hours/article_500886ca-4850-11e4-af5b-670d5106f205.html):

If Wisconsin doesn’t offer DMV service hours that make sense for its citizens, in effect, it will be stripping thousands of people of their right to vote.

Wisconsin only has one DMV office for every 689 square miles—extending the hours now is not about hype, it is not about partisanship. It is about making sure every eligible voter in Wisconsin has the ability to cast a vote.

Scott Walker has proven time and again that he does not care for the people of Wisconsin, if he did, he would extend the operating hours of the DMV to ensure that every citizen who wants an ID can get an ID.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/02/1333799/-Need-an-ID-to-vote-Sorry-your-DMV-office-is-closed?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

Repugs, they're nasty motherfuckers

[Wild Cobra]

Why are liberals/democrats/progressives such crybabies?

[SnakeBoy]

Repugs, they're nasty motherfuckers


Democrats, too stupid to figure out how to get an ID.

[boutons_deux]

bubbas, right-wingers, tea baggers, too stupid to know they're being played by right-wing oligarchs.

[boutons_deux]

Appeals court says Wisconsin voter ID law is constitutional

“Both the prevention of voter impersonation on election day and the preservation of public confidence in the integrity of elections justify a photo ID requirement,” the judges said in their 23-page ruling.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/appeals-court-says-wisconsin-voter-id-law-constitutional/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

fucking judges, buying the VRWC/ALEC/Repug propaganda! :lol

[m>s]

fuck off shill no one ever reads your links

[Nbadan]

bubbas, right-wingers, tea baggers, too stupid to know they're being played by right-wing oligarchs.

If your poor, in other words, working-poor, and your in a red state and you vote GOP

:lmao at you!!

[boutons_deux]

If your poor, in other words, working-poor, and your in a red state and you vote GOP

That's the genius of the Repugs, getting low-info, low-wage racist WHITE MEN to vote against their own best interests REPEATEDLY, plus positioning the Repugs as the Christian party. :lol ALL LIES!

God, guns, gays, feminazis, furriners, abortion, blacks, browns: the red staters fall for it every time, and get fucked by Repugs every time.

The most beautiful example was dubya in 2004 running as the war president, saving America from terrorists and gays, then after the election he on his risible, FAILED national sales tour to privatize Social Security so Wall St could loot SS.

[boutons_deux]

Voter-ID ruling to carry consequences in Wisconsin

A federal court in April ruled against Wisconsin’s voter-ID law, concluding that the restriction violated the Voting Rights Act’s ban on racial discrimination. Last month, however, a three-judge panel on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals – featuring three Republican-appointed jurists – lifted (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/court-rules-wisconsin-voter-id-law-can-go-effect-immediately) the lower court’s injunction, creating some election chaos in the Badger State.

Yesterday, as Zach Roth reported (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/court-upholds-wisconsin-voter-id-law-scotus-mulls-case), the same 7th Circuit panel finished the job, ruling on the merits.


The 23-page ruling, written by Judge Frank Easterbrook, finds that the law is constitutional and does not violate the Voting Rights Act’s (VRA) ban on racial discrimination. The opinion is striking for its blithe tone in upholding a law that could disenfranchise many thousands. One prominent election law scholar called it “horrendous.” […]

The law has likely disenfranchised voters already. When the appeals panel abruptly put the law into effect last month after it had been blocked for over two years, hundreds of people had already returned absentee ballots without ID, since the ID requirement wasn’t in effect at the time they voted.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has also already approved the voting restrictions, concluding that “voter fraud” is a legitimate “concern.” The ruling specifically pointed to a Republican voter in Milwaukee accused of 13 counts of voter fraud – none of which (http://electionlawblog.org/?p=63868), ironically, would have been prevented by a voter-ID law.

In April, when District court judge Lynn Adelman issued an injunction against the law, he estimated that 300,000 registered voters across the state lack the IDs they need to vote. The judge arrived at that estimate by comparing the testimony of two witnesses, a statistical marketing consultant, Leland Beatty, and a professor at the University of Georgia, M.V. Hood III. Beatty and Hood both crunched through the DMV records with registered voter files to determine how many registered voters in the state lack either a driver’s license or state ID card, the two most common forms of identification. Using different methodologies, the two men produced different estimates. Hood said between 4.9 percent (167,351) and 10.9 percent (368,824) of registered voters lacked ID, while Beatty estimated 9.4 percent (317,735).

Even Hood’s low-end estimate of 167,351 disenfranchised voters is enough voters to swing a tight election. Walker won in 2010 by only 124,638 votes. According to the Huffington Post Pollster, Walker is currently leading Burke 48.3 to 46.3.


http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/voter-id-ruling-carry-consequences-wisconsin

Repug judges CHANGED THE VOTING RULES AFTER mail-in voting had begun.

WI Repug legislature REFUSED all funds to educate people about the Voter ID requirement, to make sure Repug voter suppression was most effective.

Walker is a Kock-sucking puppet. His WI job creation he promised is actually way below the national average, proving once again that Repugs lie that cutting taxes does nothing for job creation and economic growth, we saw 2001 - 2008.

[boutons_deux]

Six States Where GOP Voter Suppression Tactics Could Sway The Outcome

1. Ohio.

Last week, one day before early voting was to begin, the U.S. Supreme Court, voted 5-4 along its usual divide to uphold a cut in the early voting pushed by that state’s Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted. While Ohio still has 28 days of early voting, its Republicans have long groused that on the very first weekend of that option Ohians could both register to vote—and cast ballots. That friendly window was closed by Ohio Republicans and locked shut by Supreme Court’s conservative majority, all appointed by Republican presidents.

2. Kansas.

As most political junkies know, a half-dozen of 2014’s U.S. Senate races were already nail-biters over whether Democrats would lose their Senate majority before something surprising happened in Kansas. The Democrat in the race, Chad Taylor, dropped out, boosting Independent Greg Orman against incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. In response, the state’s partisan Republican Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, went to court to force Democrats to name another candidate. A state court told Kobach to back off.

3. North Carolina.

This state had some of the South’s most progressive election laws until rightwingers took control of the Legislature and governor’s office and this year rolled back the clock on voting rights. Those moves have been tied up in court, with a federal appeals court suspending two of the more insidious changes: ending same-day voter registration, and not counting ballots turned in at the wrong precinct, which could just be a different table in a high school gym. Late Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Fourth Circuit's decision, meaning the GOP's new and restrictive rules will be in effect this fall.

4. Wisconsin.

There are a handful of states where Republicans have used the myth of rampant voter fraud—one person voting many times—to impose tougher statewide ID requirements before getting a polling place ballot. Nevermind that this almost never happens, and if it does, whoever initials a poll book to get a ballot has essentially signed a confession for the cops. This tactic is intended to deter first-time voters, like students and poorer people, from voting, as they're seen by Republicans as supporting Democrats.

In Wisconsin, where the union-busting Republican Gov. Scott Walker is seeking a second term, the GOP has narrowed what forms of ID can be used to get a ballot. Voting rights groups have sued to block that, but a federal appeals court just deadlocked on whether to reconsider an earlier ruling that left the tougher ID law in place. That has pushed voting rights advocates to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. Its response is expected any day now.

5. Arkansas.

This is another state seen as determining whether the U.S. Senate will be held by Democrats or Republicans for the last two years of Obama’s presidency. Here, too, the GOP-controlled state govermment imposed tougher voter ID standards, which were put on hold by a trial court. That state’s Supreme Court recently heard arguments over whether suspending the new law was proper.

6. Texas.

While Texas is not seen as affecting the national political landscape in 2014, Republicans in that state also toughened voter ID requirements. Texas has a very contentious governor’s race, where Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis, known for trying to stop a major anti-abortion bill that passed, is challenging the rightwing Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2014/six-states-where-gop-voter-suppression-tactics-could-sway-outcome?akid=12342.187590.0zD7ll&rd=1&src=newsletter1022411&t=19&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

[boutons_deux]

Judge blocks Texas voter ID law


A federal judge in Texas has ruled that a stricter voter ID law passed by the state legislature violates the federal Voting Rights Act and is unconstitutional.

"Evidence in the record demonstrates that proponents of SB 14 within the 82nd Texas Legislature were motivated, at the very least in part, because of and not merely in spite of the voter ID law’s detrimental effects on the African-American and Hispanic electorate. As such, SB 14 violates the VRA as well as the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Unite[d] States Constitution," U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales-Ramos wrote in a 147-page opinion released Thursday evening and posted here.

"Under the injunction to be entered barring enforcement of SB 14’s voter identification provisions, Texas shall return to enforcing the voter identification requirements for in-person voting in effect immediately prior to the enactment and implementation of SB 14," wrote Gonzales-Ramos, an Obama appointee.

