Voter-ID laws are a good ole fashioned poll tax

Rank-and-filed Republicans can never be convinced that there has never been an incidence of group voter fraud, much less an incidence that swayed an election. (Republican leaders know it's a sham to give them an excuse to suppress voting.)

So my conservative friends, just read this parallel in Hong Kong that Beinart found. It blew me away, because this Leung guy is speaking aloud what Republican leaders are saying behind closed doors:

If Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters succeed in booting C.Y. Leung from power, the city’s unelected chief executive should consider coming to the United States. He might fit in well in the Republican Party.

In an interview Monday with The New York Times and other foreign newspapers, Leung explained that Beijing cannot permit the direct election of Hong Kong’s leaders because doing so would empower “the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 a month.” Leung instead defended the current plan to have a committee of roughly 1,200 eminent citizens vet potential contenders because doing so, in the Times’ words, “would insulate candidates from popular pressure to create a welfare state, and would allow the city government to follow more business-friendly policies.”

And for those who say getting a new photo-ID just to vote (not for any other use by the voter) isn't a poll tax, consider this:

Acquiring that free ID requires showing another form of identification—and those cost money. In the states with voter-ID laws, notes a report by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, “Birth certificates can cost between $8 and $25. Marriage licenses, required for married women whose birth certificates include a maiden name, can cost between $8 and $20. By comparison, the notorious poll tax—outlawed during the civil rights era—cost $10.64 in current dollars.”

It's not like poll taxes are OK if they are "affordable" by somebody else's standards. No. Poll taxes are forbidden, period. 

Should the Poor Be Allowed to Vote?

By Peter Beinart

October 22, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/the-new-poll-tax/381791/?single_page=true

Cox: Gerrymandering and voter-ID laws are systemic racism

I'll say it again: I'm not necessarily against voter ID in order to vote, although I think it's an extravagant non-necessity.  But any such ID should be a national  ID; it should be free of charge (because voting must be free/poll taxes are illegal); it should have a very long duration (at least 10 years) and be renewed at any number of places; and any kind of photo-ID law should be grandfathered in, along with state and national outreach programs, hotlines, etc.  

But really, given modern technology, voting doesn't require a photo-ID to avoid the rare case of fraud. Voting can and should be as easy and secure as using an ATM. Polling stations, while they should always probably exist in some quantity to serve poor areas, are as outdated as tricorn hats.

If the true goal was to prevent voter fraud (even though there is none to begin with) while preserving citizens' most sacred democratic right -- the right to vote -- then we would certainly go about it otherwise, not making people who are lifelong eligible voters suddenly ineligible, as Republican state legislatures have. 

Voter-ID laws are a cynical and desperate ploy coordinated by the national GOP; and they a prime example of systemic racism that conservatives deny even exists.

Voter ID's last stand: let's finally declare laws what they are – racist on purpose

By Ana Marie Cox

July 16, 2014 | Guardian

This week, the US Department of Justice and the state of Texas started arguments in the first of what will be a summer-long dance between the two authorities over voting rights. There are three suits being tried in two districts over gerrymandering and Texas's voter identification law – both of which are said to be racially motivated. In its filing, the DoJ describes the law as "exceed[ing] the requirements imposed by any other state" at the time that it passed. If the DoJ can prove the arguments in its filing, it won't just defeat an unjust law: it could put the fiction of "voter fraud" to rest once and for all.

These battles, plus parallel cases proceeding in North Carolina, hinge on proving that the states acted with explicitly exclusionary intent toward minority voters – a higher standard was necessary prior to the Supreme Court's gutting of Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) back in January. Under Section 3, the DoJ had wide latitude to look at possible consequences of voting regulation before they were even passed – the "preclearance" provision. Ironically, because the states held to preclearance had histories of racial discrimination, some of the messier aspects of the laws' current intentions escaped comment.

