Conservative groups are rallying to purge voter lists, intimidate voters with poll watchers, and institute voter ID laws in as many states as possible.
As the New York Times reported Monday, one of the largest such groups is True the Vote, a Tea Party-backed group that has sued states to purge voter lists and plans to train at least 1 million poll watchers this year. The group says it plans to hold summits in 17 states in the lead-up to the election.
At a recent True the Vote summit, Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch said he feared the “Obama gang” would try and “steal the election,” particularly through the use of registering the “food stamps army.” Still others point to urban areas and minorities as the culprits of voter fraud.
And as Lean Forward reported Monday, True the Vote recently teamed up with Fitton’s group to sue Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted—no friend to voting rights advocates—trying to force him to conduct a purge of the voter rolls.
Rep. Karen Bass of California decried the anti-voter fraud efforts on Politics Nation on Monday. "It's a version of the 1950s poll tax," said Bass, a Democrat, referring to the bills outlawed by the 24th amendment that aimed to prevent African Americans from voting. “We’ve got to have the same amount of energy we had in the 1960s with voting rights acts and the civil rights movement,” she said.
Stephen Spaulding, an activist from voter rights group’s Common Cause, also encouraged people to respond with their vote. “These politicians are trying to manipulate the process and make it harder for eligible citizens to have their vote heard,” he said. “Let your voice be heard at the ballot box; that’s the best way to fight against this rampant effort to suppress the vote."
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Thank you for keeping this issue, up front, and fully visible, to the viewers. It's important.
"A new nationwide analysis of more than 2,000 cases of alleged election fraud over the last dozen years shows that in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, was virtually nonexistent."
Malicious and Nefarious. Plain and simple. Simply no Altuism at all. They have been charged, there is motive, and clear evidence of malicious intent. GUILTY. Now what are we going to do about it?
They do not care about a fair win, they only want a win at any cost or trick and that shows why we should never vote for a group that has basement moral standards.
the below book review sheds some light on the why
Publication Date: September 29, 2011
Late in life, William F. Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is "boring," said the founding father of the American right. "Devoting your life to it," as conservatives do, "is horrifying if only because it's so repetitious. It's like sex." With this unlikely conversation began Robin's decade-long foray into the conservative mind. What is conservatism, and what's truly at stake for its proponents? If capitalism bores them, what excites them?
Tracing conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution, Robin argues that the right is fundamentally inspired by a hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market, others oppose it. Some criticize the state, others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality.
(my comment here: in the American Revolution you know that the king would have had great allies in the conservatives)
Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society--one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention has been critical to their success.
Written by a keen, highly regarded observer of the contemporary political scene, The Reactionary Mind ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia, from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all rightwing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are historical improvisations on a theme: the felt experience of having power.
I notice someone said "in person". What about the easier ways to vote illegally. Why are the dems so afraid of having to have an ID? They are not afraid of having Black Panthers standing in front of polling places with nightsticks. Talk about a double standard. We need ID's for nearly everything. I can't imagine not having an ID. I don't see anybody refusing ID's to anyone legal and in some states (sadly) to anyone illegal. GET AN ID. And, the voter rolls should be looked at annually and updated. Is that so terrible? The government is the world's worst when you hear of people receiving Social Security etc. long after they are dead. I am all for any government agency updating rolls and correcting them.
"Why are the dems so afraid of having to have an ID?"
Nobody's AFRAID of needing an ID. It's just that people used to be able to prove their identity in a dozen ways;
A bank account in your name;
A Lease agreement;
A Utility bill;
Your Social Security card;
Veterans' ID;
And of course, the Official Voter ID card I have in my pocket that is now worthless.
Since the Republicans realized they CAN'T win this Election fairly, they decided to suppress as many votes as possible.
It worked in Florida, 2000. About 80,000 black voters were refused the right to vote because their names were "similar" to convicted felons in TEXAS !
These votes would have confirmed Al Gore as the winner.
So now the GOP is pushing Voter Suppression in all the Swing States.
If you're elderly and don't have a current driver's license anymore, it doesn't matter if you've voter all your life, you no longer have the right to vote...