Civil rights groups and the Justice Department argued during a recent trial that the enhanced voter-ID rules in the law made it harder for minorities to vote and that requiring voters to get acceptable ID amounted to a poll tax.

The Texas Attorney General's office plans to appeal the decision.

"The State of Texas will immediately appeal and will urge the Fifth Circuit to resolve this matter quickly to avoid voter confusion in the upcoming election," Lauren Bean, Deputy Communications Director said in a statement. "The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that voter ID laws are constitutional so we are confident the Texas law will be upheld on appeal."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/10/judge-blocks-texas-voter-id-law-196865.html?hp=l6

the 5th circuit, packed ROTTEN with Repug hack judges, will allow voter suppression.

[boutons_deux]

About 42,000 voter registration/application forms, filled out, missing in .... Georgia! :lol

[boutons_deux]

Voter Fraud EVERYWHERE! The sanctity of voting DESECRATED!

Colorado reporter fact-checks Megyn Kelly: No, you can’t print ballots from home

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/colorado-reporter-fact-checks-megyn-kelly-no-you-cant-print-ballots-from-home/

Fox bitches: Pretty Poison

[Winehole23]

Why are liberals/democrats/progressives such crybabies?over the right to vote? one wonders why.

[boutons_deux]

"Why are liberals/democrats/progressives such crybabies?"

Why are Repugs so insistent in suppressing non-existent voter fraud?

[boutons_deux]

Fox bitches pushing voter fraud to their ignorant viewers

Rachel Maddow rips Fox News’ Megyn Kelly for made-up Colorado vote fraud ‘scandal’

Friday night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow took Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly to task for a deeply inaccurate story Kelly ran on Tuesday alleging that Democrats in Colorado are stealing the 2014 election by allowing people to print their ballots at home and hand them over to political operatives.

Mediaite reported (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maddow-co-anchor-call-out-megyn-kelly-for-misleading-voter-fraud-coverage/) that on Tuesday, Kelly breathlessly reported on “a new law” in Colorado that would allow Democrats to sway “a critical Senate race” because it “literally allows residents to print ballots from their home computers, then encourages them to turn ballots over to collectors.” :lol

According to Maddow, the only people who can print their ballots on home computers and mail them in are active duty military personnel who are stationed abroad. This option is available to service personnel from all 50 states (http://snopes.com/politics/ballot/kellycolorado.asp).

For whatever reasons, though, said Maddow, “Fox has now decided that in the state of Colorado, that’s terrifying, even if it doesn’t terrify them anywhere else in the country.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/rachel-maddow-rips-fox-news-megyn-kelly-for-made-up-colorado-vote-fraud-scandal/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

Six of the most unbelievable Republican statements about voter suppression

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/New-Jersey-Gov.-Chris-Christie-R-032714-ABC-News-800x430.jpg


You would think that making it easier for citizens to vote would be something for everyone in a democracy to celebrate. But the shocking remarks by these six government officials — some of whom will be on the November ballot — tell a different story.

Governor Chris Christie: Same-Day Voter Registration Is a “Trick” and GOP Needs to Win Gubernatorial Races So They Control “Voting Mechanisms”

Earlier this week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke at a US Chamber of Commerce gathering in Washington, DC. In his comments, The Record reports that Christie (http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie-says-gop-gubernatorial-candidates-need-to-win-so-they-control-voting-mechanisms-1.1113989)“pushed further into the contentious debate over voting rights than ever before, saying Tuesday that Republicans need to win gubernatorial races this year so that they’re the ones controlling ‘voting mechanisms’ going into the next presidential election.”

This isn’t the first time Christie’s come clean about GOP intentions at the ballot box. In August, while campaigning in Chicago for Bruce Rauner, the GOP candidate challenging Gov. Pat Quinn, Christie complained that Illinois would become the 11th state to permit same-day voter registration this November — a move supporters say will increase turnout and improve access. Christie didn’t see it that way, (http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/08/christie_says_voter_law_used_to_boost_votes_for_de m_illionois_gov.html) calling it an underhanded Democratic get-out-the-vote tactic (http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Why-the-GOP-is-afraid-of-higher-voter-turnout-5734903.php). Christie said of Quinn: “I see the stuff that’s going on. Same-day registration all of a sudden this year comes to Illinois. Shocking,” he added sarcastically. “I’m sure it was all based upon public policy, good public policy to get same-day registration here in Illinois just this year, when the governor is in the toilet and needs as much help as he can get.” He added that the voter registration program is designed to be a major “obstacle” for Republican gubernatorial candidates.

Fran Millar: Georgia Senator Complains About Polling Place Being Too Convenient for Black Voters

Georgia state Senator Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody) wrote an angry op-ed (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/09/3565073/georgia-senator-early-voting-suppression/) following the news that DeKalb County, part of which he represents, will permit early voting on the last Sunday in October. The voting will take place at the Gallery at South DeKalb mall. Here’s what Millar wrote in The Atlanta-Journal Constitution: “[T]his location is dominated by African-American shoppers and it is near several large African-American mega churches such as New Birth Missionary Baptist… Is it possible church buses will be used to transport people directly to the mall since the poll will open when the mall opens? If this happens, so much for the accepted principle of separation of church and state.” Millar, who is senior deputy whip for the Georgia Senate Republicans, promised to put an end to Sunday balloting in DeKalb County when state lawmakers assemble in the Capitol in January.

Doug Preis: An Ohio GOP Chair Says We Shouldn’t Accommodate the “Urban — Read African-American — Voter-Turnout Machine”

In 2012, Republican officials in Ohio were limiting early voting hours in Democratic-majority counties (http://www.thenation.com/blog/169454/ohio-gop-admits-early-voting-cutbacks-are-racially-motivated), while expanding them on nights and weekends in Republican counties. In response to public outcry, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted mandated the same early voting hours in all 88 Ohio counties. He kept early voting hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays from October 2 to 19 and broadened hours from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. from October 22 to November 2. But he refused to expand voting hours beyond 7 p.m. during the week, on weekends or three days prior to the election — which is when voting is most convenient for many working-class Ohioans. Here’s what the Franklin Party (Columbus) Ohio GOP chair, Doug Preis, and close adviser to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, said about limiting early voting. “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine.” (And yes, he actually said “read African-American,” that wasn’t inserted.)

Greg Abbott: Texas AG Says Partisan Districting Decisions Are Legal, Even if There Are “Incidental Effects” on Minority Voters

The 2010 Census results showed that 89 percent of the population growth in Texas came from minorities, but “when it came to fitting those new seats in the map, Republican lawmakers made sure three of them favored Republicans, who tend to be white,” according to the Associated Press (http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/03/31/texas-redistricting-fight-is-boon-to-lawyers/). The Justice Department claims that Texas lawmakers intentionally redrew the state’s congressional districts in order to dilute the Hispanic vote. Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is running for governor of Texas, wrote the following in a letter to the Department of Justice defending the state’s voting maps (http://www.businessinsider.com/texas-responds-to-eric-holders-lawsuit-2013-8#ixzz2ilBTZrZL):

“DOJ’s accusations of racial discrimination are baseless. In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats. It is perfectly constitutional for a Republican-controlled legislature to make partisan districting decisions, even if there are incidental effects on minority voters who support Democratic candidates.”


Ted Yoho: Only Property Owners Should Vote

While running for a Florida congressional seat in 2012, Ted Yoho suggested that only property owners should have the right to vote, as you can watch in this video (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/candidate-congress-ted-yoho-suggested-limiting-right-vote-property-owners). Here’s what he said: “I’ve had some radical ideas about voting and it’s probably not a good time to tell them, but you used to have to be a property owner to vote.” He also called early voting by absentee ballots “a travesty.” And yes, Yoho won the election, and is now a member of Congress.

Don Yelton: North Carolina GOP Precinct Chair: Voter ID Law Will “Kick Democrats in the Butt” and Hurt “Lazy Blacks”

In an interview last year with The Daily Show, Don Yelton, a GOP precinct chair in Buncombe County, North Carolina, defended the state’s new voter ID law, saying so many offensive things, he was asked to resign the day after it aired. Yelton admits at the start of the segment that the number of Buncombe County residents who commit voter fraud is one or two out of 60,000 a year. The interview correspondent, Aasif Mandvi, replies that those numbers show “there’s enough voter fraud to sway zero elections,” and then Yelton replies, “Mmmm…that’s not the point.” He goes on to say that “if it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it.” and then adds, “The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt.” After the segment aired, the Buncombe County GOP Chair issued a statement on Yelton’s comments, calling them “offensive, uniformed and unacceptable of any member within the Republican Party” and called for Yelton’s resignation. He obliged.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/six-of-the-most-ubelieveable-republican-statements-about-voter-suppression/

"Repugs aren't racsist" and "Voter fraud is a huge problem, violating the SANCTITY of democracy"

[angrydude]

Putting Boutons on ignore was the best decision I ever made.

