-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Although Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) does not believe “there is any particular evidence of polls barring African Americans from voting,” there is plenty of evidence that States are making it more difficult for African Americans to vote. Paul is using a strawman argument to recast the voting issue to one in which African Americans are prohibited from voting. Preventing African Americans from voting is the intended result of Republican efforts in numerous states. Using analysis of voting habits, Republicans have passed laws that intentionally create voting difficulties for groups that traditionally vote Democratic. Jim Crow has been dressed up a little, to become James Crow, Esq., but statistically speaking, the results are the same.
In Florida, minority voters waited to vote nearly double the time of white voters, as shown by this graph. 
Statistical analysis of voting patterns showed that 61.2 percent of all early voting ballots were cast by Democrats, compared with 18.7 percent by Republicans. The Republican solution: delete six days of early voting and extend voting hours to accommodate those voters who have jobs. A GOP consultant noted that “cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves.” Although not directly targeting African Americans, the intention is to reduce African American voter turnout.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker closed down DMV offices in predominately Democratic areas after passing a voter ID law. In Ohio, Republicans curtailed early voting from thirty-five to eleven days, including the Sunday before the election when African-American churches historically rally their congregants to go to the polls.
In North Carolina, voter suppression has been taken to new levels. Among the new measures are:
- The end of pre-registration for 16 & 17 year olds
- A ban on paid voter registration drives
- Elimination of same day voter registration
- A provision allowing voters to be challenged by any registered voter of the county in which they vote rather than just their precinct
- A week sliced off Early Voting
- Elimination of straight party ticket voting
- Authorization of vigilante poll observers, lots of them, with expanded range of interference
- An expansion of the scope of who may examine registration records and challenge voters
- A repeal of out-of-precinct voting
- A repeal of the current mandate for high-school registration drives
- Elimination of flexibility in opening early voting sites at different hours within a county
North Carolina now has the strictest voter ID law in the country. US military ID cards will be accepted, but IDs from students at state colleges will not be accepted. In the election of 2012, 1.4 million voters voted straight-ticket Democrat, while just 1.1 million voted straight ticket Republican, so that feature is gone. During the first seven days of early voting in the 2012 election, now eliminated, 458,258 Democrats used in-person early voting, while just 240,146 Republicans did so. Although not directly targeting African Americans, the intention is the same.
There doesn’t appear to be any help from the Constitution which states:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
In a 2007, the Brennan Center for Justice reported (pdf) that “by any measure, voter fraud is extraordinarily rare.” If Republicans can’t win by getting more votes than Democrats, they’ll lessen the number of Democratic voters and achieve an identical result.
As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in 1965 regarding the right to vote:
Every device of which human ingenuity is capable, has been used to deny this right.
H/T: Tom Anstrom, Dara Kam and John Lantigua, Ian Millhiser, Washington Post, Associated Press, Charles P. Pierce.
I don’t see any place where race is mentioned, you people should be ashamed of yourselves thinking that black people aren’t smart enough to adjust to voting regulations. and for those who can’t adjust (white, black, Hispanic, etc.) maybe they shouldn’t vote anyway,
OH, I am just in tears this morning, crying about all the poor people who will not be able to drive because they can’t get to the DMV to get a license, and all the poor minorities who won’t be able to get welfare benefits because they can’t provide the necessary paperwork to the government. And, oohhhh the INHUMANITY that they can’t even get to the local Federal courthouse to file a suit because it takes id to get past the door! OH, we are all caught in a Kafkaesque Hell!!!
And then the horrible mean hateful RACIST white people in Connecticut have done gone and:
http://www.ct.gov/dmv/cwp/view.asp?a=4078&q=477742
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Another:
Wisconsin’s Season of Voter Suppression
“Wisconsin seems to have dedicated this past month to limiting voting rights in the state. Last week, an omnibus bill was announced which would place numerous restrictions on Wisconsin voters. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has long been a proponent of such regulations as well as the state’s photo ID legislation. Following Vos’s lead, Rep. Jeff Stone began circulating for sponsorship LRB-1763, which launches a direct assault against voting rights.