Unless you show up at the DMV, wait in line for hours, present your Birth Certificate, Etc, Etc, and get a non-Driver's Photo ID.
And of course, poor people or people that live in cities often don't own cars at all, and thus don't have Driver's Licenses.
Organizations are racing to get people to check if they're properly prepared and registered to vote, but tens of thousands of people are going to be turned away when they attempt to vote.
And it's all because the Republicans are determined to cheat.
The issue of a National Photo ID came up during the Clinton Presidency, and the GOP flipped out !
The Religious nuts thought this was "The Mark of the Beast" and opposed it vehemently.
If this was in any way an honest issue, it would be delayed until the next Election to give people time to meet the requirements; but it's obviously to benefit the Republican Suppress The Vote policy.
Screw fair wins. What concerns me as a retired white guy raised in the South is that this is just more of the same damned racist crap I saw as a young journalist in the south 50+ years ago, no that they were new then. There were entire counties where effectively a few white men and a few women in effect voted for 90 percent of a county who happened to be black and disenfranchished. I saw grown men with college degrees being told by ignorant, barely literate people that they were illiterate, counties that were 90 percent black with no black voters. This has always been about two things, race and preventing others from recognizing that black civil rights are about civil rights for all. The obstacles to the vote franchise in the south was always more than poll taxes or phony literacy tests and bizarre ID requirements. It was also the noose, gunfire, limited registration and voting requirements that made it impossible for the few "undesirables" to either register or vote. The election that ratified the 1901 Alabama constitution that disenfranchised both blacks and poor whites in most cases was approved by a vote that the state government archivist say was blatantly corrupt. Fraudulent votes are not case for dead people by fakers, they are cast by crooked officials who steal elections. Dead people don't vote. Voter fraud doesn't begin at the ballot box, it begins before the ballot is cast and afterward. If you want ID laws, they need to be rational and relatively easy, the goal has to be to make it possible and relatively easy for voters to do their civic duty.
The right to a fair trial presumes that some guilty people will be freed for the sake of not convicting the innocent.
There is no history of significance involving voter fraud by voters. I had rather see 33 fraudulent votes than to see 330,000 people who have voted for years deprived of the right to vote in a Republican attend to steal the election. That's all it is.
And, if we have to impose new standards to meet a non-existent problem, we should follow the model of Virginia which backed away from an idiotic system intended to stop many from voting legitimately. Now, everyone is satisfied.
The real question is not what are the Democrats afraid of. For this independent the question is why do the Republicans seem so dead set on their plan to restrict people of color from voting, making it easier for white suburbanites to vote than urban residents who sometimes wait hours in line.
If the tale from Florida is true, as Governor Scott suggests, that they needed to purge a million voters suspected of not being citizens (a totally preposterous idea), then the governor, every member of his administration and anyone involved since Scott's election should be required to resign or be fired for gross incompetence.
And, incidentally, I pay a considerably higher income tax rate than Romney, I didn't have an inheritance I could donate to charity, no one had money to lend me to go to college, Pell grants didn't exist (and that's a shame) and nobody opened any doors to elite colleges for me. My wife was a scholarship student, damned bright, and earned everything she got and she despises Romney for his disdain for those we know who have been less fortunate than us.
Republicanism of today is a scourge on the American body politic and stands in stark contrast to the best of the Republican past, whether Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ike or even for god's sake, Richard Nixon, who despite his desperate evilness, managed to create the EPA and get behind a responsible conservationist, Russell Train, who played a critical role in that move and became the second EPA director under Ford. The Republican party has morphed into a neo-Leninist cult that worships money, anarchy and irresponsibility. George and Leonore Romney would be ashamed of what their son has become, not to mention their political party. Shame on all of these creeps.
Here in Florida couples split residency one owns and homesteads and votes here while the other owns and homesteads and votes in another state or as some boast they vote in both states.. clearly violating voting and homestead laws but nothing is done because if you can afford 2 homes you usually are a Republican... I'll bet more people do this kind of voter and tax fraud than any other by far!!!!! You would think that the state or county would cross check residency status of spouses. States and counties lose 100's of millions in taxes and people get to vote fraudulently to boot!!!