Our lunatic president is still manically obsessed with the fact that he lost the popular vote to a woman, a woman, who, as we’ve known, was eminently more qualified to govern than he. That aside, back in January, the Orange Troll announced that he would form a commission to investigate the mythical voter fraud, headed …
Tag: voter supression
Oct 16 2012
Ohio Voters Win
The Obama/ Biden campaign sued the state of Ohio over changes in Ohio law that took away the three days of voting for most people, but made exceptions for military personnel and Ohioans living overseas. The 9th Circuit Cout of Appeals ruled that Ohio must make early voting available (pdf) to all Ohio voters and Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State, John Husted, made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court weighed in this afternoon declining to block early voting.
The Supreme Court is siding with Democrats in refusing to block early voting in the battleground state of Ohio.
The court on Tuesday refused a Republican request to get involved in a dispute over early voting in the state on the three days before Election Day.
This is not just a win for Democrats, it is a victory for democracy.
Oct 11 2012
Supressing the Vote: Ohio
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
As in the past, Ohio is a key state in the electoral politics of the 2012 general election and the Republican Party is doing their level best to suppress voter turnout. On Friday, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Ohio must make early voting (pdf) during the three days before the election available to all voters if it’s available to military members and voters who live overseas. The ruling upheld a lower court decision. On Tuesday Ohio Secretary of State John Husted announced that he would appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court:
This is an unprecedented intrusion by the federal courts into how states run elections and because of its impact on all 50 states as to who and how elections will be run in America we are asking the Supreme Court to step in and allow Ohioans to run Ohio elections.
This ruling not only doesn’t make legal sense, it doesn’t make practical sense. The court is saying that all voters must be treated the same way under Ohio law, but also grants Ohio’s 88 elections boards the authority to establish 88 different sets of rules. That means that one county may close down voting for the final weekend while a neighboring county may remain open. How any court could consider this a remedy to an equal protection problem is stunning.
At FDL News Desk, David Dayen doesn’t think this will fly with the Supreme Court:
Remember that Husted’s original ruling for early voting would have allowed Republican districts to keep their voting hours open longer and for more days. And he sought to keep options for military voters open while closing them for, say, minorities in Cleveland. So his appeal to equal protection, in light of his previous decisions, is comical.
I doubt that the Supreme Court would choose to intervene here, though of course you never know. But that won’t stop Husted’s well-earned gold star as the hardest-working voter suppressor in America.
Who knows what this Supreme Court will do but here’s hoping that they let the lower court decision stand.
Jul 10 2012
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt
History is always written by the winners. Native Americans know it, African Americans know it, Latinos know it, working class people in every country in this world know it, every union member who has ever lived knows it. Everyone who has ever been beaten into submission by the power of armies, by the power of economic might, by the power of entrenched conservatism, entrenched conformity, and entrenched bigotry knows it.
When two cultures or belief systems clash, the loser is slandered and condemned by the winner, who writes the history books, books which glorify their culture or belief system and sanctify it as inherently superior. The truth is ignored. As Napoleon once said, “What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”
Oct 17 2008
Help Stop Voter Harassment, Early Voting and on Nov 4th at the Polls
On my trip over to ePluribus Media this morning I found this open thread Help Make Sure Every Voter’s Story Gets Told in 2008, not long but with very useful information that was gathered from two other sources from yesterday, one found here at daily kos about incidents at early voting polls here in North Carolina and also sourced at Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic
Regardless of your political alignment, nobody — from any party, special interest or group, has the right to interfere with your right to vote for the candidate of your choice.
May 07 2008
Court-sanctioned voter suppression in Indiana
Thanks to Sarah Lane at EENR for supplying the links in this entry.
When the Supreme (Kangaroo) Court upheld an unconstitutional poll tax last week that was passed in the form of a voter suppression law in Indiana, some people (like Injustice Antonin Scalia) were quick to dismiss the horrendous effects. But as that state held its primary yesterday, reports about voters being turned away because they did not have the poll tax began coming out.
Twelve elderly nuns-NUNS, for crying out loud-were told they could not vote because they didn’t have the required state or federal ID card. They are all in their eighties and nineties. Vietnam and Gulf War I veteran Russell Baughman was denied his right to vote, because his identification wasn’t considered good enough.
People unable to obtain the draconian Indiana poll tax ID-nuns, veterans, the disabled, students, and poor folk-are being denied their right to vote. Denied because they cannot meet the requirements to obtain state-issued identification. Bradblog reports that in order to obtain the necessary items to get a state-issued identification card (a state-issued copy of one’s birth certificate), a state-issued identification card is needed. It’s a vicious and ultimately dangerous catch-22, making it impossible for the disenfranchised to meet the poll tax requirement. Bradblog also reports that at least 43,00 Indiana residents have been prevented from exercising their right to vote in this fashion.
This is what the Supremes upheld, ladies and gentlemen. Twenty states, including Ohio, have mandatory ID laws designed to suppress the votes of minorities, the elderly, students, veterans, and the poor (an economic situation that affects all the other categories of disenfranchised to one degree or another). Although the Buckeye State was able to counter this in part by allowing fewer restrictions on absentee voting, others-including Indiana-enjoy no such protections. This is what America has come to: another banana republic, another dictatorship, that suppresses the rights of its citizens and engages in sham elections.
Apr 28 2008
Fair and Balanced Supreme Court Upholds Voter ID Laws
In a 6 – 3 vote that surprises exactly no one, the Supreme Court today upheld the laws that support picture identification to be presented at the polling place for states that are effected.
From AP:
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.
In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana’s strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to deter fraud.
It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush.
Justice Stevens said that the law was justified to protect the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.
I say that the law discriminates against elderly and poor people that do not have a picture ID and often no way of getting to the DMV to obtain one, or no way of paying for one if they did have a way to get there.
But, what do I know. I’m not a Supreme. I’m just a simple American citizen that believes all registered voters should be able to vote without restriction.