[boutons_deux]

Putting Boutons on ignore was the best decision I ever made.

yep, if you chickenshits can't stand the heat ...

[boutons_deux]

Judge offers BS reasons for refusing to rule on 40,000 missing voter registrations in Georgia (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/28/1339861/-Judge-offers-BS-reasons-for-refusing-to-rule-on-40-000-missing-voter-registrations-in-Georgia)


In a Tuesday decision called "outrageous" by one leading voter advocate, Superior Court Judge Christopher Brasher of Fulton County denied a petition (http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/28/3585449/court-allows-voter-suppression/) demanding that the Georgia secretary of state process 40,000 voter registrations missing from a public database. Alice Ollstein reports:


Though early voting is well underway in the state, Judge Brasher called the lawsuit “premature,” and said it was based on “merely set out suspicions and fears that the [state officials] will fail to carry out their mandatory duties.”

Angela Aldridge, an organizer with the group 9 to 5 Atlanta Working Women who has been working to register voters for several months, told ThinkProgress she was “furious” when she learned of the outcome: “That impedes people’s rights,” she said. “People need information before they go out to vote and they don’t even know if they’re registered or not. They were discouraged, upset, kind of frazzled, not really knowing what was going on. What can you even say to people who want to vote but possibly can’t? They might get disengaged and say, ‘Why vote? It doesn’t matter.’ It’s really disheartening.”


Those missing 40,000 voter registrations represent 1.5 percent of the Georgians who voted in 2010. So, if it turns out the missing registrations don't get processed and some losing candidates come forward after the election to say they might have won had the registrations been processed, what can be done to fix things? Nothing. Because there are no election do-overs. This might not only affect some obscure down-ballot candidates. After all, Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue are in a tight race for the Senate seat of retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/28/1339861/-Judge-offers-BS-reasons-for-refusing-to-rule-on-40-000-missing-voter-registrations-in-Georgia?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[TeyshaBlue]

yep, if you chickenshits can't stand the heat ...

Cant stand the fucking spam.

[boutons_deux]

Cant stand the fucking spam.

TOO-HOT BUTTERED SPAM! EAT IT!

[RandomGuy]

Not on thinkprogress:lol
Bridgeport State Rep. Christina Ayala arrested on 19 voting fraud charges

http://www.nhregister.com/government-and-politics/20140926/bridgeport-state-rep-christina-ayala-arrested-on-19-voting-fraud-charges


:facepalm

Ah, the ever present wide-spread in person voter fraud.

How many people are being indicted in this huge conspiracy to affect elections? Any candidates having their elections annulled?

I want deets.

[tlongII]

What the fuck's the big deal about requiring ID to vote anyway? It makes sense to me.

[Winehole23]

What the fuck's the big deal about requiring ID to vote anyway? It makes sense to me.it can be a considerable burden for rural, elderly, poor, sick and disabled people.

should their right to vote -- a fairly fundamental right, no? --be curtailed because they can't present proper ID?

[Winehole23]

more broadly, do you think it's a good idea to limit voting?

[Winehole23]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJJ2Gm-p4Ws

[boutons_deux]

Texas Candidate Says Democrats Should Go Spend Their Food Stamps Instead Of Vote (http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/30/3586629/texas-judge-candidate-food-stamps/)

A judicial election in Dallas County may heat up after video emerged of the Republican candidate in the race using a colorful analogy to explain the importance of limiting election day turnout by voters in Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson’s (D) congressional district.

“You might question, ‘why would you talk a Republican out of running against Eddie-Bernice Johnson?’,” Ron Natinsky (R) said in the video clip (http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/ron-natinsky-says-residents-in-rep-eddie-bernice-johnsons-district-should-spend-food-stamp-money-on-election-day-instead-of-voting.html/) reported by the Dallas Morning News’ Trailblazer blog, explaining why he discouraged a fellow GOP politician in the area from mounting a challenge to Johnson in the 2014 midterms. “Well because we don’t want to motivate her voters. We don’t need another 5 or 10,000 of her people going to the polls. What we want them to think is, ‘There’s no reason. She doesn’t have an opponent. I don’t need to go to the polls.

“I’ll go spend my food stamp money at the grocery store or whatever, you know, on Election Day,” Natinsky concluded.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/30/3586629/texas-judge-candidate-food-stamps/

judicial elections! an abomination like NBA B2Bs

[tlongII]

it can be a considerable burden for rural, elderly, poor, sick and disabled people.

should their right to vote -- a fairly fundamental right, no? --be curtailed because they can't present proper ID?

Yes it should. You should have proper identification if you want to vote.

[boutons_deux]

How A South Dakota County Is Suppressing The Native American Vote (http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/24/3583565/south-dakota-native-american-voter-suppression/)

FORT THOMPSON, SOUTH DAKOTA — The Crow Creek Indian Reservation lies along the Missouri River in central South Dakota, an area marked by rolling hills of corn fields, a government-constructed dam and a Native American town centered around the tribe’s casino.

While South Dakotans across the state have been voting for weeks — the state offers 46 days of early absentee voting — the Crow Creek Sioux have yet to see their ballots. The closest early voting site is a 50 mile roundtrip away in Gann Valley (http://www.gannvalley.com/), a town with a population of 14. The Buffalo County auditor, a white resident of the town, has refused to set aside federal funds to open a satellite office for early voting on the reservation this year.

That 50-mile trip is effectively impossible for many people on the reservation. Sixty-five-year-old Crow Creek resident Sylvia Walters lives in a government-subsidized apartment building for the elderly and disabled in Fort Thompson, the largest town on Crow Creek. She told ThinkProgress that because she doesn’t have a car, she has to pay someone to drive her if she wants to leave her immediate part of town. “I stay home a lot. Let’s put it that way,” she said. Although she plans on voting in November, she said she would have preferred having the option to vote early. “Sometimes you forget on the day or you’re busy,” she said. “This way when you’re thinking about it you can get it done.”

Native American voting rights group Four Directions (http://fourdirectionsvote.com/) has been fighting since 2002 to give Indians the same voting opportunities as other South Dakotans. Over breakfast at the Lode Star Casino in Fort Thompson, executive director OJ Semans, his wife Barb and Buffalo County Commissioner Donita Laudner told ThinkProgress the county’s refusal to open an early voting center is an attempt to suppress Native American votes.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/24/3583565/south-dakota-native-american-voter-suppression/

[Winehole23]

Yes it should. You should have proper identification if you want to vote.your worries about the minuscule incidence of voter impersonation trump others' right to participate in elections?

that doesn't seem right, fair or even particularly wise.

[Winehole23]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/27/texas-vote-id-proof-certificate-minority-law

[Winehole23]

the rights of thousands of US citizens will be abridged to prevent, at worst, a handful of imposters. what's good about that?

[baseline bum]

the rights of thousands of US citizens will be abridged to prevent, at worst, a handful of imposters. what's good about that?

It's good for WC's Republican party.

[Winehole23]

no doubt

[boutons_deux]

It's good for WC's Republican party.

nobody SERIOUS thinks the Repugs would do anything for anybody but the corps and 1%

[tlongII]

your worries about the minuscule incidence of voter impersonation trump others' right to participate in elections?

that doesn't seem right, fair or even particularly wise.

It definitely seems fair and right. Everyone should have identification. Call it a "cost" of being a US citizen.

[boutons_deux]

It definitely seems fair and right. Everyone should have identification. Call it a "cost" of being a US citizen.

aka, poll tax.

[boutons_deux]

Ohio May Disenfranchise Voters For Technical Errors (http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/31/3587027/ohio-homeless-voter-lawsuit/)


Thanks to a series of laws that went into effect this summer, election officials in Ohio can throw out legitimate absentee and provisional ballots that have small errors — such as leaving out a middle name — and in many cases they don’t have to give the voter a chance to fix the problem. Two Ohio homeless groups and the state’s Democratic Party are now seeking to challenge these rules in court, arguing they violate the Voting Rights Act and the right to due process under the Constitution.

“This is no different from Jim Crow, it’s just a new form of it,” Attorney Subodh Chandry, who is representing the groups, told ThinkProgress. “The laws shift the burden onto individual voters to not only get every single detail correct, but to match the state’s data, even if it is incorrect.”

The laws, which were signed by the Republican Governor John Kasich in February and implemented by Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted in June, expand the number of errors, mismatches or omissions that could disqualify a ballot, and cut the length of time a voter has to learn of the problems and remedy them.

Under the legislation, election officials are not permitted to notify voters of issues by telephone or email, even if they have contact information, so notifications could be held up in the mail as Election Day approaches.

And for those who vote provisionally, the state is not required to notify them at all if their vote will not be counted. Provisional voters have the right to modify their ballots if there are errors, but that right cannot be exercised if they are never notified of issues.