But meeting that higher standard of explicit exclusionary intent comes with the opportunity to show some of the many skeptical Americans the ugly racism behind Republican appeals to "fairness" and warnings about fraud. Progressives have tried, and mostly failed, to show the institutional racism underpinning the sordid history behind voter ID laws; that may have been too subtle. In courts in Texas and North Carolina, the DoJ will make the jump from accusations that laws have a racial impact to straight-up calling voter ID laws racist.

This ought to be interesting.

The DoJ filing in Texas lays it all out pretty clearly, putting the voter ID law in context of a concerted legislative strategy to deny representation to the state's growing Hispanic population, including Republicans advancing more and more aggressive voter ID bills over the years. The filing points to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that laced the floor debates over the law, and to the measures taken by the Republican-controlled state house to limit the participation of Democratic minority lawmakers in considering or amending the legislation (the bill was heard in front of a special committee selected by the governor, on an expedited schedule). And, the DoJ notes, lawmakers produced "virtually no evidence during or after enactment of SB 14 that in-person voter impersonation – the only form of election fraud addressed by the identification requirements of SB 14 – was a serious problem."

Perhaps the most significant piece of context in the voter ID suit is how Texas's voter ID law came on the heels of the redistricting that the DoJ claims was also racially motivated. In the redistricting cases, DoJ's allegations of malicious intent have been helped along by the admission of the state that it had malicious political intent. The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, chose as his defense in that case what only can be called the Lesser Evil Strategy – stating up front that the state's GOP legislators had ulterior motives, but not the ones that the VRA outlaws:

[R]edistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party's electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats ... [They] were motivated by partisan rather than racial considerations and the plaintiffs and DOJ have zero evidence to prove the contrary.

Abbott's smugness – and his apparent faith in partisanship as a permissible and distinct form of discrimination – will take center stage as the DoJ presses on with both suits. In court, Abbott will be asked to prove his ignorance of demographics for the very state in which he is currently running for governor. Out of court, other GOP defenders of the law will have to do more or less the same. And they will need to defend the outrageous details of the law – such has how a concealed carry permit is a permissible form of voter ID but a federally-issued Medicare card carried by an elderly woman is not.

Some people of Texas may support the kind of bullying Abbott has prepared to defend, and most progressive activists are hardened to it, but I think average Americans hate it. Putting malice under a national spotlight might be the best way to turn people against voter ID laws in general.

Right now, Americans support the idea of voter ID laws by huge margins: polls show favorable attitudes toward a generic "ID requirement" to be between 70 and 80%. Approval exists across all demographic groups – even among black voters (51%), one of the groups that is, of course, disproportionately disenfranchised by these laws.

But the reasons that the public supports such laws aren't the same as the GOP's reasons for pursuing them: Republicans want to prevent specific types of people from voting; the American public wants voting to be fair.  That's why conservatives have had to hammer so hard on the false narrative of "voter fraud" – to convince everyone that it's what the laws are really about.

Add context to the "ID requirement" poll question that Americans get behind, though, and public support changes dramatically. Asurvey in North Carolina (taken as the state was considering taking up an amendment on the issue) found initial support for voter ID to be 71%. Pollsters then drilled further down and came up with numbers that speak to a truly democratic impulse:

• 72% say it's wrong to pass laws that make it harder for certain people to vote.
• 62% say they oppose a law that makes it harder for people of one party to vote.
• 74% say there should be demonstrated problems before legislators apply a fix.

If nothing else, these results suggests that Abbott's argument that supposedly party-based redistricting isn't the free pass – at least, from the public's standpoint, if not the court's – that he thinks it is.

In North Carolina, pollsters found that support for the law decreased as the 2012 election neared and voters started to pay attention and become educated on the issue. Voting rights advocates filled yet another suit based on disenfranchising young voters, which could make a further difference. (Way to keep pissing off millennials, GOP!)

That context effect is true nationwide. A different survey found that informing respondents that "Opponents of voters ID laws argue they can actually prevent people who are eligible to vote from voting" brought support for voter ID down by 12 points.

