Ohio developed the kind of vote-purging scheme that makes GOP schemers all tingly. If you’re an Ohio voter and don’t vote for an election, they send you a postcard to make sure you’re still there, haven’t moved, and are alive. If you assume this card to be junk mail and toss it in the way that most people do, bam. When you show up at the next election, guess what? You’ll discover your name has been stricken from the voting rolls.
This is considered a dream law because it targets all the folks that Republicans hate because they typically vote Democrat: Students, the poor, Blacks and Hispanics.
The Ohio courts ruled in a case that that was illegal, so naturally it worked its way up to the Supreme Court. And thanks to the idiot that Trump installed (rather than the guy that the GOP prevented Obama from getting in) the SCOTUS voted 5-4 that the law was just fine. The dissenting judges saw this for what it was, but the conservative majority happily embraced it.
You can absolutely bet that with this new ruling in effect, Republican states will very likely produce their own versions of Ohio’s ban. This could potentially lock up a GOP presidential win in 2020 unless every dámņëd Democrat who decided to sit out the 2016 election makes dámņëd sure that they are still registered.
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‘Cause you can be dámņëd sure you won’t see any Republican voters standing up and saying “Hold on. This is wrong. This is not how we should want to win.”
How exactly does this target Democrats, and not Republicans? If a Republican doesn’t respond, he’ll be removed too.
A 2016 Reuters study indicated that the law purged twice as many Democrats as Republicans, most prominently the poor and African-Americans.
A quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
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A MUCH lower bar than “eternal vigilance” is paying attention to mail you receive from your government. Why should that not be necessary? The alternative is deceased and other ineligible people still on the rolls and people using those names to vote multiple times.
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…unless every dámņëd Democrat … makes dámņëd sure that they are still registered.
Well of course, but you’re saying they shouldn’t have to.
“Why should that not be necessary?”
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Why should any of this šhìŧ be necessary? Why don’t we automatically register everybody to vote and be done with it?
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Oh, I know why not..
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“and people using those names to vote multiple times.”
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Exhibit A of the make-believe bûllšhìŧ that the GOP continues to roll with as an excuse to disenfranchise minorities. Never mind that fraudulent voting is so rare that it’s not worth the effort, or that it’s more often Republican voters who are caught red-handed.
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George, take a hint: a platform of white supremacy doesn’t suit you.
George, take a hint: a platform of white supremacy doesn’t suit you. .
Well I must admit I am surprised it took almost a whole for someone to call me a racist.
… a whole *day*…
George, the fact is, as Craig noted, fraudulent voting is rare. So extremely rare, in fact. And, of the minuscule number of cases of someone misvoting, the majority turn out to be just that. A mistake like someone going failing to register in their new district after they moved rather than anyone intentionally trying to vote more time than they legally can.
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This is known to the Republicans who are the ones pushing all the “voter fraud” laws. It was, after all, the Bush administration the investigated supposed voter fraud to see prevalent it is that determined it was a insignificant:
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https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html
86 out of hundreds of millions of votes cast. It simply is not a problem.
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A reasonable person would ask, since that is obviously the case, why are Republicans pushing so far for voter fraud laws? And the answer to that question is obvious. Examinations of these laws in jurisdiction after jurisdiction show that they disproportionally target people likely to vote for Democrats.
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“Voter fraud” laws are not intended to protect the political process. They are exactly the opposite: a concerted attempt to pervert it.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
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You do realize that Jefferson had slaves to do all his daily chores, so he could sit around writing all day, yes?
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The government already has a vested interest in knowing who is dead for purposes of taxation, benefits, and the like. Why shouldn’t the onus be on them to pay attention?
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And if the rights of the individual are paramount, why isn’t the default “You should be allowed to vote”? Why this desperate need to shut people out? Why do so many conservatives fear the voice of the people?
You do realize that Jefferson had slaves to do all his daily chores, so he could sit around writing all day, yes?
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Wow. Thats such a hugely stupid statement that I don’t even know where to begin. So I won’t bother. I will just let it sit there and stew in its own idiocy.