Ohio tends to net an unusually high number (http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/11/05/1141691/the-serious-flaw-with-ohios-plan-to-count-provisional-ballots/) of provisional ballots, meaning the potential damage could be widespread.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/31/3587027/ohio-homeless-voter-lawsuit/

Another filthy, nasty Repug state, dreamin of how Secy of State Blackwell stole '04 from Kerry by counting fraud.

[boutons_deux]

Under the worst secretary of state in the nation, rejected voter registrations in Kansas skyrocket (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/03/1341345/-Under-the-worst-secretary-of-state-in-the-nation-rejected-voter-registrations-in-Kansas-skyrocket)

http://images.dailykos.com/images/6089/large/kris-kobach.jpeg?1347638457

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/03/1341345/-Under-the-worst-secretary-of-state-in-the-nation-rejected-voter-registrations-in-Kansas-skyrocket?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[boutons_deux]

Computerized Vote Rigging Is Still the Unseen Threat to US Democracy

Exactly two years ago Harper's Magazine published a cover story "How to Rig an Election (http://www.democracymovement.us/how_to_rig_an_election)," (written by this author) detailing the hidden threat to democracy posed by our electronic vote counting systems. Easily rigged and hacked, these computers are controlled by a handful of shady corporations, some with criminal records, who fight to keep their vote-counting software a "trade secret."

Computerized Voting Today Ensures That Americans Cannot Oversee or Verify Their Own Elections.

Elections are held in a vast patchwork of electoral fiefdoms (https://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier2014/) where laws, procedures and private-vendor technology change from state to state; even from county to county. It's difficult for one hand to know what the other is doing, particularly when legal public record requests on electronic voting systems are routinely denied.

Little-known grassroots Election Integrity (EI) organizations have been fighting an unrecognized war to reclaim and secure our vote count; groups like Election Defense Alliance, Michigan Election Reform Alliance, Voter PA, Voter GA, Wisconsin Citizens for Election Protection, California Election Protection Network, and many others, including social media sites like Occupy Rigged Elections. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/123218561114298/)

These activists have been holding the line in the democracy trenches for years now, even decades. Almost always underfunded or totally unpaid, they are our friends and neighbors, working people - they need increased support now, as we head toward the pivotal 2016 elections.

Unlike other issue groups, EI activists span the political spectrum, recognizing that protecting our ballots is not a partisan issue. Republican voters have every reason to cry foul when in recent days they've seen electronic Touchscreen votes "flipping" to Democratic candidates (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27093-e-votes-flip-d-to-r-in-texas-r-to-d-in-illinois-more-trouble-with-touch-screens-2014-edition), However, Democrats and progressives have long documented an anomalous "red shift (http://www.democracymovement.us/the_red_shift)" from expected results based on polls of about 6 percent of votes to the conservative right wherever secretly-programmed electronic voting machines are used.

Most ballots are still counted by Optical Scanners, which have been proven to lose votes, overheat and mis-tally (http://www.truth-out.org/..:Downloads:Are%20Wisconsinites%20really%20so%20w ishy-washy%20or%20schizophrenic%20as%20to%20swing%20bac k%20and%20forth%20every%20two%20years%20between%20 the%20extremely%20diverse%20platforms%20and%20idea ls%20of%20Obama%20and%20Walker,%20as%20recent%20el ection%20results%20might%20indicate?%20It%20seems% 20unlikely,%20and%20such%20counter-intuitive%20electoral%20swings%20can%20also%20be%2 0red%20flags%20for%20election%20fraud.), and can be hacked and rigged intentionally (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-lGc4b5qH0&feature=youtu.be).

But far worse are the Touchscreen voting machines, which the world's top technical security experts have repeatedly demonstrated (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GamR4y_ykA0) are perfectly designed to manipulate votes internally while eliminating our physical paper ballots altogether.

Argonne National Laboratories Vulnerability Assessment Team recently performed (http://www.salon.com/2011/09/27/votinghack/) a hack on a Diebold Touchscreens requiring only $25 in parts and an eighth-grade science education.

Electronic voting systems are actually failing and breaking down nationwide (http://www.governing.com/topics/elections/gov-looming-crisis-voting-tech.html), creating long voting lines and the risk of votes lost to error and malfunction.

Jurisdictions do not have the money to replace these expensive systems, creating a crisis that is also an opportunity for a robust, informed, citizen-led discussion on what voting systems will truly serve our needs.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27204-computerized-vote-rigging-is-still-the-unseen-threat-to-american-democracy-it-s-time-to-change-the-system

:lol America is so fucked, and so unfuckable! :lol

[Winehole23]

It definitely seems fair and right. Everyone should have identification. Call it a "cost" of being a US citizen.Bullshit. Our political compact says we're born with certain rights, including the right to vote.

[Winehole23]

One thing is certain: Very, very few Texans have gotten election identification certificates (EIC), the new state-issued form of photo ID for those who don’t have it—340 Texans, to be precise.


That’s less than two thousandths of a percent of Texas’ voting age population. That’s only a little more than one EIC for each of Texas’ 254 counties. And many counties haven’t had a single citizen obtain an EIC. Another way to slice the numbers: There are more licensed auctioneers (2,454) in Texas than there are people with EICs—more than seven times as many in fact. In Harris County, with more than 4.3 million people, a poverty rate of 18 percent and 70 percent people of color, there are 186 licensed auctioneers but just 21 EICs. There are more licenses for boxing judges in Lubbock County (4) than there are voters with EICs (3). There are more licensed elevator inspectors in Dallas County (35) than voters with EICs (28). And so onhttp://www.texasobserver.org/texas-voter-id-cards-auctioneers/

[tlongII]

Bullshit. Our political compact says we're born with certain rights, including the right to vote.

You better be able to prove you're a citizen.

[Winehole23]

there are ways of doing that short of presenting state issued ID, and have been for years. a more restrictive law isn't necessary, given the statistically negligible incidence/impact of voter impersonation.

[Winehole23]

face it, tlong: this has nothing to do with the integrity of elections and everything to do from keeping poor people and minorities (i.e, perceived Democratic Party constituencies) from the polls.

[Winehole23]

it has been amply demonstrated in this thread that the threat of voter impersonation to the integrity of US elections is illusory.

[Winehole23]

stuff like this is far more worrying than voter impersonation fraud: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/03/alaska-election-nightmare/

[boutons_deux]

Bullshit. Our political compact says we're born with certain rights, including the right to vote.

NO ONE has ANY RIGHTS that aren't enforced, protected by government. No rights are "inalienable", all are granted and guaranteed by government.

Obviously, many red state govts are DENYING the right to vote to many American citizens. That's the kind of govt Repugs, tea baggers, VRWC, 1% adore.

[boutons_deux]

Jim Crow Returns: Interstate "Crosscheck" Program Could Strip Millions of the Right to Vote

Of the three million names identified by Crosscheck in the last two years, not one has been convicted of voter fraud. But Virginia, another state using Crosscheck, has already struck more than 41,000 voters off the rolls, admitting that some of them may have moved out of state. Other states, like North Carolina, have been reaching out to voters on the Crosscheck list by mail. Those who fail to confirm their identity will be denied the right to vote on Election Day.

Journalist Greg Palast obtained a list of more than 500,000 people whose eligibility is in question due to Crosscheck. He found one of them in this apartment building said to be housing up to 10 double voters.

Palast and his team did a statistical analysis on more than two million names on the Crosscheck list. Their projections found names like Jackson, Washington, Garcia and Kim are overrepresented. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 53 percent of all Jacksons and 90 percent of Washingtons are African-American; 91 percent of all Garcias are Hispanic; and 94 percent of all Kims are Asian.

It’s high-risk and almost no reward. I mean, the risk for engaging in voter fraud is criminal prosecution. What’s the reward? What does it take—how many imaginary voters or double voters do you have to create in order to actually sway an election? So, the rewards are almost—are zero. And the risks are very high. And so, this whole idea is fantastical.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27237-jim-crow-returns-interstate-crosscheck-program-could-strip-millions-of-the-right-to-vote

"fantastical" is how the Repugs create their own America-destructive fantasy world.

[Ignignokt]

face it, tlong: this has nothing to do with the integrity of elections and everything to do from keeping poor people and minorities (i.e, perceived Democratic Party constituencies) from the polls.

How are all these poor people and minorities getting welfare if they don't have an ID

[boutons_deux]

Laura Ingraham: If ID laws make voting ‘too difficult’ for some people, ‘then good’

according to the Brennan Center for Justice (http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/challenge-obtaining-voter-identification), many eligible voters have not obtained photo identification, and it’s not because they “can’t be bothered” to fill out the paperwork.