Pollsters have not publicly investigated whether Texan voters would show a similar shift, though it could be significant that support in the state for voter ID has remained at around 66% for the past two years, less than its support nationwide. Of course, 77% of Texasbelieve "voter ID laws are mainly used to prevent fraud," an alternate-reality bubble that attention to these cases may just yet pop.

It's the Department of Justice that'll have to bring this to pass. The GOP has always easily waved away "systemic" racism charges, like those made under the non-gutted VRA, as either outright inventions or the result of looking for equal outcomes rather than equal opportunities. Making clear the racist intent of voter ID laws will bring the discussion back to where it belongs: on equal opportunities, in the voting booth.

Oops! Russian gov't. admits Crimea vote turnout inflated

This is the first U.S. media outlet I've seen that picked up on this story that was broken by TSN.ua in Ukraine [emphasis mine]:

Yesterday, however, according to a major Ukrainian news site, TSN.ua, the website of the President of Russia’s Council on Civil Society and Human Rights (shortened to President’s Human Rights Council) posted a report that was quickly taken down as if it were toxic radioactive waste. According to this purported report about the March referendum to annex Crimea, the turnout of Crimean voters was only 30 percent. And of these, only half voted for the referendum–meaning only 15 percent of Crimean citizens voted for annexation.

The TSN report does not link to a copy of the cited report. However, there is a report of the Human Rights Council, entitled “Problems of Crimean Residents,” still up on the president-sovet.ru website, which discusses the Council’s estimates of the results of the March 16 referendum. Quoting from that report: “In Crimea, according to various indicators, 50-60% voted for unification with Russia with a voter turnout (yavka) of 30-50%.” This leads to a range of between 15 percent (50% x 30%) and 30 percent (60% x 50%) voting for annexation. The turnout in the Crimean district of Sevastopol, according to the Council, was higher: 50-80%.

Does the truth about Crimea's sham referendum matter at this point?  Probably not, only the "facts on the ground."  It's a shame.


Putin's 'Human Rights Council' Accidentally Posts Real Crimean Election Results
By Paul Roderick Gregory
May 5, 2014 | Forbes

URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/05/05/putins-human-rights-council-accidentally-posts-real-crimean-election-results-only-15-voted-for-annexation/

Crimea's sham referendum

This one way to get out the vote -- using police to go door to door!  

The Russians are also "helping" patients at psychiatric clinics to vote "correctly."  

This referendum was bound to be a farce -- there is no "No" option in favor of the status quo -- but this is simply absurd.  

UPDATE 1 (17.03.2014): Over 80 percent of residents of Crimea voted in the Sunday's referendum, according to Crimea's new Russian authorities, almost twice the voter turnout in the 2012 parliamentary elections, and despite the fact that most Tatars, who make up about 15 percent of Crimea's population, plus ethnic Ukrainians and many others, boycotted the elections.  

This improbable math makes sense, however, when you understand that anybody with a Russian passport was allowed to vote on the fate of Crimea.  All's fair, they say, in love and war.

As the Kyiv Post reported, "On voting day, alleged violations included Russian citizens being allowed to vote, bulletins being printed on ordinary office paper, journalists being denied access to polling stations, open pro-Russian agitation inside stations, and presence of paramilitary forces outside."

Furthermore, "polling stations had additional lists and were putting down the names of people who were not registered at those stations," hence turnout was so huge.

It bears repeating that this referendum did not offer residents of Crimea the option to preserve the status quo! That's not a real choice, that's political theater.  

Anyhow, well over 95 percent of voters, say authorities in Crimea and Sevastopol, voted for secession from Ukraine and unification with Russia.  Surely a majority of those voting would have gone in favor of unification of Russia anyway, but Putin and his Crimean puppets didn't leave the outcome to chance.