Jefferson did not have to work for a living. His ability to vote was not dependent on an employer allowing him time off. His ability to get to a polling place was not dependent on public transport. He could afford to speak of such high ideals as “eternal vigilance” because he did not have to worry about where his next meal was coming from, a roof over his head, healthcare, or any of the concerns of day-to-day folk.
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And even with all of this security, with all of this time to think, he was still quite comfortable supporting a political system where the poor – any non-farmer, even – women, and Negroes had no say in the laws under which they lived. Sure, better than the other opportunities available at the time. But if you are (going to pretend you are) a democracy, Universal Suffrage should be the goal, not something to be feared.
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So again I ask you – and this is an honest question, not a “gotcha!” moment – why are so many Conservatives afraid of their fellow Americans?
So again I ask you – and this is an honest question, not a “gotcha!” moment – why are so many Conservatives afraid of their fellow Americans?
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I don’t know any conservatives that are afraid of their fellow Americans.
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And I ask you – and this is an honest question, not a “gotcha!” moment – why are so many Liberals resentful and afraid.of voters who are politically engaged enough to register to vote? Why wouldn’t they want their voters to be involved?
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Since I have been old enough to vote I have moved 4 times. Each time I registered to vote in my new district within two weeks. I believe it’s important and a responsibility I do not take lightly.
“Wow. Thats such a hugely stupid statement that I don’t even know where to begin. So I won’t bother. I will just let it sit there and stew in its own idiocy.”
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Translation: I have no response to the point you made so I’m going to declare it’s stupid, regardless of what it might actually be.
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Playing tit-for-tat over Jefferson aside, what’s your reply to the very relevant points David Oakes, and before him Craig J. Reis did make? Why not make it registration automatic rather than something citizens have to work to do? Why put the onus on citizens to monitor their junk mail rather than on the government to make a legitimate case for removing registered voters?
“why are so many Liberals resentful and afraid.of voters who are politically engaged enough to register to vote?”
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They’re not. You’re attacking a straw man.
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These liberals are politically engaged enough to register to vote. The have registered to vote and Republicans are trying to pass laws to kick them off the rolls. So wouldn’t a better question be why are the Republicans doing that?
“Wow. Thats such a hugely stupid statement that I don’t even know where to begin. So I won’t bother. I will just let it sit there and stew in its own idiocy.”
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Translation: I have no response to the point you made so I’m going to declare it’s stupid, regardless of what it might actually be.
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YES! That was precisely my opinion when Peter David responded to one of my posts about Planned Parenthood with those exact words on May 19th.
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Regarding the points made by David Oakes and Craig Reis that voter fraud is not a large enough problem to be concerned about: obviously I disagree. Any amount of voter fraud is serious and those measures being taken to combat it are not overly arduous to voters. Those measures apply equally to every citizen regardless of race, age or economic status. As Alex Harper said about the law under discussion, the law applies to Republicans as well. If more Democrats were purged from the rolls, well why is is that? Do they not care as much? Peter David urged every Democrat to be sure they were registered which is what this law is geared to do.
“Any amount of voter fraud is serious”
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No, it’s not. 86 votes out of hundreds of millions is simply not a serious problem. You tolerate much higher proportions of maggots in your canned tomatoes, insect parts in your peanut butter, rat hairs in your pasta. And I’m sure, you don’t insist that those are serious problems that have to be dealt with.
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That you insist “voter fraud” is a serious problem, that you respond to actual facts like that with “obviously I disagree [that it’s not a large enough problem to be concerned about]” simply shows that you are not someone to be taken seriously.
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Presented with several facts, about the extent of “fraud”, about the actual affects of the laws supposedly designed to prevent it, and so on your only response is “But I think it’s a serious problem.” No substantiated counter arguments.
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You might pause for a moment and consider why that is. Why you haven’t been able to give anything more substantial as a counter argument.
Could it be that you’re mistaken?
