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Showing posts with label Voter ID Laws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voter ID Laws. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

End The Voting Rights Battle

I don't do this often but both sides are completely wrong in the voting rights debate. And Ross Douthat has explained why in his latest piece. 

The first study, from the Democracy and Polarization Lab at Stanford University, looks at the effects of no-excuse absentee voting on the 2020 elections — the kind of balloting that a lot of states expanded and that many Republican state legislators now want to roll back. Contrary to liberal expectations, easing the voting rules this way seemed to have no effect on turnout: “States newly implementing no-excuse absentee voting for 2020 did not see larger increases in turnout than states that did not.” Then contrary to Republican fears, the easement didn’t help Democrats at the G.O.P.’s expense: “No-excuse absentee did not substantially increase Democratic turnout relative to Republican turnout.” Overall the authors argue that what drove higher turnout in 2020 was simply “voter interest” in the elections, not the major voting rule change, which “mobilized relatively few voters and had at most a muted partisan effect.” 

The second study comes from a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oregon, and it looks further back in time to assess the effects of Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court revision of the Voting Rights Act that made it easier for states to impose voter ID laws and other restrictions. Using data from six federal elections, the author finds no post-Shelby divergence between white and African-American turnout in states affected by the ruling. Indeed, if anything, the jurisdictions saw African-American turnout rise relative to white turnout in the 2016 elections, suggesting that new obstacles to voting prompt swift mobilization in response.

That should all clear it up, right? 

Bwahahaahaha!!!

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Thank You, Wisconsin!

I love how conservatives foam at the mouth about voter ID as if there is so much voter fraud going on that we are all falling into a boiling pit of sewage. Their arguments are just a giant smokescreen for their fear at losing more voters year after year. They are already at the point where they can't win elections unless some Democrats swing their way. So, they need to figure out how to suppress votes without being so obvious. Hence, voter ID.

It looks like their strategy worked in Wisconsin.

According to federal court records, 300,000 registered voters, 9 percent of the electorate, lacked strict forms of voter ID in Wisconsin. A new study by Priorities USA, shared exclusively with The Nation, shows that strict voter-ID laws, in Wisconsin and other states, led to a significant reduction in voter turnout in 2016, with a disproportionate impact on African-American and Democratic-leaning voters. Wisconsin’s voter-ID law reduced turnout by 200,000 votes, according to the new analysis. Donald Trump won the state by only 22,748 votes.

So much for adhering to the Constitution.

Friday, June 30, 2017

Trump Wants Your Social Security Number!

The Star Tribune has a piece up about Trump's plan to root out and stop the imaginary voter fraud that he and his supporters believe is running rampant around the United States. It can't possibly be that people don't like them. It has to be those gol durned illegals!

So, he has sent Mike Pence out to get everyone's Social Security numbers to make sure that we are all legit. Yeah...riiiiiight...I'm giving my SS number to a well known con man! How well has that worked out in the past? And talk about BIG government. I guess it's when they do it, it's OK.

Further,

Trump and his allies have said the commission’s work is necessary to prevent what they contend are widespread instances of voter fraud. Evidence for that claim is exceedingly thin. Kobach has made it a central issue of his tenure and has achieved a total of nine voter fraud convictions. Most of the people convicted were older Republican voters, and at least one claims he was targeted for an “honest mistake.”

Who called that from a mile away?

Moi.

Again, for those who have trouble accepting reality.

Academics who have studied the issue for decades say voter fraud — particularly of the type that strict ID laws championed by Kobach and others are intended to combat — is vanishingly rare, and that voter ID requirements are a burdensome solution. A federal judge ruled that some of Kobach’s proposed ID requirements constituted a “mass denial of a fundamental constitutional right.”


Friday, August 05, 2016

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Are White Republicans More Racist Than White Democrats? (Part Eleven)

Here's a poll conducted recently by the Washington Post and AP regarding implicit racism between Democrats and Republicans.


























Certainly, this shows a problem with implicit racism in both parties yet when two thirds are showing a problem (nearly 10 points ahead of the Democrats) that is more significant. Again, this isn't surprising considering that the bulk of the GOP base is in the South.

