'Dems don't vote' -instead - how about Dems can't vote

[deminks]

How Voter Suppression Helped Produce the Lowest Turnout in Decades

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/07/voter-suppression/

On Tuesday, older, white voters — who traditionally support Republicans — went to the polls in droves, while turnout among traditionally Democratic groups — the young, the minoritized, and women — was down. Indeed, overall turnout declined to an estimated 36.6% of eligible voters, the lowest rate of participation since the 1940s, despite the $3 billion spent by candidates, political parties, and super PACs.

(snip)

In Georgia, meanwhile, nearly 40,000 new voters mysteriously vanished from the rolls, possibly due to scrubbing by a controversial software system known as Crosscheck. Turnout was only 34%, which is down six percentage points from 2010.

Over the past two years Raphael Warnock, leader of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, worked with the New Georgia Project to register some 80,000 new and mostly black voters. New Georgia Project’s efforts was the state’s largest voter registration drive in 50 years, according to reports. “It’s a fundamental, basic American right to vote”, Warnock told me. Such thinking explains why he was so angry when half of those new voters failed to appear on the rolls this fall. “The Georgia Secretary of State’s office had no explanation at all as to where those voters went”, Warnock explained. A person in the Georgia Secretary of State’s office declined comment (after alerting me to the fact that “the election’s over”). But earlier this year, that same office accused the New Georgia Project of voter registration fraud. In the end only 50 questionable forms were found.

(snip)

Georgia, it must also be noted, is one of 27 states using the controversial software Crosscheck to weed out supposed voter fraud. Al Jazeera, which recently finished a months-long investigation of the program, found an astonishing 7 million Americans suspected of voter fraud on the Crosscheck lists. That despite the fact that voter fraud is almost unbelievably rare. One dogged investigator, a professor focused on election administration at Loyola University Law School, found just 31 credible incidents between 2000 and mid 2014, nationwide.

Crosscheck scours the names of voters who live in the 27 states, and if a first and last name matches in two states both persons are flagged and purged. The surnames most likely to be flagged? “The lists are heavily weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim — ones common among minorities”, Al Jazeera reported. “List matching is an inaccurate science that burdens, disproportionately, minority voters”, said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Weiser also claimed that voter complaints to her group’s hotline were higher this year than ever before.

(end snip)

Al Jazeera investigation here:

http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/

States participating in Crosscheck
State Secretary of State* Party
Alaska Mead Treadwell R
Arizona Ken Bennett R
Arkansas Mark Martin R
Colorado Scott Gessler R
Georgia Brian Kemp R
Idaho Ben Ysursa R
Illinois Jesse White D
Indiana Connie Lawson R
Iowa Matt Schultz R
Kansas Kris Kobach R
Kentucky Alison Lundergan Grimes D
Louisiana Tom Schedler R
Massachusetts William F Glavin D
Michigan Ruth Johnson R
Mississippi Delbert Hosemann R
Missouri Jason Kander D
Nebraska John A. Gale R
Nevada Ross Miller D
North Carolina Kim Strach Non-partisan
Ohio Jon Husted R
Oklahoma Chris Benge R
Pennsylvania Carol Aichele R
South Dakota Jason Gant R
South Carolina Mark Hammond R
Tennessee Tre Hargett R
Virginia Edgardo Cortés Non-partisan
West Virginia Natalie Tennant D
Source: Al Jazeera reporting
Note: *Officials are secretaries of state, except in Alaska (lieutenant governor), North Carolina (director of the state board of elections) and Virginia, (department of elections).

(end snip)

Oregon - no crosscheck
California - no crosscheck
New York - no crosscheck

/rant off

[kelliekat44]

1. Yes, I believe you are right. Well said. nt

[zazen]

2. K&R, because I've posted this friggin point nine times but you've said it better n/t

[deminks]

4. Keep posting about it. It can't be said enough.

I have posted more than once about this topic since 2000.

[marions ghost]

3. k&r

So transparent.

[tiptonic]

5. Get used to it

It aint going to change people. Too much money/power behind it. Maybe paper ballots would have worked. Too late now. Karl Rove strikes again.

[Enthusiast]

6. We should not get used to being cheated.

That is ridiculous! No amount of money should prevent voters from exercising their constitutional right to participate in the democracy.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. That's idiotic.

Many States run good elections and don't let some cheater cheat us. I'm sure your State is not too stupid to do that if you really focused.

[Botany]

7. + 1

n/t

[turbinetree]

9. The Vote

It is time to take back this democracy, whoever this Crosscheck firm is and where the Fascist Sec. Of State reside in should now be frogged step into court, they have discriminated people by names just like the Nazis did to the Jews, Catholics, Homosexual, Gypsy and anyone else they wanted to murder.
And to disenfranchised the voter, this U.S. Supreme Court 5 right wing justices need to be impeached and reminded on there so called 100 yard rule everyday on what and who they are, there shamelessness right wing hypocrisy should be out there front and center on a billboard with a disentranced voters face and name and the state.
These voters should file for Impeachment against these hypocrites and the state fascists , this is totally outrageous, and we democrats and others who want to vote had better start today and not tomorrow --end of story.

[yeoman6987]

11. The 5 Supremes just need to be impeached

While I agree, Tuesday just made that impossible.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

10. Then explain Florida.

Low Dem turnout across the board. Less than 50% of ACTIVE registered voters in most Dem-leaning counties.

Midterms always have low turnout. Usually, in the final years of a presidency, the opposing party takes power of the Congress. Historically speaking, last Tuesday follows the same pattern it has for decades.

[deminks]

12. Florida

Florida

The Florida governor’s race was decided by only a 1.2 percent margin, with Governor Rick Scott narrowly beating former Governor Charlie Crist by just under 72,000 votes.

Florida has passed a host of new voting restrictions over the past few years. Perhaps the most significant for this election was a decision by Scott and his clemency board to make it virtually impossible for the more than 1.3 million Floridians who were formerly convicted of crimes but have done their time and paid their debt to society to have their voting rights restored. Under Florida’s law, the harshest in the country, one in three African-American men is essentially permanently disenfranchised. Ironically, Scott had rolled back rights that were expanded under Governor Crist, who had established a path for people with past convictions to more easily get their voting rights restored. Under that process, more than 150,000 citizens had their rights restored before Scott changed the rules. This is part of a pattern this year of candidates benefiting from voting restrictions they helped to pass.

http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/how-much-difference-did-new-voting-restrictions-make-yesterdays-close-races