-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.
@elaine:
Which, I would agree with making voting compulsory in the U.S. BUT, what would the Democrats say??? More accurately, forget what they would say, what would they “do”?? Would they try to stop if for “suppressing” the minority vote???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
James,
I believe Squeeky thinks she should be the one to determine who deserves to have the right to vote.
I moved in June. When I called the Town Hall in the town where I now reside to find out if I could register to vote in time for the Senate special election, I was told that I had missed the deadline. People register at the last minute because they have moved–and for various other reasons. We should be trying to get a higher percentage of our citizens to vote–not to suppress the vote.
Voting is compulsory in Australia. They don’t try to suppress the vote in that country.
http://www.aec.gov.au/faqs/enrolment.htm
Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter 1, August 17, 2013 at 4:39 pm
…
If you do not like the term, “idiot”…
===============================
I like the term idiot.
It describes perfectly anyone who would want to squeak when daddy mentor Charles Manson touched them.
Then name themselves Squeeky Fromm before going about to spread propaganda to the wrong crowd.
By that I mean people on this blog who are not idiots.
GOP’s push to suppress vote threatens democracy
By Ilyse Hogue, Special to CNN
November 4, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/04/opinion/hogue-voter-suppression
Editor’s note: Ilyse Hogue is co-director of Friends of Democracy, a super PAC aimed at electing candidates who champion campaign finance reform. She is the former director of political advocacy and communications for MoveOn.org and has been a senior strategist to Democratic and progressive groups, including Media Matters for America, Public Campaign and Rebuild the Dream. She is a regular contributor to The Nation magazine.
Excerpt:
(CNN) — One day before the election, tensions are running high and poll numbers are being crunched every few hours. Nowhere is this truer than in Ohio — the pathway to victory. So there was a collective gasp Friday when a last-minute directive from Ohio’s secretary of state, a Republican, threatened to invalidate a number of provisional ballots.
When the fate of the nation could hinge on a handful of votes, arcane state rules and local politicians’ motives take on a new urgency.
Earlier last week the Obama campaign complained to Wisconsin’s attorney general about what it said was “willful misrepresentation” by the Romney campaign in the materials used to train Election Day poll watchers. At issue was whether people in Wisconsin with felony convictions could vote. (They can, once they complete their sentences, but the Romney documents had said they can’t.) Given that this fact can be Googled in less than 10 seconds, one must conclude the Romney campaign was either grossly ignorant of election law or intentionally deceiving volunteers in an effort to swing the vote.
This election year is the culmination of years of Republican efforts to foment confusion and fear to keep certain Americans from voting. That is a subplot of this election, but one that will have massive consequences. In close and bitterly fought elections, there’s far more at stake than who occupies the White House: Americans’ belief in the integrity of our democracy hangs in the balance.
These efforts are pernicious, pervasive and professionalized. In a recent New Yorker article, Jane Mayer profiled Hans von Spakowsky, a legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who has been hyping the myth of voter impersonation fraud since 1998, despite mountains of evidence refuting his claim. (The Brennan Center for Justice has concluded that many more people are struck by lightning than commit in-person voter fraud.) Rep. John Lewis — a civil rights hero who bled to get all Americans the right to vote — describes von Spakowsky as waking up every morning thinking “What can I do today to make it more difficult for people to vote?”
Spakowsky is a close adviser to True the Vote, a Houston-based organization funded by wealthy conservative donors that has led challenges against the registration of minority voters across the country.
Because of these challenges, thousands of Americans who have voted reliably in the same place every year have had to attend formal hearings to defend their registrations or be disqualified from voting. The group has been so aggressive and so inaccurate in its work that Rep. Elijah Cummings has said it could “amount to a criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights.”
The backbone of the voter suppression movement has been the national push to institute a labyrinth of voter identification laws. Thirty-three states have passed such laws since 2009.
@James Knauer:
If you do not like the term, “idiot”, then use whatever term lights your bulb about somebody who waits until the last day to register to vote. Perhaps, in light of your comments, “poor little lost lamb who simply forgot there was a presidential election”??? Sheeeesh!
All in all, I am not surprised that “idiots” fall within the purview of leftist victimology
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter.
Squeeky Fromm girl sociopath.
Squeek stoops to new lows with, “They eliminated the idiots who…”
Your rank and foul judgments of people about which you know nothing undercuts any argument you want to make. Even those you must feel oh so superior calling “idiots” possess the inalienable right to vote.
I really do suggest you back off. You have demonstrated you not only know nothing, you don’t feel anything, either.