In fact, the nearest state ID office for 10 million or more voters is only open two days a week, and it’s more than 10 miles away. And 500,000 of those voters, do not even own a vehicle.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/laura-ingraham-if-id-laws-make-voting-too-difficult-for-some-people-then-good/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[Winehole23]

How are all these poor people and minorities getting welfare if they don't have an IDthere's a reason voter ID laws have never been common in this country until this century. can you think of why that might be?

[Slutter McGee]

NO ONE has ANY RIGHTS that aren't enforced, protected by government. No rights are "inalienable", all are granted and guaranteed by government.

There goes bou...shitting on 300 years of liberal philosophy in one post.

Slutter McGee

[boutons_deux]

There goes bou...shitting on 300 years of liberal philosophy in one post.

Slutter McGee

try taking your "rights philosophy" to court, try to use it maintain your privacy, or "right" to remain silent, right to assemble, right to vote (if you were a American women in the 19th century), right to freedom (if you were a slave), etc. your airy-fairy philosophy doesn't mean shit in practice

[Winehole23]

actually, as long as people fight for it and courts enforce it, it does mean shit.

[boutons_deux]

actually, as long as people fight for it and courts enforce it, it does mean shit.

the REPUG SCOTUS5 gutted the VRA, denying Ms the right to vote(they wrong color skin, not Euro-Americans).

Who ya gonna fight?

I've repeat, NSA/FBI/CIA, the Deep State, violating our privacy, beyond civilian control. "super cookies" violate our right not to be tracked. who ya gonna fight?

The courts, appointed by state, by corporate-owned legislators, and/or elected by corporate $Ms, in general support the state's case, support the corporate case, not citizens' case.

who ya gonna fight?

[Winehole23]

your vision of politics is everyone cringing before corporate domination.

fuck that.

[Winehole23]

power isn't everything; without people, it's nothing.

[Ignignokt]

there's a reason voter ID laws have never been common in this country until this century. can you think of why that might be?

yet the dead resurrect like the day Christ gave up his ghost on Calvary just to pull the lever for the dems.

So awnser the question. Why do they need id to mooch, but not when voting our rights away is up for a vote?

[Ignignokt]

power isn't everything; without people, it's nothing.

democracy is just tyranny of the proles.

[RandomGuy]

yet the dead resurrect like the day Christ gave up his ghost on Calvary just to pull the lever for the dems.

So awnser the question. Why do they need id to mooch, but not when voting our rights away is up for a vote?

That kind of fraud is not solved by voter ID. It is gullible dipshits like you that can't tell between types of fraud that the cynical shits running a lot of state Republican party leadership counts on.

Congratulations, you are a useful idiot.

[Yonivore]

Why are we one of the few (if not the only) developed country that doesn't universally require a photo ID to vote?

[tlongII]

That kind of fraud is not solved by voter ID. It is gullible dipshits like you that can't tell between types of fraud that the cynical shits running a lot of state Republican party leadership counts on.

Congratulations, you are a useful idiot.

Why would you not require ID? That doesn't make any sense.

[Ignignokt]

That kind of fraud is not solved by voter ID. It is gullible dipshits like you that can't tell between types of fraud that the cynical shits running a lot of state Republican party leadership counts on.

Congratulations, you are a useful idiot.

Y u so angry. I guess all regulations dont prevent fraud or malice. We should just go laissez faire. I can get with that.

[RandomGuy]

Why would you not require ID? That doesn't make any sense.

The overall cost outweighs the benefit.


If there is no benefit, but a fair amount of cost, does it make sense to have a law about it?

Or:

Why have a law that solves a problem that doesn't exist?

That doesn't make any sense.

[RandomGuy]

Why are we one of the few (if not the only) developed country that doesn't universally require a photo ID to vote?

Why are we one of the few (if not the only) developed country that doesn't universally offer health insurance to all it's citizens?

I noticed you neatly sidestepped trying to prove that voter ID laws actually solve a problem that exists in the real world. Why is that?

[RandomGuy]

Y u so angry. I guess all regulations dont prevent fraud or malice. We should just go laissez faire. I can get with that.

What makes me angry is that voter ID laws are pure partisan dirty tricks, and the ultimate cost is that some of our most vulnerable citizens who have the most at stake in our society will stop voting.

Does denying people the ability to vote not piss you off, even a little?

[tlongII]

The overall cost outweighs the benefit.


If there is no benefit, but a fair amount of cost, does it make sense to have a law about it?

Or:

Why have a law that solves a problem that doesn't exist?

That doesn't make any sense.

What do you think the overall cost is? Personally I don't think the cost outweighs the benefit. You say the problem doesn't exist. I say a "potential" problem does exist.

[tlongII]

What makes me angry is that voter ID laws are pure partisan dirty tricks, and the ultimate cost is that some of our most vulnerable citizens who have the most at stake in our society will stop voting.

Does denying people the ability to vote not piss you off, even a little?

It's not denying anything. The cost of acquiring ID is very low in my opinion.

[RandomGuy]

It's not denying anything. The cost of acquiring ID is very low in my opinion.

Depends on who you are and what your circumstances are.

Given the large numbers of elderly and even more recent poor people born in their parents homes in the countryside, outside of hospitals before 1950, it wouldn't take much time/effort to dissuade some from bothering with it.

Again, I'm not against the idea, the big thing is that I have yet to see anybody prove to any reasonable degree that there is some sort of in-person voter fraud problem to solve.

Can you show me any?

If there is no problem to solve, why have a law against it?

[RandomGuy]

I say a "potential" problem does exist.

Prove it.

Links.

Data.

Hopefully some peer reviewed papers, but hey, I will take a credible report on % of fraudulent in-person votes cast.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Prove it.

Links.

Data.

Hopefully some peer reviewed papers, but hey, I will take a credible report on % of fraudulent in-person votes cast.

I bet you he understands the slippery slope argument. This might not matter but it encourages further behavior to disenfranchise voters if it is allowed. GOP types use that argument for their base all the time.

[tlongII]

Prove it.

Links.

Data.

Hopefully some peer reviewed papers, but hey, I will take a credible report on % of fraudulent in-person votes cast.

I would ask for the same regarding the problem of getting ID.

[tlongII]

Prove it.

Links.

Data.

Hopefully some peer reviewed papers, but hey, I will take a credible report on % of fraudulent in-person votes cast.


Illegal Immigration Statistics:
2012 - The Department of Homeland Security estimates that there are 11.4 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, down from 11.5 million in 2011.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/06/us/immigration-statistics-fast-facts/

That's really all you need to know.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I would ask for the same regarding the problem of getting ID.


Last week, we reported on a Government Accountability Office report indicating that some 100,000 fewer people voted in Kansas and Tennessee due to the introduction of voter ID laws in those states. The decline was weighted more heavily toward younger voters and black voters — or, to be clear, more-Democratic voters (the kind Democrats accuse the laws of targeting).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/10/13/the-disconnect-between-voter-id-laws-and-voter-fraud/

I can find a LOT more if you would like. Compare and contrast with the high water mark of 24 cases of voter fraud in a single election that would be solved by ID's discovered ever.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/06/us/immigration-statistics-fast-facts/

That's really all you need to know.

Fearmongering on illegals. Nice.

[tlongII]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/10/13/the-disconnect-between-voter-id-laws-and-voter-fraud/

I can find a LOT more if you would like. Compare and contrast with the high water mark of 24 cases of voter fraud in a single election that would be solved by ID's discovered ever.

I see nothing there that equates that to the cost of getting ID. It's more likely that they're too lazy.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I see nothing there that equates that to the cost of getting ID. It's more likely that they're too lazy.

You keep focusing on the tree and be intentionally obtuse while the forest is all around you. I know you don't understand it but those figures subsume your take.

[tlongII]

You keep focusing on the tree and be intentionally obtuse while the forest is all around you. I know you don't understand it but those figures subsume your take.

Those figures were pretty common across the country regardless of whether a voter ID law existed or not.

[Yonivore]

Why are we one of the few (if not the only) developed country that doesn't universally offer health insurance to all it's citizens?

I noticed you neatly sidestepped trying to prove that voter ID laws actually solve a problem that exists in the real world. Why is that?
I asked a simple question. Why does everyone else require it?

I think it does prevent fraudulent voting.

And, it's not that costly. Certainly doesn't bend the cost curve like Obamacare.

[Yonivore]

Interesting articles...

No, Voting Laws Didn't Doom Democrats (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-11/no-voting-laws-didnt-doom-democrats)


A day after the election, Wendy Weiser at the Brennan Center for Justice argued that “in several key races, the margin of victory came very close to the likely margin of disenfranchisement.” She cited the Senate race in North Carolina as one example; here’s the gist of her argument: Four years ago, 200,000 ballots were cast during seven days of early voting that the state has since eliminated. The state also ended Election Day registration, which 100,000 North Carolinians took advantage of in 2012, almost one-third of them black. In last week’s election, since Republican Thom Tillis’s margin of victory over Democratic Senator Kay Hagan was about 48,000 votes, Weiser implies that Hagan lost because so many (Democratic) voters were kept away from the polls.