There is also this Pew Poll which mirrors the GSS data regarding interracial marriage.





















Note the uptick again right around the time the president got elected.

So, what exactly is implicit racism? Well, take the survey and find out! Here were my results.

Your Result Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for European American compared to African American.

This comes as no surprise to me whatsoever. I'm curious as to how my five commenters would do on this survey...if they even agree to submit to it. That first screen will likely send them into fits of paranoia:)

Friday, January 23, 2015

Are White Republicans More Racist Than White Democrats? (Part Ten)

The question of which political party is more racist was recently addressed on Quora. This answer was by far the best one given. Several key takeaways emerge from it. First, a summary timeline... 

-From 1828 to 1948, the Democratic Party was clearly the party favored by Southern whites who supported slavery and then Jim Crow & segregation. In 1948, Democratic President Harry S. Truman ordered the integration of the U.S. Armed Forces. Things start to get murky. 

-From 1948 to 1968, it was a period of great flux with regard to race in politics in America. This was the period of Strom Thurmond's presidential campaign, the Dixiecrats and George Wallace. Again in play was The American South. 

-From 1968 until 2005, the Republican Party had a clear pattern of exploiting racial resentments in the South over the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In what has become known as the "Southern Strategy," the Republican Party – first with Barry Goldwater and then more successfully with Richard Nixon – sought to exploit racial anxieties of Southern Whites. In 2005, then RNC Chair Ken Mehlman apologized for the Southern Strategy and repudiated it at the annual conference of the NAACP.

With the last segment, we see an admission from the highest ranking member of the GOP at the time that they employed the Southern Strategy to win the white conservative vote. Interestingly, his apology drew criticism that illustrates the point I have been making all along: the GOP has a problem with race, particularly black people.

But what about from 2005 to 2015? In his answer on Quora, Mr. McCullough offers a detailed look at the racial implications of voter ID laws followed by this:

Bottom line: whichever party appeals to and builds upon the voting bloc of Southern White Conservatives owns the legacy of slavery and institutionalized racism in the United States. These days, that party is the Republican Party. ...look away, look away, look away Dixieland.

I completely agree. "Owning" is not a word conservatives do really well at all. Their first reaction is to DARVO (Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender) and blame the liberal media. It will never cease to amaze me that the party that preaches responsibility completely fails to take any of it on a myriad of issues today.

But own it they must because Southern White Conservatives are a substantial part of their base.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Friday, October 17, 2014

Voter ID Laws Backfire Across The Country

Take a look at this story from my local newspaper.

Less anticipated, however, was the robust and sometimes creative backlash that has followed from Democrats and their allies, who are launching a spirited counteroffensive that strategists say could end up benefiting party turnout on Election Day.

Uh oh...:)

So, where, pray tell, is this happening?

In Wisconsin, a photo ID law signed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker led the mayor of liberal Madison to urge voting this November as an “act of defiance.” He wants city vans to take seniors to have their photos taken in time to vote.

North Carolina’s new voting laws, approved last year by the first GOP-led state Legislature since Reconstruction, spurred the NAACP to stage large-scale voter registration rallies that may explain why new Democratic registrations in some key counties are growing faster than new Republican registrations. 

And in Georgia, Democrats turned the court’s decision into an unexpected opportunity. After justices set aside the provision that required the state to obtain federal approval before changing voting rules, Democratic-led counties realized they had the authority to expand early voting in their districts. So polls will be open around Atlanta for the first time on Sundays.

I wonder if conservatives really knew what they were doing by supporting Voter ID laws. A couple of key losses in swing states because of this backlash would be exactly what they deserve.

Friday, August 08, 2014

And That's The End of the Voter Fraud Myth

31 out of 1,000,000,000 ballots cast. That's how many credible incidents of voter fraud were found in this recent investigation that covers the years 2000 to 2014. Mr. Levitt welcomes anyone to check his work.

So, that's the end of the quaint (lie) notion that there is rampant voter fraud in this country and we must have photo ID YESTERDAY!!! (unless we are talking about absentee voter fraud in which case Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes suddenly makes a cameo appearance). Levitt notes the following.