“The bill would place new restrictions on in-person absentee voting by requiring any person who wants to vote outside of weekday business hours to make an appointment with the local clerk. The bill adds a logistical hurdle by forbidding the clerk from designating another person to accept the voter’s in-person ballot. This provision leaves many working voters of Wisconsin, whose schedules keep them from voting during the week, in the lurch. Arguing that smaller communities don’t have the same capacity to provide early voting as large cities do, supporters believe that limiting the early vote period would level the playing field. This logic is completely backward. Rather than stripping voters of rights, why not reallocate resources so all areas can comply with early voting laws. The bill’s fundamental premise is that the effective systems in more urban areas are working too well and putting others at a disadvantage, so these systems should be broken to make things equal. Instead of breaking something that works, why not fix something that doesn’t? …”
http://www.fairelectionsnetwork.com/blog/wisconsin%E2%80%99s-season-voter-suppression
Wisconsin —-
Little known Wisconsin foundation behind ‘voter fraud’ billboards
“When Scot Ross heard about more than a dozen billboards going up in largely minority neighborhoods around Cleveland, Ohio, bearing ominous images of a judge’s gavel and copy warning of the legal penalties (fines and jail time) for voter fraud, the story had a familiar ring. Back in 2010, nearly identical billboards sprang up around Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“Like the Ohio boards, the Wisconsin campaign seemed to target minority-rich neighborhoods, low income areas, and a few rural areas. And just like in Ohio, whoever purchased the ads from Clear Channel Outdoor Advertising did so anonymously — the boards carried only the information that they were paid for by “a private family foundation.”
“The Milwaukee billboards in 2010 replaced the gavel with images of a black man and woman, and a larger picture of a white woman, behind bars, with the words “We Voted Illegally” emerging from a cartoon bubble, underneath the large headline: “VOTER FRAUD is a FELONY!” Voting rights advocates protested the boards, to no avail.
“And then, with just a few weeks to go before the 2012 election, the boards were back. More than more than 85 of them across the Milwaukee area, according to Clear Channel Outdoor Advertising…. ”
http://thegrio.com/2012/10/29/web-of-dark-money-behind-wisconsin-voter-suppression/#49579389
rafflaw, You live in the voter fraud capital of the US. May I dub you Captain Renault?
Good one David. It is amazing to me that people refuse to see through the obvious and blatant attempts to keep people from voting. Why would any state or locality not want to make voting as easy as possible? You provided clear and concise reasons to that question. Voter fraud allegations are just that..frauds.
The GOP definition of voter fraud: a woman, man, young person, old person, black or any minority, that is, a human casting a vote for someone other than a member of the GOP or threatening to doing the same. Such blatantly unacceptable behavior must be eliminated! That is how the freedom loving Republicans view our voting rights. Every potential voter is a threat that must be eliminated! Eliminated! What a sad state of affairs.
Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Barred From Enforcement In November Election By Judge
By PETER JACKSON
08/16/13
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/16/pennsylvania-voter-id_n_3769410.html
Excerpt:
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A state judge issued an order Friday that is expected to block enforcement of Pennsylvania’s strict voter-identification law in the Nov. 5 general election.
Local poll workers can ask voters to show IDs if they have them and distribute written material about the law, but they may not tell voters at the polls that photo IDs could be required in future elections, Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley said.
“There is no value in inaccurate information, and the court does not deem inaccurate information `educational.’ It is not a matter of confusion – it is a matter of accuracy,” McGinley wrote.
McGinley’s ruling marked the third consecutive election in which enforcement of the law has been blocked by court order.
After legal jousting that reached the state Supreme Court, a judge blocked enforcement in last year’s presidential election and again in this year’s municipal and judicial primary because of lingering concern that it could disenfranchise voters who lacked a valid photo ID.
Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze, Part The Infinity
By Charles P. Pierce
8/16/13
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Antifreeze_Is_Half_Price_During_Happy_Hour
Excerpt;
Here’s Rich Lowry, editor of the longtime white-supremacist journal, National Review, being deliberately stupid about voter-suppression in the newly insane state of North Carolina. You see, the Republican majority in the state legislature passed this bill as a good-government initiative. The fact that it will impact minority voters, and that it will tend to inconvenience Democratic voting blocs at a time when North Carolina seemed to be purpling itself is entirely accidental.
“You can’t argue it’s a de facto return to Jim Crow and the era of the poll tax. Democrats mock Republicans as perennially stuck in the 1980s. But they are stuck in the 1950s and the 1960s, and in their demagoguery, disgrace the memory of genuine martyrs at a time when state and local officials in the South really did prevent blacks from voting through the most hideous means.”
OK, I can’t argue it, but John Lewis, who came damn close to being one of those “genuine martyrs” whose memory Lowry seeks to protect from the depredations of Hillary Clinton, can.