Weiser’s argument has been picked up by other voting-rights advocates and pundits, but it falls apart upon closer scrutiny. Even with seven fewer days, early voting in North Carolina increased this year compared with 2010 -- by 35 percent.

Statewide turnout also increased from the previous midterm election, to 44.1 percent from 43.7 percent. Even if turnout was lower than it would have been without the new voting law -- something that's impossible to establish -- it was still higher than it had been in four of the five previous midterm elections, going back to 1994.

In addition, based on exit polls and voter turnout data, the overall share of the black vote increased slightly compared with 2010.

And, to my point in another thread but, just as relevant here...

HOLDER DOJ EXPERT WITNESS: BLACKS ARE DUMBER AND LESS CIVIC-MINDED THAN WHITES (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/10/holder-doj-expert-witness-blacks-are-dumber-and-less-civic-minded-than-whites.php)


An expert witness hired by Eric Holder’s Department of Justice testified that North Carolina election law requirements have an adverse impact on black voters because they are less “sophisticated” than white voters and therefore have more difficulty figuring out how to register to vote. Christian Adams has the details.

The requirements that the DOJ’s witness found blacks less able than whites to comply with are (1) registering to vote before the day of the election and (2) voting in the precinct where one lives. Since one needn’t be at all “sophisticated” to comply with either requirement, the DOJ’s witness, who was paid with our tax dollars, must have little regard for African-Americans.
It's not the suppression, stupid.

[RandomGuy]

I asked a simple question. Why does everyone else require it?

I think it does prevent fraudulent voting.

And, it's not that costly. Certainly doesn't bend the cost curve like Obamacare.

I really don't know why any other country requires it.

I don't have to know what is going on in other countries to determine a reasonable course of action in this case though.

Prove this fraud exists to such a degree that it requires ANY additional cost.

You say it is a problem. Prove the scope. Your assertion, your burden of proof. It is a simple request, that any intellectually honest person would attempt to show, if pushing for a policy solution to an existing problem.

My prediction:
You know in-person voter fraud it isn't a real problem that affects elections to any degree, and that you can't find the evidence of any widespread problem, since it doesn't exist. You will therefore dissemble, and either ignore this request, or try to divert the conversation away from your burden of proof in this case, generally an indication of intellectual dishonesty.

[RandomGuy]

Interesting articles...

No, Voting Laws Didn't Doom Democrats (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-11/no-voting-laws-didnt-doom-democrats)



And, to my point in another thread but, just as relevant here...

HOLDER DOJ EXPERT WITNESS: BLACKS ARE DUMBER AND LESS CIVIC-MINDED THAN WHITES (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/10/holder-doj-expert-witness-blacks-are-dumber-and-less-civic-minded-than-whites.php)


It's not the suppression, stupid.

My point is not that voter suppression efforts by Republicans swing elections. Your first article misses the mark. My point is that it happens, and it is a deliberate attempt to suppress voting blocks that might vote Democratic. I find that reprehensible, and you should too. This is known as a red herring logical fallacy, by the way.

Secondly, I reject your blog that the expert witness said "blacks are dumber and less civic minded than whites". That is one bloggers interpretation of what someone else said. Less educated, does not make someone dumb. Personally that smacks of the kind of elitism to me. I thought you hated that sort of thing.

The actual quote:


It's also the case that -- well, yes, so it would, empirically more likely affect African Americans. Also, understanding within political science, that people who register to vote the closer and closer one gets to Election Day tend to be less sophisticated voters, tend to be less educated voters, tend to be voters who are less attuned to public affairs. That also tells me from the literature of political science that there are likely to be people who will end up not registering and not voting. People who correspond to those factors tend to be African Americans, and, therefore, that's another vehicle through which African Americans would be disproportionately affected by this law.

Thing is:

He is right. That African-Americans tend to, as a population, be less educated is borne out by all available data.

Second thing is:

Still irrelevant to the point of the OP. Another red herring.

But hey, let's roll with that.

Do you think, therefore, they are less deserving of a vote somehow?

[RandomGuy]

My prediction:
You know in-person voter fraud it isn't a real problem that affects elections to any degree, and that you can't find the evidence of any widespread problem, since it doesn't exist. You will therefore dissemble, and either ignore this request, or try to divert the conversation away from your burden of proof in this case, generally an indication of intellectual dishonesty.


http://www.manvsbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Red-Herring.gif

I swear I didn't see your post until I hit return for mine.

That is too funny. Way to pwn yourself, dude.

[Yonivore]

I really don't know why any other country requires it.

I don't have to know what is going on in other countries to determine a reasonable course of action in this case though.
So, you only point to the practices of other countries when it supports your ideas?


Prove this fraud exists to such a degree that it requires ANY additional cost.
The 2000 Presidential Election was decided by about 500-600 votes in a single precinct in one state. All elections are local and you only have to corrupt a very few, in targeted areas, to make a huge difference.

Those targeted areas seem to be Florida, Ohio, and Illinois, where voting irregularities seem to always crop up during elections. Whether it be malfunctioning voting machines or greater than 100% participation in certain precincts.


You say it is a problem. Prove the scope. Your assertion, your burden of proof. It is a simple request, that any intellectually honest person would attempt to show, if pushing for a policy solution to an existing problem.
Scope and consequences are not necessarily related. You only need to cheat in a few precincts in targeted battleground states. That's it.


My prediction:
You know in-person voter fraud it isn't a real problem that affects elections to any degree, and that you can't find the evidence of any widespread problem, since it doesn't exist. You will therefore dissemble, and either ignore this request, or try to divert the conversation away from your burden of proof in this case, generally an indication of intellectual dishonesty.
My prediction:
You will never admit the fraud doesn't need to be widespread to achieve the desired results.

And, I think there is enough evidence of irregularities in Ohio, during the last Presidential election, to suspect the outcome there.

[Yonivore]

My point is not that voter suppression efforts by Republicans swing elections. Your first article misses the mark. My point is that it happens, and it is a deliberate attempt to suppress voting blocks that might vote Democratic. I find that reprehensible, and you should too. This is known as a red herring logical fallacy, by the way.
The point is suppression didn't occur where alleged and it's doubtful it occurs, at all, in the manner you suggest. To say it does suggests minorities are too stupid to figure out how to vote.


Secondly, I reject your blog that the expert witness said "blacks are dumber and less civic minded than whites". That is one bloggers interpretation of what someone else said. Less educated, does not make someone dumb. Personally that smacks of the kind of elitism to me. I thought you hated that sort of thing.
I think that's exactly what he says.

Why does less educated translate to an inability to vote?

[Yonivore]

And, once again, Spurstalk devolves into personal attacks.

James O'Keefe provided a few examples of voter fraud during the last election. Just how widespread do you believe it needs to be, to affect the outcome of an election?

[RandomGuy]

So, you only point to the practices of other countries when it supports your ideas?


The 2000 Presidential Election was decided by about 500-600 votes in a single precinct in one state. All elections are local and you only have to corrupt a very few, in targeted areas, to make a huge difference.

Those targeted areas seem to be Florida, Ohio, and Illinois, where voting irregularities seem to always crop up during elections. Whether it be malfunctioning voting machines or greater than 100% participation in certain precincts.


Scope and consequences are not necessarily related. You only need to cheat in a few precincts in targeted battleground states. That's it.


My prediction:
You will never admit the fraud doesn't need to be widespread to achieve the desired results.

And, I think there is enough evidence of irregularities in Ohio, during the last Presidential election, to suspect the outcome there.

and.... no where in all of that is any evidence whatsoever of the kinds of problems you assert requires some new law.

I will ask a second time for any evidence that there is some wide-spread problem with in-person voter fraud, that voter ID laws would fix.

Evidence of fraud that would not be prevented by voter ID laws does not really support your contention.

[RandomGuy]

And, once again, Spurstalk devolves into personal attacks.

James O'Keefe provided a few examples of voter fraud during the last election. Just how widespread do you believe it needs to be, to affect the outcome of an election?

He has proven to be actively dishonest in the way he selectively edits his material, and even he didn't have any evidence that anyone was showing up to vote pretending to be someone else, did he?

[DarrinS]

It's impossible to commit voter fraud. That shit tight

[RandomGuy]

So, you only point to the practices of other countries when it supports your ideas?


The 2000 Presidential Election was decided by about 500-600 votes in a single precinct in one state. All elections are local and you only have to corrupt a very few, in targeted areas, to make a huge difference.

Those targeted areas seem to be Florida, Ohio, and Illinois, where voting irregularities seem to always crop up during elections. Whether it be malfunctioning voting machines or greater than 100% participation in certain precincts.