UPDATE 2 (17.03.2014): Some russkiy in Tennessee wrote a letter to his Senators in defense of Russia's occupation of Crimea and Sunday's sham referendum.  I won't copy the letter here, only my response:

I can't think of a single referendum for independence or increased autonomy that did not give its citizens the option on the ballot of preserving the status quo!  I can't think of a single legitimate referendum that took place while foreign troops paraded around with impunity and national police were absent and national military were trapped on their bases by invading troops.  I can't think of a single legitimate referendum that took place while opposition journalists, priests and politicians were being disappeared by foreign agents and pro-referendum "local defense forces."  I can't think of a single legitimate referendum that took place when all national TV stations had been blocked, and several anti-referendum journalists and news organizations were shut down, and replaced with absolutely pro-referendum news and foreign TV channels.  I can't think of a single legitimate popular referendum that was meant only to "confirm" the foregone decision of a parliamentary assembly.  I can't think of a single legitimate referendum that was held so quickly, without any public debate.  All this tells me the Crimean referendum was not legitimate. Moreover, it was contrary to the Ukrainian constitution, if that still matters.  

And by the way, if we Americans take Putin's argument as gospel, then tomorrow Texas could unilaterally secede from the United States and there would be nothing Obama could do about it.  I suppose this right could extend to any U.S. city as well, since the "absolute" right of people to self-determination should not be limited to sub-national/regional entities.  

UPDATE 3 (17.03.2014): Russian President Vladimir Putin already signed a decree recognizing the results of the Crimean and Sevastopol referendums to join the Russian Federation.  

Відео УП: голосування на вулиці

March 16, 2014 | YouTube

URL: http://youtu.be/aItK0MQLvC4

Poll: Half of GOP believes ACORN stole '12 elections

So... we already knew that dead people all vote Democrat; now we learn that 48 percent of Republicans believe that a dead umbrella organization is helping them to do it.  Oy vey!

I wonder what Zombie Reagan and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, have to say about all this undead political activity?

Republican Voters Pretty Sure 2012 Election Was Stolen By Non-Existent Organization

By Jason Linkins

December 4, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/SvNsw7

Democracy denied: 4th phase in U.S. voting rights history

History will not look kindly on what we're doing to restrict and suppress voting in America today.  

The argument on its face that we are justified in spending so much effort to make voting harder and more inconvenient in order to prevent fraud is absurd, considering it's a crime that doesn't exist.  It's a hyper-partisan attack aimed at the heart of our democracy: one man, one vote.

Incidentally, today I'm in another country with its own national elections.  It's a Sunday and polling stations are open from early morning till late evening.  Administrative judges are required to work all day to resolve, immediately, any questions about voters' registration.  Meanwhile, the United States routinely criticizes other countries' elections for not being free and fair.  Matthew 7:3-5 comes to mind.

Democracy denied: Millions of Americans blocked from voting

Voter suppression efforts today echo 19th century efforts to block urban immigrant working class from casting vote.

By Paul Rosenberg

October 28, 2012 | Al Jazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/20121022125746737657.html

Cincy ads scare, confuse black voters over a crime that doesn't exist

Yep, Cincinnati's showing once again it's the most conservative big city in America...and perhaps the most racist.

In Ohio, Signs of Voter Suppression Go Up -- And Come Down
By P.G. Sittenfeld
October 24, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/QGfbcA

Invisible voters v. imaginary fraud

Wrote Columbia law professor Nathaniel Persily about new state voter ID laws:

The greatest irony of the new crop of voter ID laws is that they do nothing to combat the more frequent problem of absentee ballot fraud.

In fact, they might even make such fraud more likely because the number of absentee voters might increase, given that absentee voters do not need to have a photo ID in order to vote. Worse still, absentee votes are much more likely to be otherwise disqualified because of errors committed by either the voter or the vote counter. They present the perfect storm of fraud and mistakes that conjures up images of the cockeyed Florida vote counters in the 2000 election.  [...]

This will all be done in the name of preventing voter fraud. Yet if these laws lead unwittingly to an increase in the number of voters casting absentee votes out of public view, then they will not even have addressed the fraud they intend to solve. Indeed, they might even make it worse.