ID laws are not aimed at the fraud you’ll actually hear about. Most current ID laws (Wisconsin is a rare exception) aren’t designed to stop fraud with absentee ballots (indeed, laws requiring ID at the polls push more people into the absentee system, where there are plenty of real dangers). Or vote buying. Or coercion. Or fake registration forms. Or voting from the wrong address. Or ballot box stuffing by officials in on the scam. In the 243-page document that Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel filed on Monday with evidence of allegedly illegal votes in the Mississippi Republican primary, there were no allegations of the kind of fraud that ID can stop.

Uh Huh:)

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Pissing Off The Young People

It looks some young voters in North Carolina are pretty pissed off at the state's new voter ID laws.

Joining a challenge to a state law alongside the N.A.A.C.P., the American Civil Liberties Union and the Justice Department, lawyers for seven college students and three voter-registration advocates are making the novel constitutional argument that the law violates the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 from 21. The amendment also declares that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.”

I wonder how many more groups conservatives can piss off:)

More importantly, the article illustrates how deeply flawed voter ID laws are. Quite literally, the infringe people's right to vote.

Friday, June 06, 2014

What is Bad, What is Good

Let me see if I understand this correctly.

The New Black Panther Party (bubble translation: a couple of black guys in Philly) with batons at a polling station...




















BAD!!

Yet bringing a gun to a polling place in Chambers County, Alabama, in Shelby County, Alabama, or in Alabaster, Alabama  (if you are white)...

GOOD!!

Makes perfect sense to me:)

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Rand Paul Goes Rogue (Again)

In case you are keeping score, Rand Paul has said that Texas will turn blue, the GOP needs to undergo a significant transformation, there must be immigration reform, and there is institutional racism. This week, he said

Everybody’s gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing, I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people.

No shit. And it's about time someone had the courage to be this blunt with the Republicans because they really are being assholes about it. Paul is sounding exactly like a candidate running for a national election in 2016 and someone who is well aware that the Republicans can't win unless they broaden their base.

That doesn't mean we give up on what we believe in, but it means we have to be a more welcoming party. We have to welcome people of all races. We need to welcome people of all classes – business class, working class … We need a more diverse party. We need a party that looks like America.

That's right. The question is...will they change?

Thursday, February 06, 2014

Friday, December 06, 2013

Careful What You Wish For

This recent piece from the Christian Science Monitor illustrates the pitfalls of requiring a photo ID to vote.

As Wisconsin implements its law, it is opening a window into why a photo ID can be so difficult for the elderly to obtain. But it is also highlighting what some activists are calling a "war against the Greatest Generation" as federal and state budget cuts fall disproportionately on the elderly. Whether it is the government shutdown making it harder to obtain veteran's benefits or cuts to food stamps or state welfare programs, many in the Greatest Generation feel that they are now being left in the cold. 

So, they might end up alienating their own base? Wow. That's rilly smart!  Well, folks like Genevieve Kujawski can rest assured that Democrats will protect their right to vote even if it is against them. 

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Shovel To The Head Stunned



I didn't it was possible to cram so much truth into six minutes before!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Yeah, Not So Much

Remember all that business about how voter fraud was rampant and every state needed to pass laws to stop this awful law breaking.

Yeah, not so much. 

The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000.

10? Good grief, someone call the CDC. This epidemic is out of control!!!

With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters.

Well, now I can see why this was such a concern and why we now need photo ID's.

Oh, wait. Here's why.



Thursday, July 26, 2012

Well, At Least He Admits It


Not a single case of voter fraud in the state of Pennsylvania which makes me wonder...isn't this one of those needless laws that an over reaching government passes?

Oh well, at least GOP State House leader Mike Turzai admits what the real purpose of the law. All I have to do is let them speak:)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Flaunting the Founding Fathers?

Today I'm wondering where exactly in the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, or the subsequent amendments does it say that one must present a photo ID to vote. I've been assured by my buddies on the right that they know the Constitution better than anyone and will, under any circumstances, most definitely adhere to to it.

After all, they wouldn't want to be accused of flaunting the founding fathers like Barack X, would they?