Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
It seems that almost everywhere you look, some State is trying to reduce the number of early voting days, purging the voting rolls and making it harder for citizens to cast their votes. The State of Florida has recently attempted to remove legitimate voters off its voter rolls and the State of Georgia recently attempted to restrict the time when a military absentee ballot can be counted as I wrote about earlier on this blog. Georgia Now, we have some hard evidence of just who is getting removed or impacted by the various State’s attempts to cure the imagined Voter fraud problem!
“Their data suggests that beyond the wide variation in purge rates across states, there is significant variation within states:
In many states, certain parts of the state electorate, both geographically and demographically, are much more likely to be dropped off of the voter rolls than others. More specifically, some general trends that we see are focused on:
a. Urbanity – cities are getting disproportionately purged
b. Race – minorities are getting disproportionately purged
c. Marital Status – unmarried people are getting disproportionately purged
d. Age – younger (< 40 years old) and older (> 65 years old) voters are purged more frequently than middle-aged voters
e. County effects – there are big differences across county lines, pointing to sharp discontinuities based on arbitrary political boundaries that do not correspond with inherent behavioral differences
Catalist notes that more than 2.7 million living people who voted in 2008 have since been purged from the voter rolls. Among those, African American voters are “1.5 times more likely to be purged than Caucasian voters, nationally.” ‘ Think Progress
It appears from the data above that Minorities are the big “winners” when it comes to the voter purge gambit. The young and the old seem to be the runners-up in the race to see which demographic gets the worst of the attempts to prevent legal voters from being able to vote. What could be behind this attempt to prevent minorities and the young and those older than 65 from voting? It couldn’t be politics, could it??!
What are these States afraid of? It cannot be voter fraud since the actual number of voter fraud incidents is infinitesimal. “In fact there were only nine instances of possible in-person voter fraud between 2000 and 2007, and it is more likely that an individual will get struck by lightning than they will commit voter fraud. In the lawsuit brought by the ACLU against Pennsylvania’s voter ID law, the state formally acknowledged that no in-person voter fraud has occurred in Pennsylvania and they don’t expect any to occur in November.” Think Progress
Let see if I understand this. One side is claiming that voter purges and stricter voter ID laws are needed to prevent or stop a problem that at least in the case of the State of Pennsylvania, was not a problem in the past or likely in the future.
If there is no legitimate voter fraud problem now or in the near past, should these voter purges and voter ID laws be considered Voter Fraud? If so, why and if not, why not?
Additional sources: The Brennan Center
Al Gore was a pussy. I would have made them pay.
Malisha,
Well said!
“Man! I get tired of this crap. Why is everything related to race, hence the politically correct term, (certain demographics). I am sure that all races and ages would be affected having to show ID to vote. If you can’t get an ID then you should be ineligible for everything else too, not just voting. You need ID for Medicare, Hospital admission,various purchases, loans, cashing checks. What is the issue. Get over it.”
Wow. This is a massive projection.
I’m tired of the crap too. I’m tired of the crap that amounts to attempts to limit civil rights in the name of “preventing fraud” when there has been no fraud to start with. I’m tired of the crap that amounts to acting as if racism, sexism, government corruption and widespread dishonesty are no longer problems because somebody has written a few articles stupidly claiming that we’re all cured now, we’re all doing right now, and except for some “suspicious guys” and “thugs,” we’d be perfect right now if only mamby-pambies weren’t flapping their jaws.
I’m tired of the fact that whenever a court really screws up in such a way that anybody who ever HEARD of the phrase “rule of law” would be so up in arms they would tear down the courthouse brick by brick, the appellate judges find a way to call it “harmless error” and pretend the whole thing would have come out the same way even if the court had not obscenely misfunctioned.
I’m tired of the fact that elected legislators in the 50 states are passing laws that they know are unconstitutional because they realize that with the economy as it is now, it will take at least three or four years for anybody to gather up the money to make a legal challenge to the thing — if even they ever can — and meanwhile they can do whatever unconstitutional crap they planned to enable (with that “enabling legislation”) after which it will be moot.
I’m tired of the fact that in every state agency and in every federal agency BAR NONE there are “fixers” and hustlers who are using the taxpayers’ money to fix in place — better than the newest, most efficient dental glue — every small scam, knowing that to bust anybody doing this takes so much firepower that their victims will never be able to pull together enough energy to make a little ineffectual SQUEAK SQUEAK while they eat and drink the human rights of everyone in their thieving slaver “jurisdictions.”
I am tired of it.
And now, taking the one cosmetic thing we all had to fool us into thinking this really was a government of the people, by the people and for the people, taking the VOTE itself, is just par for the filthy course. And it is, at least, a tiny bit more honest (“We really want to make you not be able to vote”) than all the rest of the stinking lies that preceded it.
bettykath,
it is when someone who is of age is buying for someone who is not of legal drinking age.
OS, what is “straw”
Several convenience stores in our area are out of business for second and third offenses of selling alcohol to teens or straw purchasers. ID is mandatory, and the clerk who sells to a person without an ID of some kind risks arrest. The argument presented by Damian does not hold water. You are entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts.
Now if the students unite they can create their own religion, elect (or hire) the essay nerd to write up their beliefs for all to use. They can accelerate the growth of the teach-nothing school.
bettykath,
Anything but those damned math word problems! 🙂
Slarti
you know they’d want a 5-7 page single spaced essay on religious beliefs first.
Pete said: “Slarti you know they’d want a 5-7 page single spaced essay on religious beliefs first.”
NOOOOOOOOOO!
I’d probably be the only one who’s religion required doing math problems…