Voter ID cases: Invisible voter v. imaginary fraud

By Nathaniel Persily

August 31, 2012 | CNN

URL: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/31/opinion/persily-voter-id-laws/index.html?hpt=hp_bn4

Dems want alien abductions, Bigfoot attacks and voter fraud to continue

Bigfoot says: "We're off to the polls to steal your vote!"

Here's what you really need to know:

The numbers [of blocked state ballots in 2008] suggest that the legitimate votes rejected by the laws are far more numerous than are the cases of fraud that advocates of the rules say they are trying to prevent.  Thousands more votes could be in jeopardy for this November, when more states with larger populations are looking to have similar rules in place.

"But without photo ID law, anybody could walk into a polling station, give them my name, and steal my vote!" I've heard Republicans protest.  

Well, maybe.  But the moment it was discovered that ballot would be thrown out, thus defeating the purpose of attempting such fraud.  (If this hypothetical vote thief voted before you, then his fraud would be discovered when you went to vote.  If he tried to vote after you, his fraud would be detected by the polling official before he could even vote.)  

The success of such an attempt is absurd enough, but imagine -- as many conservative conspiracy-theorists do -- of an orchestrated attempt (by dastardly Democrats, no doubt) to do that on a large scale.  If dozens or hundreds of those ballots were determined to be fraudulent, that would not only cancel their validity, but also set off alarm bells and criminal investigations.  Don't forget, voter fraud in a federal election carries a $10,000 fine and five years in jail, plus state penalties.  Indeed:

Election administrators and academics who monitor the issue said in-person fraud is rare because someone would have to impersonate a registered voter and risk arrest.  A 2008 Supreme Court case drew detailed briefs from the federal government, 10 states and other groups that identified only nine potential impersonation cases over the span of several years, according to a tally by the Brennan Center at New York University.

So, there are zero cases large-scale voting fraud in the U.S.  None.  Zilch.  Nobody can find any, even though Republicans have certainly tried.  Statistically, people are more often struck by lightning.  What all these voter ID laws are really about -- even if you give Republicans the benefit of the doubt -- is preventing a terrible but almost impossible what-if scenario.  Now, weigh that hypothetical what-if against the thousands of documented, proven cases of legitimate ballots being blocked because of new state photo ID laws, when voters weren't aware of the change.  

Which violation is more harmful to our democracy?  Exactly.  And indeed, remembering our hypothetical identity thief, the best defense against such attempts is... having more people vote.  Because the only chance this ploy would work is if the identity thief was fairly certain you weren't going to vote.  Thus, we should encourage voting and make it as easy as possible!

However, I don't give Republicans the benefit of the doubt.  I don't trust them, at least politicians smart enough to know the truth.  This is really about suppressing the votes of the very young, the very old, and minorities -- all groups that tend to vote Democrat.  It's a cynical political attack aimed at the heart of our democracy: the right to vote.  

Indeed, elections are like the holiest sacrament of our democracy... and Republicans want to post a bouncer at the church door.

Many voters may be deterred by tough ID laws

By Mike Baker

July 8, 2012 | AP

URL: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/07/08/2252266/tough-id-laws-could-block-thousands.html#storylink=cpy

No bank + no photo ID = 2nd class U.S. citizen

It may be news to you that at least 17 million U.S. adults have no bank account, and 43 million adults are considered "underbanked."  Taken together, that's about 26 percent of all U.S. households!  These are disproportionately located in the South, of course.

(Similarly, it is probably news to most people that at 25 percent of all blacks and 18 percent of all senior citizens have no picture ID -- because they have never needed one.  And to get an ID, you need an ID, a nice Catch-22.  But since 2008, 15 Republican states have started requiring photo ID to vote, thereby creating a need; meanwhile, there has not been any corresponding government outreach to help poor folks get state photo IDs.  It's all about suppressing Democratic votes.  But I digress.)

As for the un- and under-banked, financial institutions -- including banks bailed out by U.S. taxpayers -- are more than happy to smack them with usurious interest rates, outrageous fees and hidden penalties.  If it were up to me -- and up to them, if Congress would let them do it -- the U.S. Postal Service would be the low-cost bank for all comers.  Japan Post bank, for example, holds 25 percent of that country's household assets!

