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
Well said Slarts!
” … purely partisan political purpose (nice alliteration, eh?)” (Slarti)
alliteration always alleviates anxiety
slarti:
yes because if you dont care enough to give up a day or a couple of hours for your duty as a citizen, you should pay the price.
Bron,
The problem is that there is an inequity in what you are asking people to give up. For you (and many others) such a price (a day away from work) wouldn’t affect you beyond the time you actually spent and possibly a minor financial hit while for others it could easily mean less food on the table for their kids, less security at work (by pissing off the boss), or even lead to loss of a job altogether. Either you are too naive to understand that these laws are being enacted for a purely partisan political purpose (nice alliteration, eh?), or you feel it is okay to disenfranchise people if it helps your side—which is it?
Anyone may join the LWV. If there isn’t a local chapter then join the state chapter.
LWV is strictly non-partisan and never endorses candidates but does make recommendations on issues after in-depth studies.
If you want to meet people from all walks of life and all political persuasions who are able to come together and work towards positive goals, the LWV is a great vehicle.
“The League of Women Voters of the United States is a nonpartisan political membership organization, which:
acts after study and member agreement to achieve solutions in the public interest on key community issues at all government levels.
builds citizen participation in the democratic process.
engages communities in promoting positive solutions to public policy issues through education and advocacy.”
http://www.lwv.org/content/lwvus-lwvef-mission-statement-and-core-values
Making Democracy Work
I would like to echo lotta’s blessing of the League of Women voters! Great group.
Slarti, Good on you for voting and having a plan for world domination. I got to vote against one of those ‘freedom of religion & prayer-in-school’ initiatives. Humbug! The better half just put on some Johnny Cash and we’re sliding into ‘The Man Comes Around’, a good voting day song if you think of voting day as Judgment Day.
Blouise, put your feet up and have a rest, you earned it. If I weren’t an atheist I’d say ‘God bless the League of Women Voters’. 😉
Blouise,
“But the man at the liquor store, he knew“—Roger Rabbit
An unqualified endorsement if I ever saw one 😉
Slarti,
Party stores should be in every world domination plan!
Lord, I’m tired … long day.
Hey Blouise!
They asked for my driver’s license when I voted today, but when I asked them about it they said that it wasn’t necessary (but it was convenient—they were trying out a new computerized registration database and had a card swipe for DL or Michigan ID). Not a very exciting election, although I did get to vote for a tax levy for an animal shelter and I voted for the guy who runs the party store down the street for township trustee (he’s already on the November ballot)—I figure that a candidate I have access to is better than a candidate I don’t know—every plan for world domination has to start somewhere… 😉
^..^ * many,
Opti-scan only at my polling place.
Hey Slarti!
SwM and lotta,
Just got back from poll duty where things went smoothly. As you know I have always been active in the League of Women Voters (past president, etc) and I’m pleased to say that the law suit we filed after the terrible problems experienced here in Ohio in 2004 and which was settled in 2009 has brought about some much needed changes.
There is still much to be done but we remain ever vigilant and active.
I went to vote in our state primary today and got a surprise; we now have the option in my precinct of using touch-screen or opti-scan machines. I chose opti-scan but there were several people at the touch screen bank of machines! Touch screens are the absolutely worst choice because if there is a close and contested race there is no way to do a full recount with touch screen machines.
Full recounts are not always done, just a resolution of voters and gross totals (bad idea) but that is the only possible kind of a recount available in reality with touch-screens because if it registers bad data it can only be examined for what it recorded- it’s entirely a self check- there is no way to determine if the data it recorded is bad.
Some retired lady should make a sign warning people to not use the touch-screen system and stand outside the polling place come November. That probably should be done in every precinct that provides a choice.
Bron,
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that such a plan was implemented (in Pennsylvania) and, due to the annoyance, resulted in a large group of people not voting who otherwise would have. Further, let’s assume that this group skewed enough toward the Republicans that it was sufficient to tip the state to President Obama and Pennsylvania was the difference in the electoral college (he would not have had 270 without it). Would you still feel the same way?
Besides, don’t you think it is unAmerican to disenfranchise any eligible voters in order to stop what seems to be a statistically insignificant problem? Would you give up your vote to fight this sort of fraud? I’m sorry, but attempting to fix a problem that is extraordinarily unlikely to swing an election, if it is even occurring in significant numbers at all, by a method which is nearly certain to impact the election in a way favoring your side is clearly unethical, even if you choose to blind yourself to it.
I am not rich but I wouldnt complain about it.
Slarti:
If you want to make rich people get a state voter ID card and sit in line at some government office, I am all for it. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
“Minnesota Majority took the information to prosecutors across the state, many of whom showed no interest in pursuing it. But Minnesota law requires authorities to investigate such leads. And so far, Fund and von Spakovsky report, 177 people have been convicted — not just accused, but convicted — of voting fraudulently in the Senate race. Another 66 are awaiting trial. “The numbers aren’t greater,” the authors say, “because the standard for convicting someone of voter fraud in Minnesota is that they must have been both ineligible, and ‘knowingly’ voted unlawfully.” The accused can get off by claiming not to have known they did anything wrong.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-when-1099-felons-vote-in-race-won-by-312-ballots/article/2504163
here is org. which will help you get a voter ID card:
http://www.truethevote.org/voterid/
It is difficult to mount a good defense for the morally indefensible.
Rickad
1, August 7, 2012 at 4:31 pm
It is difficult to mount a good defense for the morally indefensible.
I thought “It’s okay if you are a Republican” was our highest moral law…
Bron,
How about this: we institute ID cards for people who apply for welfare and require them to vote. Anyone can get one, they just have to go down to the appropriate office, wait their turn and go through the process of registering to see what benefits they are eligible for. Sure, rich people don’t need the benefits and wont qualify for them anyway, but it isn’t a big deal to ask them to do this in order to vote, right?
you will be pleased to know the current administration has required states to offer voter registration to welfare recipients at welfare offices and has filed suits against a number of states it feels is not compliant.
Reblogged this on Mary Cosmo.