Category Archives: voters rights

The Real Reason For New Voter Regulations

13 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by in Politics, voter fraud, voter suppression, voters rights

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Voter Suppression Wiki Graphic 300x113

Image by baratunde via Flickr

In my post a few days ago, I described how a 96-year-old woman may not be permitted to go to the polls in 2012 even though she has been voting for 70 years since she was in her 20’s.  I also said that this is not an isolated incident but an effort to disenfranchise certain voters.  A new report by a non-partisan law institute shows that at least 5 million voters will be adversely affected by the new restrictions on the right to vote.  In particular, new legislation will negatively impact seniors, college students, Hispanics, and African Americans, among others.  These findings indicate that the new wave of restrictive voter regulations may be less about fraud and more an effort by conservatives to steer the vote their way by suppressing voting rights of those who tend to vote Democrat.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice:

This year, in every case but one, strict voter ID bills were introduced by Republican legislators.  Newly elected legislators introduced about a quarter of these bills.

The Brennan Center for Justice “is a non-partisan public policy and law institute,” according to the report written by Wendy R. Weiser and Lawrence Norden on October 3, 2011.”  The center is located at New York University School of Law and focuses its work on voting rights, campaign finance reform, racial justice in criminal law, and presidential power to fight terrorism.

According to the Brennan Center, 33 states have new regulations.  The  reports says:

This new wave of changes may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election…

  • These new laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.
  • The states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012 – 63 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency.
  • Of the 12 likely battleground states, as assessed by an August Los Angeles Times analysis of Gallup polling, five have already cut back on voting rights (and may pass additional restrictive legislation), and two more are currently considering new restrictions.

States have changes their laws so rapidly that no single analysis has assessed the overall impact of such moves

The Brennan Center cites two major reason for these new changes:

  1. Republican control of state houses with friendly governors, many of these changes taking place as a result of 2010 elections.  “The first is the stark shift in the partisan makeup of the state legislature after 2010…there is typically a sharp partisan divide over the issue of strict voter ID requirements, with Republicans generally pushing more restrictive measures and Democrats generally opposing them.” the Brennan Center report says.  “As a result of Republican electoral success in state houses across the country in 2010, proponents of strict voter ID bills were able to garner much greater legislative support than in the past.”
  2. Priority.  Again, this is more a Republican agenda than Democratic, and is also a result of the 2010 elections.  “Many of the Republican legislators and election administrators swept into office in 2010 made voter ID…a major legislative priority,” according to the Brennan Center report.

The Brennan Center says that there is a possible third reason for the successful wave in 33 states for these new laws suppressing the right to vote and, you guessed it, it comes down to SPECIAL INTERESTS!  The Brennan Center says:

Another new feature of the legislative landscape was the reported involvement of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative group made up of state legislators and business and other interests…a powerful conservative group that brings together state legislators and private interests to develop and support state legislation and policy.

And “support” they do!  According to the Brennan report:

ALEC…boasts that each year more than 1,000 bills based on its models are introduced in state legislatures, and that approximately 17% of those bills become law.

Some politicians and others who support these new restrictive laws claim that there has been widespread voter fraud.  But these claims of voter fraud may prove to be false if the state of Kansas is any indication.  Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been using voter fraud to push new voter restrictions through the legislature and has been successful in his efforts to get it through the 83-member Kansas House.

But, according to The Wichita Eagle:

Before the Senate joins the House…senators should demand better evidence of voter fraud than Kobach has turned up so far…the local incidents look more like honest mistakes than voter fraud – ballot applications signed by well-meaning relatives, mail-in ballots with signatures that didn’t match those on file, a parent trying to vote for a student off at college – and, in the end, the ballots went uncounted…Saying voter fraud is rampant doesn’t make it so.

In one case, Kobach claimed that someone who died in 1996 had voted in August, but Kobach’s claim proved false.  The Wichita Eagle reports:

The Eagle found the Wichitan very much alive (“I don’t think this is heaven, not when I’m raking leaves,” the man said.)