“In Georgia, Florida, Ohio and other states, legislatures have significantly reduced opportunities to cast ballots before Election Day – an option that was disproportionately used by African-American voters in 2008. In this case the justification is often fiscal: Republicans in North Carolina attempted to eliminate early voting, claiming it would save money. Fortunately, the effort failed after the State Election Board demonstrated that cuts to early voting would actually be more expensive because new election precincts and additional voting machines would be required to handle the surge of voters on Election Day.”
Oh, and back when those genuine martyrs were being, you know, martyred, here’s what Lowry’s magazine had to say about it.
“The central question that emerges–and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by meerely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal–is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced ace. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage. The British believe they do, and acted accordingly, in Kenya, where the choice was dramatically one between civilization and barbarism, and elsewhere; the South, where the conflict is by no means dramatic, as in Kenya, nevertheless perceives important qualitative differences between its culture and the Negroes’, and intends to assert its own. National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened.”
And, back when John Lewis was nearly being martyred by hitting billy clubs with his head, here’s how NR founder “Bill” Buckley looked at things.
“Just months before the 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed, Buckley warned in his syndicated column (2/18/65) that “chaos” and “mobocratic rule” might follow if “the entire Negro population in the South were suddenly given the vote.” In his 1969 column “On Negro Inferiority” (4/8/69), Buckley heralded as “massive” and “apparently authoritative” academic racist Arthur Jensen’s findings that blacks are less intelligent than whites and Asians.”
Nick,
A lot of the problem with the ALEC sponsored legislation requiring voter ID is to make it has hard as possible for likely Democratic and Independent voters to get a state issued ID. The reasoing is that more minorities and the poor are more likely to vote Democratic and not Republican. Even if they are free, most driver’s license bureaus keep short hours, are understaffed, and are hard to get to. Especially for the poor, elderly and disabled. There has even been a push to decrease the number of places one can get an official state ID. In some instances, election boards have refused to accept a current and valid passport, since it is not issued by the state.
Actual voter fraud is a number approaching zero. This is a soluton in search of a problem. Showing up with a library card, mail from utilitiy companies, and even a voter registration card issued by the election board won’t do. Has to be a current and valid state-issued ID. Operant word is current. A person who no longer drives may have let their license expire, but still has their address and photo on it. Nope! That won’t do. Has to be current and valid to get to vote. I will donate ten bucks to the charity of your choice if you can convince me that is not deliberate voter caging. That is the real voter fraud.
The only way for poorer persons who use public transportation to get even a free ID, is to go to the Dept. of Motor vehicles which has only ONE office in Houston that is accessible by public transport. All the rest of the offices require a car to get to them. The DMv offices are choked full of people now just trying to get their current licenses, much less an ID. Then there is the question of even them having the required paperwork to get that ID.
A friend of ours had her ID stolen, and she was homeless for a shortwhile. She came to live with us, and she had no picture ID, but she did have her birth certificate which she had gotten after coming here. She submitted a change of address form to her old place in Dallas, and listed our address for her new one. She went to vote, and was refused because she was not registered. She went on line and found she had been taken OFF the rolls in Dallas, but Montgomery County refused to put her on, even though she had been there in person to do this! We went to the clerks office on election day, and demanded to have her vote with her birth certificate as proof. They finally let her vote a restricted ballot, but only because I had told her to tell the clerk that our next stop would be the US attorney’s office in Houston to file suit against them. Turns out that even though she had submitted two change of address forms, they DENIED all of them because she was not on the DMV data base. They were ILLEGALLY using that to qualify voters despite her having been born, raised, and having worked most of her life in Houston.
This is only one small incident I know of, so there are hundreds if not thousands more. OH, the most important part is that she is obviously Hispanic as is her name. Had she been Anglo, no problem.
In Tennessee, twenty different Tea Party groups have
petitioneddemanded that Senator Lamar Alexander (R) resign. Seems the Senator and former Governor is toomoderateliberal since he advocates bipartisanship, compromise, and tolerance for the views of those with different ideas.Remember, this is Tennessee. The same state that has given you judges like Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew and ex-judge David W. Lanier.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/14/lamar-alexander-tea-party_n_3757976.html
What Mike S said.
Voter Fraud: A Massive, Anti-Democratic Deception
By John Wasik
11/6/12
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2012/11/06/voter-fraud-a-massive-anti-democratic-deception/
Excerpt:
I knew something wrong was afoot when my wife reported that a 90-year-old woman had to be turned away from voting early at our local polling place. Her crime: She didn’t have a driver’s license. Why would she? She wasn’t able to drive anymore.