““Any amount of voter fraud is serious””
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Conservative “logic” 101 in this debate every single time it comes up. Pretend to care about a handful of fraudulent votes across the country “disenfranchising” a handful of voters across the country while advocating for policies that purge in each state hundreds of legal voters from the rolls. And, of course, it’s just a total coincidence that Republican voter purges keep largely and disproportionately targeting voters in areas that vote for the Democrats in most elections, right? But, hey, it’s TOTALLY okay to disenfranchise those voters, because how else are you going to win a tight election these days?
You might pause for a moment and consider why that is. Why you haven’t been able to give anything more substantial as a counter argument.
Could it be that you’re mistaken?
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First of all, I appreciate that you consider that I am mistaken rather than immediately accusing me of being a racist. So thanks for that.
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Secondly, it is more than “86 votes out of millions.” The New York Times article cited by Sean Martin indicates that there were 86 convictions. There were 30 cases of vote buying schemes in which more than one vote was obtained illegally. And this is from an article intending to discount voter fraud.
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I can also cite news articles that support the reality of voter fraud. The Association of Community Organizations, (ACORN), was forced to settle a federal case against it for voter fraud after 7 workers submitted THOUSANDS of false registrations.
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This article reveals thousands of false registrations by ACORN.
https://ballotpedia.org/ACORN_and_voter_registration_fraud
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This article list thousands of illegal registrations across several states.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/17/no-voter-fraud-isnt-myth-10-cases-where-its-all-to/
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My point is that saying it is “86 votes out of millions” is a gross misrepresentation. And as I said the law that is under discussion here applies equally to every citizen regardless of race, age or economic status. I think getting people to be aware of their voting situation is a good thing.
“First of all, I appreciate that you consider that I am mistaken rather than immediately accusing me of being a racist. So thanks for that.”
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I’m assuming you have an open mind and are open to changing your view if the facts show you should. I’ll admit statements like the following, where your searching for reasons to hold to the conclusion you want to have, do make me wonder if I’m wrong.
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First:
“Secondly, it is more than “86 votes out of millions.” The New York Times article cited by Sean Martin indicates that there were 86 convictions. There were 30 cases of vote buying schemes in which more than one vote was obtained illegally.”
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Only convictions should be counted. If someone is charged with a crime and found not guilty of it, you don’t get to count that as a crime committed.
And if every one of those convictions involved 100 fraudulent votes, it would still be just 8600 out of hundreds of millions. Counting only the 130 million cast for president in 2016 (which is just a portion of the votes cast during the time the 86 were found) you get a 0.0066% fraud rate. About 7/1000ths of a percent. And that’s an overestimation of the size of the “problem”.
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The actual fact is voter fraud is simply not a problem.
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Second:
“I can also cite news articles that support the reality of voter fraud. The Association of Community Organizations, (ACORN), was forced to settle a federal case against it for voter fraud after 7 workers submitted THOUSANDS of false registrations.”
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The news article you cite, in characterizing ACORN, refers to the completely debunked video shot by James O’Keefe. An incident where ACORN was found to have done nothing wrong, in fact having followed the law precisely as they should, and O’Keefe ended up being fined $100,000. This is the credibility you’re relying on for your argument.
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ACORN collected registration forms. They are required by law to turn in every single form they collect, even those they suspect to be bogus. Vetting the forms was not the responsibility if ACORN, it’s the responsibility of government office that handles registrations (typically the Secretary of State for the various states). Had ACORN said “Clearly this form to register Big Bird of address 123 Sesame Street is bogus. Don’t turn it it.” they would have been in violation of federal law.
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Third:
“the law that is under discussion here applies equally to every citizen regardless of race, age or economic status.”
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Yes. But that ignores the practical reality that every citizen isn’t in the same circumstances. If you pass a law that says “Every citizen must show up in person at noon on Wednesday at a location 50 miles from the city center to register.” then that law applies equally to all citizens. But it ignores the fact that many citizens can’t make that trip.
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They can’t get the time off from work. Or can’t afford to take the time off from work (losing wages). Or they don’t have a car to get to someplace outside the city.