Scope and consequences are not necessarily related. You only need to cheat in a few precincts in targeted battleground states. That's it.


My prediction:
You will never admit the fraud doesn't need to be widespread to achieve the desired results.

And, I think there is enough evidence of irregularities in Ohio, during the last Presidential election, to suspect the outcome there.

Setting aside the issue of different types of fraud for purposes of discussion:

No one could know ahead of time, precisely which local elections will turn out to be the pivotal ones in such a case. Any such fraud would have to, therefore, be fairly wide spread to be effective, and consequently easier to detect. Even granting your point, your argument is still flawed.

[Spurminator]

And, once again, Spurstalk devolves into personal attacks.

James O'Keefe provided a few examples of voter fraud during the last election. Just how widespread do you believe it needs to be, to affect the outcome of an election?

:lol No he didn't, he proved that people in a private conversation could speculate on how to commit fraud.

[Spurminator]

Honestly, reverse the gerrymandering of 14 years ago and outlaw it completely moving forward, and I'm willing to accept stronger voter ID laws. That's a trade I'd make in a heartbeat.

[ElNono]

I've said it before, tbh... I don't have a problem in general with Voter ID laws... I do have a problem with Voter ID laws that are passed 6-8 months before the actual election, which seems to be a recurring theme. That reeks of disenfranchisement.

[DarrinS]

How many fraudulent votes does it take to disenfranchise one legitimate vote?

[Yonivore]

and.... no where in all of that is any evidence whatsoever of the kinds of problems you assert requires some new law.

I will ask a second time for any evidence that there is some wide-spread problem with in-person voter fraud, that voter ID laws would fix.

Evidence of fraud that would not be prevented by voter ID laws does not really support your contention.
And, I'm telling you it doesn't have to be WIDESPREAD.

Why don't we agree to disagree.

[Spurminator]

And, I'm telling you it doesn't have to be WIDESPREAD.


It should at least be more widespread than the number of voters for whom legitimate voting becomes more difficult. Which number is bigger?

[Yonivore]

Setting aside the issue of different types of fraud for purposes of discussion:

No one could know ahead of time, precisely which local elections will turn out to be the pivotal ones in such a case. Any such fraud would have to, therefore, be fairly wide spread to be effective, and consequently easier to detect. Even granting your point, your argument is still flawed.
I disagree.

There are only a few battleground states each national election. And, for the most part, those battleground states are divided by largely conservative/Republican in rural areas and liberal/Democrat in urban areas. You can cheat; otherwise the Duke of Duval wouldn't have unearthed all those dead people for JFK and Chicago wouldn't empty their cemeteries every election.


DMV search of records turns up ineligible N.C. voters (http://www.journalnow.com/news/elections/state/dmv-search-of-records-turns-up-ineligible-n-c-voters/article_f4ecc2ae-5981-11e4-9f35-0017a43b2370.html)
Why would foreign nationals be registered to vote?

[ElNono]

How many fraudulent votes does it take to disenfranchise one legitimate vote?

I think I know what you're trying to say, but "disenfranchise" is not the word. Disenfranchise means a right was taken away. 1, 10, 100 fraudulent votes do not "disenfranchise" any legitimate vote.

[ElNono]

DMV search of records turns up ineligible N.C. voters (http://www.journalnow.com/news/elections/state/dmv-search-of-records-turns-up-ineligible-n-c-voters/article_f4ecc2ae-5981-11e4-9f35-0017a43b2370.html)
Why would foreign nationals be registered to vote?

It's already explained in the article. But, more importantly, how would VoterID prevent this though? They already have the valid ID to vote.

[Ignignokt]

It's already explained in the article. But, more importantly, how would VoterID prevent this though? They already have the valid ID to vote.

Voter ID's are actually for people who have no sort of photo identification like a drivers license. Not everyone would be required to have one, only if you lack a photo ID from a govt source.

[Ignignokt]

>2014
>125% Precinct participation
>all other Euro countries do it to prevent fraud

Why haven't you knuckleheads gotten behind protecting the integrity of the democratic process. I know disenfranchising illegal somalians in Cayuhoga county, Ohio is very unpatriotic, but c'mon

[DarrinS]

I think I know what you're trying to say, but "disenfranchise" is not the word. Disenfranchise means a right was taken away. 1, 10, 100 fraudulent votes do not "disenfranchise" any legitimate vote.

Really? A fraudulent vote for the opposite candidate doesn't "take away" my vote?

[ElNono]

Really? A fraudulent vote for the opposite candidate doesn't "take away" my vote?

It doesn't take away your right to vote. It's implied in the fact that you cast a vote.

That's why I said, "disenfranchisement" is not the word you're looking for. Nullify perhaps.

[ElNono]

Voter ID's are actually for people who have no sort of photo identification like a drivers license. Not everyone would be required to have one, only if you lack a photo ID from a govt source.

Right, which is why VoterID wouldn't do anything about people incorrectly enrolled to vote who cannot legally do so.
You can get a valid photo government ID even if you can't vote. Green card holders or people on temporary work visas do that all the time.

[DarrinS]

It doesn't take away your right to vote. It's implied in the fact that you cast a vote.

That's why I said, "disenfranchisement" is not the word you're looking for. Nullify perhaps.


By that reasoning, does voter ID take away someone's right to vote?

[ElNono]

By that reasoning, does voter ID take away someone's right to vote?

Under certain circumstances, it does.

[DarrinS]

Under certain circumstances, it does.


Sure, if you require ID and then make it impossible to get the ID. Doesn't seem like that's the case, tho.

[ElNono]

Sure, if you require ID and then make it impossible to get the ID. Doesn't seem like that's the case, tho.

It isn't if you notify the public about the requirement in a timely manner, and don't impose a big burden in order to meet that requirement.

Courts have ruled that some Voter ID laws in the past have failed to do one or both of them.

That's why I'm not particularly against Voter ID, even though I doubt of it's usefulness as a tool to combat voter fraud.

[boutons_deux]

Voter Purges Alter U.S. Political Map

By Greg Palast, Al Jazeera America
17 November 14

http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-I.jpgnterstate Crosscheck is a computerized system meant to identify fraudulent voters. While Crosscheck’s list of nearly 7 million names of “potential” double voters (http://readersupportednews.org/external/2014/10/jim-crow-returns.html) has yet to unearth, as of this writing, a single illegal vote this year, it did help Republican elections officials scrub voters from registries (http://readersupportednews.org/external/2014/11/crosscheck-in-thecrosshairs.html), enough, it appears, to have swung several important Senate and governor’s races in favor of the GOP.

There is good reason to believe that Crosscheck-related voter purges helped propel Republican candidates to slim victories in Senate races in Colorado and North Carolina, as well a tight gubernatorial race in Kansas.

Interstate Crosscheck is a computer system designed to capture the names of voters who have Illegally voted twice in the same election in two different states. The program is run by Kansas’ Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Kobach’s office compares the complete voting rolls of participating states to tag “potential” double voters, those who have illegally voted twice in the same election in two states.

These names are then sent back to the state governments to inform an investigation of duplicate names on the voter rolls. While Kobach advertises Crosscheck as matching numerous identifiers, including the Social Security numbers and dates of birth of voters, a six-month investigation by Al Jazeera America revealed that (http://readersupportednews.org/external/2014/10/jim-crow-returns.html)Crosscheck rosters caught nothing more than matching first and last names (http://readersupportednews.org/external/2014/10/jim-crow-returns.html). And voters remain on the suspect list even when middle names, Social Security numbers and suffixes (Jr., Sr.) don’t match. Yet all these people — the list contains nearly seven million names — are subject to losing their vote.

The program’s method of identifying and purging voters especially threaten the registrations of minority voters who are vulnerable because African-American, Asian-American and Hispanics are 67 percent more likely than white voters to share America’s most common names: Jackson, Washington, Lee, Rodriguez and so on.

(http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/interactive.html)It is no surprise that Republicans control most of the top election positions in Crosscheck’s 27 participating states. In all, Crosscheck tagged a breathtaking 6,951,484 voters for the possible removal from the voter rolls as “potential” duplicate voters.

Duplicate or double voting is a crime punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison. Yet, despite this supposed vote-fraud crime wave, not one suspect on Crosscheck lists was charged, although prosecutors would have access to any alleged fraudsters’ names and addresses.

The Crosscheck list purges could easily account for Republican victories in at least two Senate races. In North Carolina, the GOP’s Thom Tillis won over incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan by just 48,511 votes. Crosscheck tagged a breathtaking 589,393 North Carolinians as possible illegal double voters (though state elections officials cut that down to roughly 190,000).

