Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
What happened in Arizona wasn’t an accident: When states make voting impossible
it’s for a very clear reason
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/24/what_happened_in_arizona_wasnt_an_accident_when_states_make_voting_impossible_its_for_a_very_clear_reason/
Once again, an American election was unnecessarily thwarted by long lines and not enough ballots. To say there’s no excuse for such nonsense, especially in a nation that prides itself on its representative democracy and, yes, its exceptionalism, is understating the problem. This time around, it happened during the Arizona primary where countless voters were forced to stand in lines for hours, while others were told they weren’t registered in the first place....
Voter ID laws and punitive voter purges have been the centerpieces of a Republican strategy to rig modern elections. Republicans in nearly half of all states have managed to pass laws that make it more difficult for lower-income Democratic voters to cast ballots, forcing former Attorney General Eric Holder to compare such measures to the poll taxes used in the Jim Crow-era South in order to suppress the Black vote.. This is absolutely by design, even if some Republicans are caught in the meat grinder, too. The lower the turnout, the better Republicans fare in elections, so while voter ID laws tend to disenfranchise Democrats, the intention is more specifically to elect Republicans.
Thirty-three states boast one form of voter ID or another. Texas has perhaps the most ridiculous such law. If you don’t have one of the required forms of identification in the Lone Star State, you’ll have to apply for an Election Identification Certificate (EIC). But in order to get an EIC, you have to present your proof of citizenship and a second form of identification. Yes, that’s right, you’ll need to get an ID in order to get an ID — one of many reasons why this law is so completely absurd. And all of this on top of the normal voter registration process (which only requires a Social Security Number). If you don’t have a mandatory ID issued by the TxDPS (Texas Department of Public Safety), it might be because 70 counties don’t have a TxDPS office.
The GOP excuse for these laws? It’s voter fraud, they say. But how often do voters attempt to scam the system? Among all federal elections between 2002 and 2005, the rate of voter fraud was 0.00000013 percent. This according to a five-year probe by George W. Bush’s Justice Department. Put another way, around 26 people out of 197 million were convicted of attempting to vote illegally during all of those elections. And yet the Republicans continue to screech about voter fraud anyway. (They’re willing to believe that voter fraud exists, even though it doesn’t, and yet the climate crisis, with its 97 percent scientific consensus, is clearly fiction.)
Voter ID laws and punitive voter purges have been the centerpieces of a Republican strategy to rig modern elections. Republicans in nearly half of all states have managed to pass laws that make it more difficult for lower-income Democratic voters to cast ballots, forcing former Attorney General Eric Holder to compare such measures to the poll taxes used in the Jim Crow-era South in order to suppress the Black vote.. This is absolutely by design, even if some Republicans are caught in the meat grinder, too. The lower the turnout, the better Republicans fare in elections, so while voter ID laws tend to disenfranchise Democrats, the intention is more specifically to elect Republicans.
Thirty-three states boast one form of voter ID or another. Texas has perhaps the most ridiculous such law. If you don’t have one of the required forms of identification in the Lone Star State, you’ll have to apply for an Election Identification Certificate (EIC). But in order to get an EIC, you have to present your proof of citizenship and a second form of identification. Yes, that’s right, you’ll need to get an ID in order to get an ID — one of many reasons why this law is so completely absurd. And all of this on top of the normal voter registration process (which only requires a Social Security Number). If you don’t have a mandatory ID issued by the TxDPS (Texas Department of Public Safety), it might be because 70 counties don’t have a TxDPS office.
The GOP excuse for these laws? It’s voter fraud, they say. But how often do voters attempt to scam the system? Among all federal elections between 2002 and 2005, the rate of voter fraud was 0.00000013 percent. This according to a five-year probe by George W. Bush’s Justice Department. Put another way, around 26 people out of 197 million were convicted of attempting to vote illegally during all of those elections. And yet the Republicans continue to screech about voter fraud anyway. (They’re willing to believe that voter fraud exists, even though it doesn’t, and yet the climate crisis, with its 97 percent scientific consensus, is clearly fiction.)
8 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Trump, of course, prevailed anyway. Not so Sanders.