TOTALLY, TOTALLY OFF TOPIC
Starting with Mike’s comment “Call Me Queer” three weeks ago, the comments for the last three Saturdays have been real downers for me. In case anyone else has been similarly afflicted I offer the following which includes in its lyrics these words —
“We held on to the hope of better days coming — and when we did we were right.”
@jamesk: You said, “The reasons have been plastered all over this blog today.” Hmmm. Have they??? Let’s look at the one above:
Now, I am not seeing much of a reason presented WHY this is voter suppression. Regardless of race, people can still register to vote and there is still early voting. They seemed to have stopped folks living in one precinct and then voting in another. They eliminated the idiots who wait until election day to register. I guess that will suppress a lot of procastinators. Is that the “new levels” he is talking about???
I would imagine many states don’t and never have some of these things. Is there even a “standard” early voting period? How many states allow “straight party ticket voting” in the first place? Are they guilty of suppressing voters.
No, I am just not seeing any Jim Crowism here. They did eliminate college IDs, which who knows. I had several fake ones when I was in college (and High School, too!) that were good enough to pass muster at any bar, even if a cop was at the door. Trust me, “Molly Brown” was truly unsinkable!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“No, I am just not seeing any Jim Crowism here.”
Why would a racist bigot see Jim Crow anywhere? Racist you are in your own words from the “Call Me Queer” blog. Your talent is merely failed snide mixed in with a right wing authoritarian party line. Squeeky Fromm girl teabagger. You are merely a bigot whose pseudonym befits you.
Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter 1, August 17, 2013 at 3:20 pm
We just got a thingy Fromm Charley to Squeeky Sqeaky:
Squeek tries and fails with “But what should really concern you is why somebody would write this article without feeling the need to explore the reasons North Carolina did this, ”
The reasons have been plastered all over this blog today and every day. Why the sudden case of ignorance? You were JUST repeating what the article said, because that’s what top-notch journalists do, right? Just repeat what they’ve read?
“And it should concern you that maybe you simply slobbered like a Pavlovian pooch when the “racist” bell was rung.”
This did not happen. You made this up because you recognize you have lost this argument today, and any day you wish to make it. I find your reporting lazy and uninformed, and lacking any real empathy, even for yourself. Perhaps you are the real Squeek after all.
Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter 1, August 17, 2013 at 3:20 pm
…
I don’t live in North Carolina,
…
=========================
Everyone knows that:
(Inside Edition). Becoming an after birther because “No, there’s things I love” are ya?
Q. from Dredd: “Was it his idea or yours to become a fox girl reporter?”
Squeek if you are THE Squeek Dredd references, this is a perfectly valid question if you are going to advertise yourself as a reporter. Anyone who actually lived during your escapades will tell you that. I mean, I did not want Ford pardoning Nixon, but to pull a gun on the man? Bad form.
If you are not THE Squeek, are you sure this is how you wish to be remembered?
Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter 1, August 17, 2013 at 3:29 pm
@Dredd:
These may help you some:
improving your … spelling skills …
….
====================================
So you don’t want to talk about your daddy mentor Charley?
Did he cast a spell on you?
Are you spelling reel good these daze?
It sure seems like it:
(Squeeky’s Bio, link up-thread in my previous comment). So how do you spell, squeeky when he touches you?
Hatefully, spitefully?
Your stuff is old now.
@jamesk:
You said:
You need to take your complaint up with the author of the post. The listed items were not discussed there with any FACTUAL basis as to why they may or may not have been racist. Read the post again. Is there any real discussion as to why North Carolina did this, or is there only the factually baseless CONCLUSION that the acts were indicative of resurgent Jim Crowism???
I realize that you and others agree with the presented CONCLUSIONS, but that doesn’t mean the conclusions were arrived at in any coherent fashion. When you directly questioned me, I gave what my GUESS was as to possible reasons. My goodness, have you ever voted? The people there have all these computerized lists, and people are standing in line, ballot watchers are hovering, and some goober here and there gets their finger stuck in the ballot hole. Why wouldn’t there be a rational basis to make the whole system more orderly.
But what should really concern you is why somebody would write this article without feeling the need to explore the reasons North Carolina did this, rightly or wrongly, as opposed to simply presenting CONCLUSIONS to you as an accomplished fact. I think it is maybe because too many people on the leftish side of this issue do not require facts to arrive at their conclusion. They only need an excuse to vent preconceived notions.
And it should concern you that maybe you simply slobbered like a Pavlovian pooch when the “racist” bell was rung. I think you are probably smarter than that.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The Republican Push to Make It Harder to Vote
Laws like North Carolina’s draconian new voter-ID laws are a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. But voter backlash could be fierce.