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This law in Ohio is the same thing. Those in support of it spout the “applies equally” tag line while studiously ignoring it doesn’t affect people equally.
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People who do that, however reasonable they sound, however reasonable they convince themselves they are, are in fact not. They have settled on the conclusion they want and are selecting and twisting facts to be able to hold on to that conclusion.
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A reasonable person would ask themselves “Why pass a law that is will disenfranchise far more legitimate voters than incidents of fraud it would prevent?”
The news article you cite, in characterizing ACORN, refers to the completely debunked video shot by James O’Keefe.
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Uhhh…no it doesn’t. Did you read the site that I linked to? James O’Keefe is not mentioned. It is true that O’Keefe’s video of ACORN employees giving financial and tax advice to a pimp and a prostitute went a long way to Congress defunding ACORN, but the voter fraud I cite is not from an O’Keefe sting.
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One of the many items from that cite is this:
“ACORN was investigated in 2006 for submitting false voter registrations in St. Louis, Missouri. 1,492 fraudulent voter registrations were identified.”
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If you pass a law that says “Every citizen must show up in person at noon on Wednesday at a location 50 miles from the city center to register.” then that law applies equally to all citizens. But it ignores the fact that many citizens can’t make that trip.
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Well yes that would be an problem and I would agree with you if that is what the law we are discussing required. It doesn’t. It requires a voter to send back a postcard, (and I assume no postage is necessary), that is sent to their residence. Why are you escalating the stipulations of the law so far beyond what the reality of the law is?
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I’m assuming you have an open mind and are open to changing your view if the facts show you should.
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Yes and I would hope that applies to you also.
Me: “The news article you cite, in characterizing ACORN, refers to the completely debunked video shot by James O’Keefe.”
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You: “Uhhh…no it doesn’t. Did you read the site that I linked to? James O’Keefe is not mentioned. It is true that O’Keefe’s video of ACORN employees… ”
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The article: “In September 2009, ACORN came under national scrutiny when a series of videos taken undercover at its offices in Baltimore, Maryland; Brooklyn, New York; Washington, DC and San Bernardino, California were released”
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The article does refer specifically to the videos O’Keefe shot, which is what I said. That they avoid mentioning him by when doing so is irrelevant, other than to show perhaps the authors of the article knew that mentioning the thoroughly discredited O’Keefe would damage the credibility of the claim they were trying to make.
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“Well yes that would be an problem and I would agree with you if that is what the law we are discussing required.”
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I knew that that would be exactly your reply. I even wrote it in my comment, almost word-for-word, but removed it out of some vague hope that you wouldn’t live down to expectations and go for that “I’m going to dispute the specific example you gave so I don’t havee to deal with the obvious general point you’re making.”
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You’ve had several chances now, George. Instead you’ve chosen, repeatedly, to make it clear you have no interest in truth. The truly sad thing is, from all your dodging and denying it’s obvious you know you’re wrong, and yet think somehow you win something by claiming you believe something you know isn’t true.
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Enjoy your final word. I’m sure you’ll have one, am sure it will be more of the same, am sure I won’t bother to read it.
I knew that that would be exactly your reply.
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I wish you had not deleted your response to that point. I would have liked to see how you justified adding draconian measures to the law so that your case that it is too arduous would be true. That is a straw man argument.
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You’ve had several chances now, George. Instead you’ve chosen, repeatedly, to make it clear you have no interest in truth.
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I have a great interest in truth but the vast majority of posters here serve as a Greek chorus for Peter David. Anyone with a different opinion is urged to see the truth as they see it. But truth is not subjective. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind. I just try to offer an alternative opinion, but you apparently need me to agree with you.
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I have to note that you did not refer to your denigrating interpretation to a post I made that was a word-for-word quote by Peter David to me. He was responding to a post I made about Planned Parenthood on May 19.
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Translation: I have no response to the point you made so I’m going to declare it’s stupid, regardless of what it might actually be.
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If you really think I was avoiding making an cogent response, then that is what you think Peter did also. You were involved in that thread.
