-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
There are two ways to increase your chances of winning an election, get more voters to cast their ballots for you, or get fewer voters to cast their ballots for your opponent. The GOP had decided to pursue the latter option.
There is nothing more sacred in a democracy that the right to vote, so an attack on voting rights is an attack on democracy. That is exactly what is happening in many states across our land. Republican governors and legislatures are passing laws making it extremely difficult for certain Americans to vote.
The Republicans use the illusion of voter fraud to mask their contempt of the Constitution. A report from the Brennan Center for Justice found the incidence of voter fraud at rates such as 0.0003 percent in Missouri and 0.000009 percent in New York. Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center said “Voter impersonation is an illusion.” The Brennan report also states:
We are not aware of any documented cases in which individual noncitizens have either intentionally registered to vote or voted while knowing that they were ineligible.
Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas and longtime conservative activist, has led the voter ID drive in his state. Kobach explained that between 1997 and 2010, Kansas has experienced “221 cases of reported voter fraud.” A dubious claim since not a single criminal conviction has resulted. Over the same period of time, Kansans cast 10 million votes. Even if everyone of the claimed cases of voter fraud were accurate, the rate of fraud would be miniscule.
Numerous surveys show that blacks, Hispanics, the elderly, and the young are less likely like to possess a form of government-issued identification. Except for the elderly, the other demographics are more likely to vote Democratic. The elderly are more likely to vote Republican. In a shameless display of the falsity of their voter fraud motivations, Republicans in Texas simply exempted the elderly from the new voter ID law.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, after signing a voter ID law requiring voters to have a photo ID, then closed DMV offices in Democratic areas and expanded DMV operating hours in Republican areas. South Carolina governor Nikki Haley said she “will go take them to the DMV myself and help them get that picture ID.” Even with carpooling, it would take 7 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 5 days to take the 178,000 voters to the DMV. That assumes good traffic conditions.
H/T: WaPo, Bloomberg, E.J. Dionne, Think Progress, Daily Kos.
OS,
You’re correct. Who counts the votes (including the method/machine) is at least as important as making sure that the person casting the vote is really that person.
I think every citizen who wants to vote should be able to. Along with that comes the responsibility to make sure that the vote cast is correctly applied to the person/initiative for which it is intended.
kderosa
When we allow illegals to come into our country and then end up at our hospitals where the America tax-payer pays under the notion of general welfare is a joke and one example of what is killing our our nation.
This discussion brings a favorite quotation to mind:
“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering in order that they may have existence.” -Leon Bloy
“[T]he laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.” — Thomas Jefferson
Although that Preamble indicates the general purposes for which the people ordained and established the Constitution, it has never been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the Government of the United States or on any of its Departments. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 22 (1905)
Remember the maxim: a fraudulent voter can change one vote, but a fraudulent election machine can change a million.
Who ya gonna call?
Jack and Otteray,
Nursing Homes
Paying for Care
Personal Resources
About half of all nursing home residents pay nursing home costs out of their own savings. After these savings and other resources are spent, many people who stay in nursing homes for long periods eventually become eligible for Medicaid.
http://www.medicare.gov/nursing/payment.asp
Otteray Scribe
Promote NOT give the General welfare.
Otteray Scribe
Her Medicaid does not pay for all her prescriptions, so she goes without getting some of her prescriptions filled
This is a freebie which she really is not entitled to. Never rob Paul to pay Peter. Earn your way. This is why we need to take care of all of our Social security and Medicare recipients.
Jack, all too many people are selfish. Your system will not work in practice. I do not see my example as some kind of worst case scenario. In the universe of people in which I travel, it is an everyday thing. That lady is not an exception, but typical of thousands of people just like her that live in poverty, and would literally starve if they did not first die of medical neglect were it not for government programs.
Remember those pesky phrases in the Preamble to the Constitution? They were not put there by accident.
Otteray Scribe
Always a grief worse-case scenario. Government is not the mom and dad of the people. What you are doing is trying to justify that which is not right. People should help people and not government. We have become a lazy society because as a population we like to have the governemnt do what we know we should be doing. Most people would rather contribute money rather than their time. Unless we change our thinking we all will lose.
Elaine,
Of course not except for medicaid. Anybody who did not or does not pay income taxes should receive nothing. Also, what is wrong with making medicaid recipients pay a premium. Social security retirees have to pay for a supplement for their 20% not covered under medicare. Medicaid recipinets by and large do not contribute anything yet receive much.
I do not believe any social security benefits should be taxed even for people who are getting much more than the $32,000/year. In the 80s,90s and 2000s we increased entitlements and due to job losses revenues have declined. Technology has a lot to do with that because technological advances take the place of jobs. Unless this changes America will stay in decline. What we need to do is raise tariffs and start building at home but this will also require removing union barriers and we both know how difficult that will be.