Linda Killian Aug 2 2013
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-republican-push-to-make-it-harder-to-vote/278289/
Excerpt:
Within 20 minutes of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning a portion of the Voting Rights Act, the attorney general of Texas tweeted a message signaling that strict voter-ID laws would go into effect there immediately.
“I’ll fight #Obama’s effort to control our elections,” Greg Abbott, who just announced he’s running for governor of Texas, tweeted June 25, the day the 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder was released. Unless the law can be successfully challenged in court, Texas residents will now have to show a state- or federal-issued form of photo identification to vote. The list of acceptable forms includes a concealed-handgun license but not a state university student ID. The omission suggests it is not voter fraud but voters unfriendly to the GOP that Abbott and other Texas Republicans are trying to thwart.
Mercury News editorial: GOP voter suppression machine is fired up
Mercury News Editorial
Posted: 08/02/2013
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_23779705/mercury-news-editorial-gop-voter-suppression-machine-is
Excerpt:
When the Supreme Court invalidated part of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act in June, we and others warned that it had placed our very democracy in peril. North Carolina has rushed in to prove that point.
Just weeks after being freed from requirements to get federal approval to change voting rules, the legislature passed a sweeping bill that is expected to be signed into law. Its astonishing array of voter-suppression measures is probably the worst in the country, but not for long. It’s just the start.
The bill serves one transparent purpose: to disenfranchise those who are more likely to vote for Democrats. It’s part of a brazen national campaign. Since the GOP increased its grip on the nation’s statehouses in 2011, about 20 states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, have adopted similar measures.
North Carolina’s bill eliminates state-sponsored voter-registration drives, same-day registration and early registration for 16- and 17-year-olds. It requires a government-issued photo ID to vote, but excludes those provided by public universities (to students) or employers (to union members, presumably). It even prevents counties from extending voting hours in response to long lines — and long lines are guaranteed by another part of the bill, which eliminates seven days of early voting.
The restrictions are less crude than the poll taxes and literacy tests of the Jim Crow era, but not by much. African-Americans, according to The Nation magazine, made up 23 percent of registered voters in North Carolina in 2012, but 34 percent did not have state-issued IDs, which require time during working hours and money to obtain. Blacks accounted for 33 percent of those who used same-day registration and 28 percent of early voters.
Jack Villamaino, Former GOP Candidate, Gets 4 Months In Jail For Felony Voter Fraud
The Huffington Post
By Nick Wing
08/09/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/09/jack-villamaino-voter-fraud_n_3728456.html
Excerpt;
In the midst of his 2012 GOP primary campaign for a Massachusetts state House seat, Jack Villamaino changed the party affiliation of nearly 300 people in his town of East Longmeadow. Days later, the same number of absentee ballot requests were dropped off at the town clerk’s office, a list that was almost a “name-for-name match” for those whose registration information Villamaino had altered.
Earlier this week, Villamaino pleaded guilty to felony charges of stealing ballots and changing the party affiliation of 280 Democrats during his campaign for state representative. A judge sentenced him to a year in jail, only four months of which he’ll be forced to serve behind bars.
Voting Fraud, Ann Coulter, and the FBI
By Scott Horton
May 11, 2007
http://harpers.org/blog/2007/05/voting-fraud-ann-coulter-and-the-fbi/
For the past two months, we’ve seen in various reports how under acting Attorney General Karl Rove, the Department of Justice pressured U.S. attorneys across the country to commence frivolous prosecutions of voting fraud cases. The cases were generally aggregated in close proximity to elections, in violation of the Department’s published policies, with two objectives. The first was to suppress voter registration efforts focused on traditionally Democratic constituencies, such as inner-city Blacks and Hispanics, and the second, to create a false impression in the mind of the public that the Democrats were engaged in voter fraud. As the New York Times discovered in its study, most of the voting fraud cases failed because there was no basis to pursue them, and even the cases which succeeded generally showed bona fide mistakes or misunderstandings, not any sort of fraud.
So, what happens when a prominent Republican figure is caught red-handed engaging in voter fraud? Über-Republican Ann Coulter was discovered to have falsified a voter registration in Palm Beach County, Florida, and to have voted. This perfectly tracks the factual pattern of a series of criminal prosecutions brought by Steven Biskupic, one of the originally targeted U.S. attorneys – in Milwaukee – who subsequently redeemed himself through political skullduggery.
However, in the Coulter case, the U.S. attorney’s office showed no interest in the case. State law enforcement officials did, however. And today we learn that the criminal investigation was closed—as a result of a direct intervention by federal officials supporting Coulter. The Palm Beach Post reports:
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter has been cleared of allegations that she falsified her Palm Beach County voter’s registration and voted illegally — this, after a high-level FBI agent made unsolicited phone calls to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to vouch for Coulter.