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Okay, since you brought up James O’Keefe. O’Keefe has not been “thoroughly discredited.” He paid a $100,000 fine for recording someone without permission. Of course asking for permission would severely mitigate getting someone to admit what they are up to. And that was only in California. He used the same routine in 4 other cities with no penalty.
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And if paying to make a suit go away is grounds for dismissing the validity of his videos, then ABC, which paid $1.9 billion to settle a defamation lawsuit with Beef Products Inc., and NBC, which had to pay millions to General Motors for staging fiery test crash of a pickup truck on Dateline NBC, have been similarly discredited.
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A regular criticism of his videos is that they are “selectively edited.” There has never been a video broadcast on any news program that is not “selectively edited.” Hours of boring video content is never used for obvious reasons. O’Keefe does upload all the unedited video to YouTube for anyone who wants to see it. The National Review’s Mona Charen viewed two hours of raw tape concerning the sting that forced Ron Shiller of NPR to resign. She said, “James O’Keefe’s editing of the Ron Shiller NPR video was not ‘selective and deceptive.’ “ O’Keefe uses deception to gain access but not to deceive the viewer.
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O’Keefe engages in the kind of underground journalism that used to be admired. Mike Wallace went undercover on 60 Minutes. What about the false pretenses To Catch a Predator used to trap pedophiles?
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Of course none of this has anything to do with my claim of the reality of voter fraud. The first link which you cite only mentioned the videos as the reason ACORN came under national scrutiny. O’Keefe’s pimp sting had nothing to do with the voter fraud listed on that site. And you didn’t refer to the second link at all.
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The truly sad thing is, from all your dodging and denying it’s obvious you know you’re wrong, and yet think somehow you win something by claiming you believe something you know isn’t true.
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Interesting assumptions. I’d like to see your psychiatric degree.
Did you just defend James O’Keefe?!
PAD, I think it’s time to bring out that shroud.
Yup, he did. And by claiming O’Keefe’s often illegal attempts to entrap people in crimes they aren’t committing is in the same mold as actual investigative reporting.
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It’d be astounding if it wasn’t so expected.
If Project Veritas “entrap(s) people in crimes they aren’t committing” why did video from O’Keefe:
1. prompt Congress, (while Democrats controlled both houses), to pass legislation defunding ACORN;
2. force the termination of two top NPR executives;
3. force resignations of Medicare staff in Ohio, Virginia, and Maine and inspired widespread worker retraining in entitlement programs;
4. inspire Virginia to change voter laws after catching a congressman’s son in the act of encouraging fraud;
5. expose a New York City election board commissioner to acknowledge widespread voter fraud;
6. force the termination of three Common Core executives;
7. expose a discussion of an illegal PAC that prompted a Republican campaign treasurer to resign and the Republican state senate president, Mike Ellis to drop out of the senate race;
8. enable the FBI to arrest and convict three DisruptJ20 operatives in a criminal plot to put butyric acid in the ventilation system of the National Press Club. ;
9. expose teacher union mischief in several states leading to multiple terminations and investigations???
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That’s probably enough for now, but be assured, there are more examples.
O’Keefe’s videos are a direct descendant of Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle and Nellie Bly’s book, Ten Days in a Mad House.
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Deny his credibility if you must but I suspect the problem the left has with O’Keefe isn’t his tactics or methods, but rather his targets.
George Haberberger :
The alternative is deceased and other ineligible people still on the rolls and people using those names to vote multiple times.
Wow. Thats such a hugely stupid statement that I don’t even know where to begin. So I won’t bother. I will just let it sit there and stew in its own idiocy.
And since these vote checks are sent via “Snail-mail” those of the younger generations who get all (if not virtually all) our correspondence and bills and what not via electronically… it also targets the young (also mostly democratic). I know many people, especially those who live in apartments, who never bother to check their physical mail boxes unless they are explicitly told to look for something there (or in the case of apartment dwellers to clean it out for the poor post office workers to fill back up with advertisements).
Not to mention renters, who tend to move more often and thus whose addresses get out of date more easily.