| Let’s Get Serious About Voter Suppression | |
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| Topic Started: Jul 19 2012, 01:22 AM (5,155 Views) | |
| catdaddy25 | Jul 19 2012, 01:22 AM Post #1 |
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This one is for Mike. He is a Houston reader who shot me an email after my recent column equating the GOP push for voter ID laws with voter suppression. I agreed with Attorney General Eric Holder who called that a modern-day poll tax. Mike did not. “You have to have an ID to write a check,” he wrote, “use a credit card and most other things in life. Saying poor blacks cannot easily get IDs is ridiculous. .?.?. Comparing this to the poll tax? C’mon, be serious.” Actually, I am. Not that I don’t get why Mike’s argument sounds reasonable to Mike — and to many others who made it. But let us consider it more closely. First off, I’ve never made the claim Mike attributes to me, i.e., that poor blacks cannot get IDs. No, my point is that when you don’t have a checking account, a credit card or a car, it is less likely you will already have ID. The name of the game, remember, is not voter prevention, but voter suppression, i.e., bringing down the numbers. In the last presidential election, only 63 percent of eligible voters voted — and that was the best showing in 48 years. Clearly, Americans are not overly enthusiastic about performing this civic duty as it is. So, if you can add a layer of difficulty to it that requires some voters to catch a bus down to some office, fill out forms and wait in line to get a card for which they will otherwise have zero use, is it so hard to imagine that some won’t bother — and that there will be enough of them to make a difference in a close race? Remember: demographic trends do not favor the Republican Party. As the Center for the Study of the American Electorate observed in a 2008 report, the GOP is either out of contention or seeing an erosion of support in New England, the mid-Atlantic, the West, the mountain states, the industrial Midwest, and even parts of the South. With its growing Latino population, even Texas may be lost to the party before too many years. “Within the next few decades,” says the report, “white Americans, the only demographic sub-group from which the GOP draws significant numbers of voters, will be in the minority.” So, while the party posits these laws as a way of fighting voter fraud — a nearly nonexistent problem — it takes little imagination to divine a more sinister intent. Sometimes, you don’t need imagination at all. http://www.nationalmemo.com/lets-get-serious-about-voter-suppression/trackback/ |
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| Mal | Jul 19 2012, 03:56 AM Post #2 |
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Voter suppression is being done for one reason and that is the stop large numbers of poor, ethnic, latino and black voters going to the polls. It is only Republicans who are pushing for it and demanding a change in the rules. They are so desperate to get Romney in the White House they will do anything. I hope people are uniting with their local NAACP AND LOCAL DEMOCRATIC OFFICE TO FIGHT TURNING BACK VOTING RIGHTS THAT MANY BLACK PEOPLE DIED FOR. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/voter-id-laws_n_1683274.html?ir=Black+Voices&ref=topbar Edited by Mal, Jul 19 2012, 06:58 AM.
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| kennyinbmore | Jul 19 2012, 08:26 AM Post #3 |
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Ironically back then those black peopel did whatever they needed to do to make sure they got to vote and some blacks today are whining about going to the local DMV for an ID. Kind of sad when you thik about it |
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| UTB | Jul 19 2012, 08:35 AM Post #4 |
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http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/marcus/120717
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| Rick1 | Jul 19 2012, 08:40 AM Post #5 |
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That's only half of it. They are also required to bring birth certificates which a lot of old blacks don't have because they was born at home. |
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| UTB | Jul 19 2012, 08:50 AM Post #6 |
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Lets see what my state requires http://sos.georgia.gov/elections/voting_information.htm
Next! |
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| Rick1 | Jul 19 2012, 09:47 AM Post #7 |
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This isn't a change. The suppression is when the states requires 3 or 4 different proofs of who you are to get the ID card and when you call the local offices for information, no one answers. |
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| UTB | Jul 19 2012, 10:29 AM Post #8 |
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My new cards were mailed to me two weeks ago. |
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| Mal | Jul 19 2012, 10:33 AM Post #9 |
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The issue is real and dangerous and it is a disgrace that more is not being done to stop it. According to the Brennan Center, 180 bills restricting voting were introduced in 2011 across 41 states: 34 states considered bills requiring voters to present voter ID at the polls and 4 considered bills requiring them to present photo ID when registering. At least 17 states considered bills requiring voters to present proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate, to register to vote; in three states -- Alabama, Kansas and Tennessee -- the legislation passed. And at least 16 states considered bills placing restrictions on voter registration.In all, of the 180 bills introduced since the beginning of 2011, 23 have been passed. Two more have been enacted by executive order. |
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| Rick1 | Jul 19 2012, 10:39 AM Post #10 |
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There is no evidence of voting fraud. Period. |
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