As the embarrassed election judge fumbled for a solution as the woman sobbed — this was the first election she missed in her life (and might be her last) — it struck me at how regressive this whole idea of voter policing has become.
Believe me, I know plenty about voting fraud. I’m from Chicago, where countless voters were registered in graveyards and perhaps aided in the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 thanks to Richard J. Daley’s political machine. He managed to put a lot of zombies in polling places — even more than were in political office at the time.
But large-scale voter fraud is virtually non-existent today. Yet the efforts to root it out recall the horrid Jim Crow era. The former “party of Lincoln” has been most active in this fraudulent crusade. It’s mostly prevented people of color and older folks from voting. Could it be that they’d largely vote for Democrats?
Shades of 2000 and 2004 when somehow voting machines weren’t delivered to African-American precincts in Ohio and Florida or unforeseen glitches prevented their ballots from counting. It’s not that the disenfranchised voters weren’t properly registered — by and large they were. But a systematic campaign to keep them from voting was in place. It’s been documented by several news organizations, most notably the Miami Herald.
I support voter ID laws as long as a free ID is required. 70% of voters agree. 52% are Dems, 72% Independents and 87% Republicans.
These new voter fraud laws are solutions looking for problems.
*****
Pennsylvania admits it: no voter fraud problem
By Jamelle Bouie
7/24/13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/pennsylvania-admits-it-no-voter-fraud-problem/2012/07/24/gJQAHNVt6W_blog.html
Excerpt:
A court filing by the state of Pennsylvania, ahead of a trial starting later this week on a lawsuit filed by civil rights groups against the state’s new voter fraud law, contains an astounding admission:
The state signed a stipulation agreement with lawyers for the plaintiffs which acknowledges there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.”
In other words, the state knows that voter fraud is a nonexistent problem, but will nonetheless defend a law that could potentially disenfranchise a huge number of the state’s voters. Of course, it’s not hard to see why the state — and particularly its Republican governor — would continue to support the measure.
“Jim Crow has been dressed up a little, to become James Crow, Esq.”
David,
An elegant turn of phrase to highlight the similarities between the racism against Black Americans as practiced before the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the re-introduction of that type of racism today. We have seen many quotes from Republican Party officials and Legislators that have blatantly stated that their purpose with the “Voter ID” laws is to suppress voting by people of color.
The North Carolina Law you dissect is so close to the types of laws passed during Jim Crow as to be virtually indistinguishable from them.
While in the past Jim Crow laws encompassed more than just the right to vote, enforcing segregation in schools, restaurants, buses, etc., the focal point of the movement to do away with them was always voting rights. Unfortunately, as you so powerfully point out, the battle for freedom from bigotry is a never-ending one, since it seems bigots never quit.
Somenbody from KY needs to challenge Sen. Paul to make good on his pledge that he is very supportive of black voting rights. They need to demand that he denounce the attempts of NC Republicans to do this kind of thing. Of course, I doubt he will since it will cost him politically, and he has no guts to go up against powerful people.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/13/92-year-old-black-woman-sues-just-hours-after-north-carolina-gov-signs-voter-id-law/ “With the stroke of his pen, Gov. McCrory has transformed North Carolina from a state with one of the nation’s most progressive voting systems, where we saw some of the highest voter turnout rates of the last two presidential elections, into a state with the most draconian policies we’ve seen in decades, policies that harken back to the days of Jim Crow,” Hair explained.
Great post, Nal. I read the following voter fraud article yesterday:
Colorado ‘Voter Fraud’ Investigation Finds Only Legal U.S. Citizens In Boulder
The Huffington Post
By Ashley Balcerzak
Posted: 08/16/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/16/colorado-voter-fraud_n_3768071.html
Excerpt:
Voter fraud is not as rampant as Colorado’s secretary of state would like you to believe.
Last month, Secretary of State Scott Gessler (R) had announced that 155 possibly illegal voters went to the polls in the November 2012 elections — out of more than 3,050,578 voters in Colorado.
Now a review by Boulder County’s top prosecutor has found that all 17 instances of allegedly fraudulent voters in his county were, in fact, verifiable U.S. citizens, The Boulder Daily Camera reported Wednesday.
“Local governments and county clerks do a really good job regulating the integrity of elections, and I’ll stand by that record any day of the week,” said Stan Garnett (D), Boulder County’s district attorney. “We don’t need state officials sending us on wild goose chases for political reasons.
Thanks nal…. And if thy want the minority vote… They, he GOP needs pander to the Hispanics…. Which they did this last election cycle…. But hen stupid does what stupid does…. They are stalling Immigration….