In Colorado, Republican Cory Gardner was able to force out incumbent Senator Mark Udall in a race that had poll-watchers guessing all summer. The outcome might have been more predictable if Colorado had made public that 300,842 of the state’s voters were now subject to being purged from the voter rolls.

The Rocky Mountain State’s elections officials have a history of cleansing voter rolls without public explanation. Before the 2008 election, Colorado’s GOP Sec. of State Donetta Davidson began an unprecedented scrub of the electoral rolls, disenfranchising nearly one in six voters [PDF] (http://www.gregpalast.com/wp-content/uploads/RS-SBYV-Article.pdf).

Not everyone on the Crosscheck lists loses their vote. But the purges are, nevertheless, huge. Just one state, Virginia, canceled the registrations of 41,637 voters last year, 13.5 percent of those on the list — and has since announced it will remove many more [PDF] (http://leg2.state.va.us/dls/h&sdocs.nsf/fc86c2b17a1cf388852570f9006f1299/35827a0d9bd8c87985257b4e0054448e/$FILE/RD44.pdf).

Other states’ voting officials are less forthcoming about their purges. For example, North Carolina and Ohio refused to release their Crosscheck lists on the grounds that all these voters, more than a million in those two states, are subjects of criminal investigation, which allows them to keep the information confidential.

If other states followed Virginia and scrubbed just 13.5 percent of their Crosscheck lists, that would more than cover the spread in the North Carolina Senate race and significantly contributed to the margins of victory in several other states. Moreover, this could account for the comeback victory of incumbent governor Sam Brownback in Kansas. Kansas originated Crosscheck and its Secretaries of State have been using it to promote the cleansing of voter rolls since 2005

Statistician Nate Silver wrote that there was a nearly universal error in polls leading up to this election (http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-were-skewed-toward-democrats). Silver found that, on average, pre-election polls showed Democrats winning four percentage points more of the vote than recorded in the official final tallies in Senate races, and 3.4 percent in the gubernatorial ones.

But journalist Brad Friedman, who tracks vote suppression techniques state by state (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10929), has another explanation. Friedman told Al Jazeera that what Silver calls an error in polling may in fact be a reflection of the votes lost to partisan manipulation of the voting system.

Friedman accounts for many of the so-called pre-election polling “errors” by examining the Democratic votes lost to Crosscheck and several other vote suppression tactics such as Photo ID restrictions, missing voter registrations and a shortage of paper ballots.

The purge of those snared in the Crosscheck dragnet has only begun. The process of actually removing names from the voter rolls is slow and could take months, even years. It will likely have a bigger impact on the 2016 race than seen last week.

The ultimate swing state in the Presidential race remains Ohio, whose Republican secretary of state, John Husted, has embraced Crosscheck. Columbus State University professor Robert Fitrakis, an expert in voting law, tells Al Jazeera that he has spoken to county voting officials who are concerned that that Husted is pushing counties to scrub voter rolls of “duplicates” within 30 days of receiving the names from the Secretary of State. This gives counties little time and no resources to verify if the accused voter has, in fact, voted in a second state.

Husted’s office has refused to reveal the 469,201 names on Ohio’s Crosscheck list. How many will officials in Ohio ultimately scrub from the voter rolls? The answer may determine who will choose our next president: the voters or Crosscheck.

http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2014/11/14/voter-purges-alteruspoliticalmap.html

Repugs, and their VRWC/1%/BigCorp paymasters, are fucking anti-American CHEATERS and TRAITORS.

[Spurminator]

Sure, if you require ID and then make it impossible to get the ID. Doesn't seem like that's the case, tho.

Impossible, no. Needlessly difficult for people who are poor and/or don't drive? Often.

And it doesn't help that the poll workers don't always know what they're talking about.

http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/voters-turned-away-because-texas-photo-id-law
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/houston/article/Little-demand-for-voter-ID-cards-but-some-hit-5865476.php

[Yonivore]

Impossible, no. Needlessly difficult for people who are poor and/or don't drive? Often.

And it doesn't help that the poll workers don't always know what they're talking about.

http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/voters-turned-away-because-texas-photo-id-law
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/houston/article/Little-demand-for-voter-ID-cards-but-some-hit-5865476.php
In Texas, you can vote absentee without ID.
In Texas, you can obtain an Election Identification Card, free of charge.
In Texas, there are numerous non-profits that will help you either get to the poll or obtain an absentee ballot.

Political posturing aside, answer a couple of sincere questions:

1) Should election officials have the duty to ensure only eligible voters cast a ballot?

2) If so, how do you propose they do that?

[boutons_deux]

"impossible!" :lol straw man

difficulty, transport, and expense are sufficient

[Yonivore]

Difficulty, transport, and expense are the strawmen.

[Spurminator]

In Texas, you can vote absentee without ID.

...unless you are a first time voter without a Texas driver's license.


In Texas, you can obtain an Election Identification Card, free of charge.

...after getting the supporting documentation and making the day trip to the DPS to apply for the EIC. If you don't drive, that can be needlessly difficult. Transportation costs, a day off work? Hell, we should at least give a transportation allowance like we do for jury duty.


In Texas, there are numerous non-profits that will help you either get to the poll or obtain an absentee ballot.

And thank God for them, but the existence of volunteers willing to help navigate unnecessarily complex processes isn't a good argument in favor of that process.


Political posturing aside, answer a couple of sincere questions:

1) Should election officials have the duty to ensure only eligible voters cast a ballot?

2) If so, how do you propose they do that?

How ever they were doing it prior to October 18, 2014 seemed to work just fine.

[Yonivore]

How ever they were doing it prior to October 18, 2014 seemed to work just fine.
How do you know?

[RandomGuy]

And, I'm telling you it doesn't have to be WIDESPREAD.

Why don't we agree to disagree.

So, you don't have any evidence of voter ID fraud?

[RandomGuy]

My prediction:
You know in-person voter fraud it isn't a real problem that affects elections to any degree, and that you can't find the evidence of any widespread problem, since it doesn't exist. You will therefore dissemble, and either ignore this request, or try to divert the conversation away from your burden of proof in this case, generally an indication of intellectual dishonesty.


http://www.manvsbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Red-Herring.gif


and.... no where in all of that is any evidence whatsoever of the kinds of problems you assert requires some new law.

I will ask a second time for any evidence that there is some wide-spread problem with in-person voter fraud, that voter ID laws would fix.

Evidence of fraud that would not be prevented by voter ID laws does not really support your contention.


[no evidence supplied]

Let's see what my third request gets. My guess: more of the same.

The burden of proof is on the person making the assertion.

"In person voter fraud is a problem that requires laws to prevent".

A reasonable standard of evidence would be to show that the problem exists to begin with, since spending money preventing non-existent laws is, by definition, a waste of money.

Assume:
The problem does not exist.

Data:
Yonivore wants a solution to the problem.
Yonivore is a reasonable person.

Conclusions:
Yonivore does not know the problem does not exist. He is ignorant.
Yonivore knows the problem does not exist. He is lying about what the problem the solution he proposes is.

Ignorance or ulterior motive.

Further data:
Dissembling usually indicates an intent to mislead.

Most likely explanation:
Yonivore is lying about what the problem the solution he proposes is.

Seems like a reasonable conclusion, based on current evidence at hand.

[Yonivore]

So, you don't have any evidence of voter ID fraud?

Ballots cast in Houston using dead voters' names (http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2008/10/dead-voters-still-registered-in-harris-county/)


"Ingram put it this way in his testimony: 'We believe 239 folks voted in the recent election after passing away' including, he said, 213 who voted in person."
...
"Mortara asked Ingram: 'Does the investigation you performed on the May voting data tell you anything about the prevalence of in person voter fraud of this type?'

"Ingram replied: 'It tells us that it's more common than we thought...'"

[boutons_deux]

Ballots cast in Houston using dead voters' names (http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2008/10/dead-voters-still-registered-in-harris-county/)

so who was prosecuted, and why could dubya US Attorney's, looking for year, find any to prosecute.

voter fraud is a authentic as James O'Queef

voter suppression and counting fraud, as when Repugs stole OH for dubya in 2004, throws election rather than a few, if any, "dead" voters.

[Yonivore]

so who was prosecuted, and why could dubya US Attorney's, looking for year, find any to prosecute.

voter fraud is a authentic as James O'Queef

voter suppression and counting fraud, as when Repugs stole OH for dubya in 2004, throws election rather than a few, if any, "dead" voters.
Are you suggesting 213 dead people didn't vote in Houston?

[Spurminator]

Are you suggesting 213 dead people didn't vote in Houston?

The article you copied those quotes from without linking suggests that claim is unsubstantiated.

http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/jul/24/greg-abbott/greg-abbott-dead-voters-Texas/

So how many arrests were made?

[Spurminator]

How do you know?

Because proponents of ID laws have failed to prove more-than-negligible fraud exists.