So by all means, let me join in piling on Magic Johnson (figuratively, definitely not literally) for his apparent blacksploitation.  Indeed, according to the FDIC, 54 percent of black households are either unbanked or underbanked.  But to be fair, Magic isn't alone: recently U.S. banks "have turned to an array of celebrities, including reality TV star family the Kardashians, rap mogul Russell Simmons and personal finance guru Suze Orman" to hawk these awful financial products, which are disproportionately purchased by minority groups.

So Magic, my man, please have more integrity than the Kardashians (who evidently enjoy screwing black people) and stick to more wholesome products for the black community... like Coors beer.  And tell your people to open a damn checking account and stay away from the payday lenders, rent-to-own stores, and money order windows!  Knowledge is power; ignorance is slavery.

Shame on you, Magic Johnson

By Dion Rabouin

July 11, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dion-rabouin/magic-johnson-prepaid-debit-card_b_1663671.html

ID law proponent convicted of voter fraud -- HA!

Well, well, well. Republican and Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White was convicted by a jury of his peers for voter fraud.

"The irony is that White has been an outspoken defender of controversial voter identification laws, which are purportedly aimed at stamping out the kind of fraud he was found guilty of committing." Yep, irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

His conviction is also ironic because voter fraud in America is so exceedingly rare. Even after five years of investigating, George W. Bush's Justice Department "turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections." Yet many Republicans take it as an article of faith that voter fraud -- almost exclusively by Democrats -- is so rampant that it costs (Republicans) elections.

I classify this article of faith in the same category as "welfare queens:" they want to believe that legions of evil poor people, mainly blacks, are subverting our democracy to grow the welfare state. A big part of their political platform depends on this false belief.

(On a darker note, I hope Mr. White's conviction does not signal a trend, as with vocally homophobic Republican politicians who get caught in public restrooms stuffing gay men, where the most pro-ID, anti-voter-fraud Republican is the one most likely stuffing ballot boxes.)

Indiana's Top Election Official Convicted of Voter Fraud

By Corey Dade

February 6, 2012 | NPR

URL: http://n.pr/Aril6m

Koch-Tea Party group's dirty election tricks in WI

This reader's comment on this story says it all:

"Voter fraud is rare, has little ability to affect election results, and when it's caught, it's punished severely. Voter suppression happens all the time, has the potential to change election results, is rarely caught and lightly punished. Clearly, the only logical thing to do is force through ever-stricter Voter ID laws [like Republicans want to do] while turning a blind eye to outright vote suppression attempts."

AFP Wisconsin ballots have late return date

By David Catanese

August 1, 2011 | Politico

URL: http://www.politico.com/blogs/davidcatanese/0811/AFP_Wisconsin_ballots_have_late_return_date.html?showall

Pre-Tea Party dead conservatives decide to donate

The estate tax ('death tax') is even more necessary than I thought: somehow Republicans are managing to donate money from beyond the grave. I guess they're upset they died before the whole Tea Party craze took off and don't want to be left out. That means we have to take all their money away before they die and then make sure they don't somehow take it back, or at least qualify for a major credit card.

I've heard myths of dead Democrats managing to vote, but really, the act of getting online and paying with a credit card from the great beyond is really a bigger feat than trudging to a polling station. (Lots of polling stations are in churches, churches are near graveyards... you get the picture).

I would chalk this phenomenon up to zombie conservatives rising from their graves, but apparently this woman was cremated so we're talking about a ghost here.

Ghostbusters 3 has long been in the works and it will come out not a moment too soon!....

Alternatively, this just goes to show what we already know: Tea Partiers are old. So old, in fact, they're dead.

Dead Woman Donated Thousands To Tea Party Express: OpenSecrets

By Arthur Delaney

January 14, 2011 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/14/tea-party-dead-donor-joan-holmes_n_809165.html