But wait, it gets still better:
County Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson, meanwhile, decried what he called “FBI intrusion.” He referred the Coulter case to PBSO after poll worker Jim Whited originally reported the incident. “This doesn’t bode well in terms of the public’s impression that celebrities receive preferential treatment,” Anderson said. “I’m curious about how anyone can justify the FBI’s intrusion.”
First-year Detective Kristine Villa in December was assigned the job of investigating whether Coulter committed a felony in February 2006, when she cast her ballot in the wrong precinct in a Palm Beach election after registering to an address that wasn’t hers.Villa’s report leaves the clear impression that Coulter’s attorney, Miami’s Marcos Jimenez, stonewalled Villa for five months—at times agreeing to make Coulter available, at others reneging, often not returning calls promptly or claiming not to be able to reach his client.
So there you have the Gonzales/Rove Justice Department at work. Voting fraud involving someone suspected of voting as a Democrat—throw the book at them and best do it right in the midst of an election campaign for maximum benefit to the Party. Voting fraud involving a Republican activist—support efforts to stonewall local law enforcement and then intervene to shut things down. Welcome to Bushworld.
@Dredd:
These may help you some:
http://www.schoolzone.com/flash-cards/alphabet-flash-cards?gclid=CMDf_86ahbkCFYOe4AodUH4A3A
Please do let either shame or stigma stand in the way of improving your alphabet and spelling skills. When you get your “letters” down pat, let me know and I will recommend some good books for you, like “Pickles”, The Fire Cat, by Esther Averill.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The cruel myth of voter fraud
BY JOY-ANN REID
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/11/2891716/the-cruel-myth-of-voter-fraud.html
Excerpt;
To understand the cruel calculus of voter ID laws, voter purges and other election law mutations one political party has turned into an obsession (second only to their fever for passing laws designed to corner women into giving birth) you have to understand what these laws would actually prevent, if they worked as advertised.
Imagine legions of people turning up at polling places pretending to be someone else. Voter John is really disqualified Juan or Keyshaun.
And why would Juan/Keyshaun be disqualified? Maybe he’s an ex-felon, which in some former Confederate states means you lose your civil rights, permanently. Or maybe he’s . . . an illegal immigrant! Or maybe his name sounds similar to a felon or undocumented immigrant, which somehow is almost exactly the same thing . . .
And so, our Juan/Keyshaun signs the identity affidavit as John under pain of prison and a $10,000 fine, and casts exactly one ballot. Fraudy mission accomplished!
But since one ballot won’t swing even a Florida election, our scenario has to play out hundreds, or thousands, even tens of thousands of times. And if we delve deeper into the darkest recesses of the conservative imagination, Juan/Keyshaun isn’t acting alone. He’s fraud-voting at the behest of nefarious union “thugs” — who may even be paying him, using George Soros’ so-much-more-evil-than Koch-brothers’ money.
So now, we need to believe that our union thugs (who are also Saul Alinsky radical Islamists — hey, this is a conservative imagination we’re borrowing . . . ) are willing to spend, what? $20, $50, even $100 per faker in order to swing a statewide election. Rather than maximizing their resources buying television and radio ads, sending direct mail or just registering more voters — our conspirators pay tens of thousands of people to risk jail time and fines of up to 100 times the bounty paid to Juan/Keyshaun to cast a single vote.
The roots of the Republican obsession with voter fraud can be traced to the 1960 presidential election, which in GOP folklore was stolen from Dick Nixon for John F. Kennedy by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.
As the legend goes, Daley’s notorious Democratic machine swung Illinois’ 27 electoral votes in Kennedy’s direction through massive fraud (Republicans at the time actually claimed 11 states, including Texas and New Jersey, were stolen). This allegedly involved stuffed ballot boxes, armies of zombie voters and people bribed to pull the lever for JFK with free lunches and drawings for baked hams.
Trouble is, none of the 31 state voter ID laws in place today would have helped Tricky Dick get into the White House and on to Watergate sooner.
Asking voters to show ID wouldn’t stop someone accepting a ham in exchange for his or her vote.
It wouldn’t stop a determined fraudster from stuffing a ballot box or stuffing the box into the back of a car.
Voter ID laws wouldn’t stop flyers or robocalls telling people to show up to the polls on the wrong day, or not to show if they’ve missed a utility payment, or that if they signed a petition, they’ve already voted — real voter suppression schemes perpetrated mainly against minority voters in recent elections, including in Wisconsin’s recent recalls.