Is Keeping People of Color From Voting the Key to GOP Electoral Dominance?

[portlander23]

Is Keeping People of Color From Voting the Key to GOP Electoral Dominance?
Greg Palast
Truthout

Fact: there aren't enough white guys to elect Donald Trump.

Unless.

Unless Trump's crew quietly builds a secret blacklist of millions of voters, especially voters of color, and systematically and quietly wipes out their voter registrations.

In fact, in 2016, the voter-erasing system has been built, and GOP operatives have already begun to put it into action. Its name: Interstate Crosscheck. Crosscheck, not the voters, may well choose our next President and determine who controls Congress.

But I've got the list -- or at least three million of the names of those who are about to get the royal screwing. I've got their names and I've got their colors.

How I got them -- well that's my job. I'm an investigative reporter. Stay with me, and you'll get the full story.

But this is what you need to know: Crosscheck is the GOP's Great White Hope Machine, the approaching Death Star of voter suppression.

[Initech]

1. If making America great again means taking voting rights back to the stone ages...

Then I don't want any part of it.

[msongs]

2. presumes there will actually BE elections after jan 20, 2017 nt

[Generic Brad]

7. Sham elections will still take place

The GOP hierarchy does not plan to ever lose their majority again. Having your vote match the candidate you selected will not happen universally, but we will still get to vote.

[uponit7771]

3. Yes, I think Silver calculated a 1.2% net increase VSM states

[think]

4. Kris Kobach's Interstate Cross Check voter suppression system is in use in 30 states

Yet even Rick Scott's Florida found it too controversial to use...

Florida quits controversial voter ‘purge’ program

04/15/14 10:35 AM—Updated 04/15/14 06:21 PM
By Zachary Roth

Florida has ditched a controversial GOP-backed program aimed at catching voters who are registered in multiple states, which some voting-rights advocates say can make it easier for eligible voters to be wrongly purged from the rolls.

It’s the same program whose data were used for an eye-catching recent report suggesting that more than 35,000 people may have voted in North Carolina and another state in 2012—a conclusion that was quickly debunked by numerous experts.

Florida’s decision to leave the Interstate Crosscheck system, created by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican, was first reported Friday by the Miami Herald.

“The Department of State and Supervisors of Elections currently work with elections officials in other states to update registrations regarding residency, and we are always exploring options to improve the elections process,” Brittany Lesser, a spokeswoman for Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, told msnbc in a statement.

The state’s move is striking because, under Republican Gov. Rick Scott, Florida has led the way in aggressively removing voters from the rolls. A 2012 effort that aimed to find non-citizens purged numerous eligible voters, including a 91-year old World War II vet. A court recently declared the move illegal. Last month, Detzner announced that a new bid to cut voters from the rolls would be delayed until next year.



Read more:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/florida-quits-crosscheck

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Remember the Rove Brothers doing the

caging thing back in 2000. Crosscheck is very similiar.

[hedda_foil]

12. Right. The excuse then was removing supposed Texas felons from Florida voting rolls.

The company that carried out the purge was instructed to delete anyone whose name remotely resembled that of someone Texas had thrown in the slammer. Of course nearly all the names obviously were of Latino or black ancestry. The 30 fucking state crosscheck scam took purging to a completely new level. You might say the states were bringing on purging.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

16. I don't understand why felons can't vote anyway.

If they're not in prison and they're employed, they're probably paying taxes of some kind.

"No taxation without representation" used to be a rallying cry.

[hedda_foil]

17. I couldn't agree more. The purpose of disenfranchising people convicted of a felony is obvious.

The whole point is to keep people of color from voting.

[Pacifist Patriot]

21. Agreed

[jg10003]

15. Too corrupt for Florida? WOW

[brush]

5. Stopping POCs from voting is always a part of the repug game plan.

Exposing it loud and clear and working to combat their efforts should always be part of ours

[Snarkoleptic]

8. OK, so where is the ACLU (or other) lawsuit?

Where is the bulwark against this undemocratic overthrow by the moneyed interests?

[Snarkoleptic]

9. On edit...it's us!

My wife is meeting with the Village President tomorrow re: taking on the vacancy created by the lefty who moved up to County Board.
I've up for precinct committee chairman.
So, yeah...it's you, it's me, it's we!

[eniwetok]

10. US federalism give the GOP an edge...

Where else in the world can someone REJECTED by the People... by a 3 million vote margin, "win" an election?

Where else in the world will the citizens be so meek as to put up with this shit?

Our system is antidemocratic... and it gives the GOP the edge in both the presidential race and the Senate where a mere 18% of the US population gets 52% of the seats.

Voter suppression might give the GOP some advantages in some races... but if we're talking a 3 million vote difference.. then we MUST blame our federal system.

[KamaAina]

11. Is Pope Francis Catholic?

[radical noodle]

13. They've actually said so

that suppression of voting rights equals electing Republicans. They can only win if they cheat.

[Hekate]

14. Gee, what was the first clue? What we've got here is computerized Jim Crow.

[RealityChik]

18. Republicans already doing it as far back as 2000.

Trump and his cabal are too arrogant, impulsive, lazy and clueless to think they would even have to mount an organized campaign to do anything, let alone large-scale voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering.

The Republicans have had the last 16 years to master the "art" of well-financed dirty election rigging. This is not breaking news, I'm afraid. Trouble is, the electorate has been in denial and until Election 2016, has always considered election rigging as the stuff of conspiracy theory. But progress is being made because now it's on the radar of the voting public and even the mainstream media covered the recount and the potential Russian hacking for the first time.

When the 2004 election was stolen from John Kerry, only a few investigative bloggers like Brad Friedman of Bradblog and Bev Harris' Blackbox Voting and independent small newspapers like Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman writing for The Columbus Free Press documented it completely. And of course, Greg Palast, Mark Crispin Miller and others. Not a single mainstream news outlet would touch it, until years after it was too late to do anything about it in a major way.

Now that the American public is considering that election rigging is a possibility and not a crazy Alex Jones batsh*t conspiracy theory, it's the right time for us to focus our efforts of change on pressuring elected officials on restoring the integrity of our future elections. So if you have important information about such goings-on, you might contact one of the aforementioned for guidance before publishing it or going public.

[Botany]

19. The story of 2016 was not the turn out of rural white people but that of stopping blacks from voting

n/t

[moondust]

20. Part of it.

Along with gerrymandering and maybe some degree of rigging the electronic electoral system, perhaps with the help of operatives inside the machine manufacturer(s) creating back doors or whatever. A two- or three-pronged approach would make it more fail-safe; the more prongs the better.

[Pacifist Patriot]

22. Yes...

I too think there were many tactics employed to work in conjunction with one another.