The New York Times isn’t buying voter fraud either, instead calling it a “myth” in its editorial a few days ago.  According to the New York Times:

Of course the Republicans passing these laws never acknowledge their real purpose, which is to turn away from the polls people who are more likely to vote Democratic…In all cases, they are abusing the trust placed in them by twisting Democracy’s machinery to partisan ends.

I agree that something stinks here and it appears as if there is a concerted effort to suppress the vote which is money-backed by special interest.  Even though 33 out of 50 states have currently passed these voters’ rights suppression laws, it is still relatively early in the election process and hopefully voters’ rights groups and other advocates may be successful in overturning them or amending.  I say that they may be successful but that will only be dependent on whether or not the public itself becomes aware of the fraud being committed against them.

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96-Year-Old Woman Denied Right To Vote

07 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in corruption in voter registration, Dorothy Cooper, Politics, voter fraud, voters rights

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Downtown of Chattanooga, Tennessee

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She started voting before many of us were born.  In 70 years, she has voted in every Presidential election except one.  But unless more reasonable and saner heads prevail in Tennessee, 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper will be denied the vote in the coming election for President, all due to a clerk’s snafu, a mistake that the state so far is unwilling to correct.

Tennessee is one of several states which now require a DMV photo ID in order to vote (39 states are considering, or have already passed, the same laws).  For many of us, producing a driver’s license is no problem.  But for many older citizens, like Ms. Cooper who never learned how to drive a car, it is a problem.  Standing on long lines and putting up with automaton clerks, like the one Ms. Cooper encountered, are bad enough.  But then, after all that, being turned away and told to come back again when they have the proper documentation is physically and emotionally demanding on a person of any age, let alone a nonagenarian.

Ms. Cooper is a retired domestic worker and resident of Tennessee.  She was born in Georgia and moved to Tennessee for work where she has been voting since she was in her 20’s.  The only Presidential election she recalls ever missing was for John F. Kennedy in 1960 because a move to Nashville prevented her from registering in time.  Ms. Cooper never had any need to obtain a DMV license before, until now.

Ms. Cooper, who was accompanied by an assistant, believed that she brought all necessary documentation to the registration office, including a rent receipt, her voter registration card, her lease, social security card, and birth certificate.  The clerk however, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press who evidently broke the story, denied Ms. Cooper because she didn’t have her marriage certificate to prove her name change from her maiden name on the birth certificate to Cooper on her other documentation.

“I never had problems,” Ms. Cooper told Reverend Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation on Thursday, not even during the infamous Jim Crow era.  “I never thought it would be like this,” she said, “ever.”

Ms. Cooper told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that even though she has been asked for a photo ID when she writes a check buying groceries, that store clerks accept her social security card in lieu of a DMV card.

“‘Sometimes they’ll say, do you have a social security card?'” Ms. Cooper told the Chattanooga Times Free Press, referring to store clerks, “and she shows it to them.”

Ms. Cooper also has a photo ID from the Chattanooga Police Department which is issued to seniors where she lives in Chattanooga.  But, this ID is evidently not good enough to satisfy voting officials.

Why?  One would think that a social security card and a police department photo ID would be good enough to prove identity and citizenship.  Citizens’ rights groups are currently involved in this individual case as well as with trying to amend or overturn Tennessee’s law as well as in other states with severe and unfair voting restrictions.

It’s a sad and terrible time when political cronies manipulate the system and states’ voting laws to try and slant the vote.  And, even if you believe that these current restrictions won’t affect you, realize that it’s only a matter of time because the corruption is on both sides.

The conservatives pushing friendly state legislatures and conservative governors to enact restrictive ID laws are just the current wave of voter registration corruption.  Remember four years ago with the fraudulent registrations from the other side?  Powerful (and many times corrupt) cronies work behind the scenes before and during every major election period.  Each side has individuals who will not let such concepts as “fairness” or “equality” get in the way to achieve their agendas.  These corrupt individuals will attempt to eliminate those from the voting rosters who have even the slightest potential of voting for the other side.

Let’s hope that voters’ rights activist groups are successful in the case of Ms. Cooper and for anyone else out there who is being unfairly eliminated from the voting rolls.  Perhaps, like in the case of Acorn from last election, it is time for the American People as well as government officials to investigate who those people are behind these new laws, and what monies are supporting these restrictions.

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