Medicare is for the elderly and disabled who have worked and paid into the system. Medicaid is for the poor and elderly who have, for some reason, not paid in due to poverty or disability. Jack, shall we make my daughter’s neighbor pay too. She gets SSI and Medicaid. She only gets an amount that pays for her minimal public housing and for some food–food stamps help with that. She has no car, no television, no telephone and no air conditioning. She does have medical expenses because she is crippled and in a wheel chair so she has to use free public transportation for those trips. Her Medicaid does not pay for all her prescriptions, so she goes without getting some of her prescriptions filled. She loves green bell peppers but they are expensive at the store. She saves her money so she can buy a bell pepper as a luxury a couple of times a summer. Jack, how much do you propose she pay?
Jack,
There are many elderly people who are recipients of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Many of these same people worked hard for decades and paid income taxes. Shall we take their benefits away from them now that are no longer working and paying income taxes? Should we tax their Social Security benefits?
I am tired of hearing that the top 1% need to pay their fair share. Those who receive medicaid and other low-income programs mostly pay NOTHING in Income taxes. It is time they pay their fair share. I always believed that everyone brings a gift to the party no matter how great or small yet the Democrats want to continue and feed those who contribute nothing. If we are all Americans then we need to ALL contribute. We can discuss the Progressive tax system later but at least everyone should pay.
NoWay–I must have misread what you intended. Sorry. Agree that all elections should be clean and votes easily and accurately verified. Josef Stalin could have been talking about recent US elections when he made that famous statement about who counted the votes was more important than the voter.
Boris Bazhanov, in his book, Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary, wrote (translated from the Russian):
Top Ehrlich aide, consultant indicted in Md. robocalls case
By John Wagner
Washington Post, 6/16/2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/maryland-politics/post/top-ehrlich-aide-consultant-indicted-in-robocalls-case/2011/06/16/AGwU2cXH_blog.html
Excerpt:
A senior aide and a consultant hired by former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) were indicted Thursday in a case stemming from thousands of anonymous robocalls placed on election night last year that suggested voters could stay home even though the polls were still open.
Paul Schurick, 54, Ehrlich’s de facto campaign manager, and Julius Henson, 62, a consultant paid by the campaign, were both charged with three counts of conspiracy to violate election laws, one count of influencing votes through fraud and one count of failing to identify the sponsor of the calls. In addition, Schurick was charged on one count of obstruction of justice.
In a statement, the Office of the Maryland State Prosecutor, which obtained the indictments from a Baltimore grand jury, said its investigation is continuing. All but one of the charges handed down Thursday carry maximum prison sentences of five years.
Right-Wing Voter Suppression Effort Caught Using Doctored Photo (VIDEO, PHOTOS)
Huffington Post
September 6, 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-w-smith/right-wing-voter-suppress_b_706550.html
Excerpt:
A right-wing group in Houston engaged in a systematic voter suppression and intimidation effort used a doctored photo in its showcase video. Tellingly, a hand-lettered sign carried by an African-American woman at a 2000 Florida, Gore-Lieberman recount rally was changed from, “Don’t Mess With Our Vote,” to read, “I Only Got to Vote Once.”
Huffington Post editors first suspected the photoshopping after I posted “Possible Arson and the Right’s Texas Voter Suppression Effort” regarding King Street Patriots’ attacks on a nonprofit voter registration effort and the mysterious fire that destroyed all of Harris County’s (Houston) voting machines.
Con: Cries of voter fraud are being used to suppress democracy
By RICHARD MEANS Saturday, July 30, 2011
The Janesville Gazette
http://gazettextra.com/news/2011/jul/30/con-cries-voter-fraud-are-being-used-suppress-demo/
Excerpt:
OAK PARK, Ill. — At this critical time in our nation’s history, when wider participation by the American people in their own democracy should be encouraged, Republican politicians are instead suppressing that participation by limiting access to the voting booth.
So-called “voter ID” laws signed into law this year in several states have nothing to do with their purported aim of protecting the sanctity of elections and everything to do with concentrating political power in fewer and fewer hands.
As a former prosecutor of election-law violations in Chicago, I know a little something about election fraud. But what I found in years of pursuing cases of ballot abuse is that it almost never involved ordinary citizens who, say, voted when they weren’t eligible, voted under an assumed name, or voted multiple times.
Instead, the fraud was almost exclusively perpetrated by political operatives, who stuffed ballot boxes, “lost” ballots, or otherwise manipulated the vote totals in their precincts and wards.
On the unusual occasions when individual voters were involved, they were bribed or intimidated into cooperating with the scheme by a political operative. National and local investigations over the years have confirmed my personal experience.
Since the supposed target of the new laws is a non-existent problem — systematic or widespread fraud by individual voters — these laws, which require citizens to present a photo ID in order to vote, can only be interpreted as an attempt to further politically marginalize already marginalized populations in our country, including the elderly, the disabled, rural residents, low-income citizens and minorities.
These are the groups who are less likely to have government-issued photo identification, and often face financial and logistical hurdles in trying to obtain it.
Suggestion:
If you don’t have an ID, submit to some another form of matching identity to the person’s name in which the ballot is cast? Picture, retinal scan, fingerprint?