We are, but not when the cost is suppressing the votes of non-utility payers. I would rather have some votes cast in the wrong district than to eliminate the right to vote for people who can’t produce a utility bill, considering there are many legitimate reasons for that.
One of which would be homelessness due to foreclosure. Why be picky about whom we disenfranchise?
African Americans comprise only 6.3% of th population in Macomb County Michigan. That’s a lousy 52,470 people. And how many of those have been actually foreclosed upon? Hardly a sufficient number to have much effect on popular vote in a state of over 10 millions.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/26099.html
If what you’re suggesting is true, I’d think a county with a greater percentage of blacks would be the target. Like, say, Wayne County which is 41.8% black.
FTR, I’m not suggesting anything. The story BG linked to did that.
They’re floating it. If they get away with it in Macomb County, they go statewide.
Data here: http://www.foreclosurefreesearch.com/relay/search/MI/099
There are 1579 properties in Macomb County under foreclosure. Let’s assume all of those are residential properties (which of course, they ain’t). Using your 60% figure, we find that a probable maximum of foreclosures upon blacks is about 947 properties. We must then multiply that number by the average number of registered black voters per household. I’ll let you pick that number. But almost certainly we’re talking about no more than 1500 votes here.
I recall that when I registered to vote in Iowa (I’m now registered in Maryland), the form instructed homeless people to give approximate street directions or “describe where you live”. It’s probably the same in most other states.
Regardless, this is obviously a cynical attempt to suppress the votes of black and low-income voters. Personally, I think the whole voter registration system is too complicated and opens itself up to abuses like this. States should just require everyone to register once every 5 years (or some other appropriate interval), and if they move in the interim, the change is reflected in the next update.
My apologies.
Gonna be kinda difficult to that since we won’t know until election day if “they get away with it.” Unless, of course, you have other evidence you’re not sharing with us that a wider implementation of this scheme is underway.
So, a volunteer decides to demand that the voter registry be adhered to in the strict legal sense, to force people to vote in the proper district. Truly, we are evil incarnate.
If they’re giving interviews about it now before the election, then it’s astonishing how brazen about this they’ve become. Certainly there have been efforts to suppress voting before, but this push since about 2000 for the Republicans to challenge voters on election day in the name of preventing illegal voting is really a new low, and clearly one they’re not ashamed of. Several interviews indicate that voting officials don’t recall anything of this sort before the millenium. It’s insidious, and i wish the Democrats would stand up to it in a meaningful way, and even adopt it themselves if no other tactic seems to work. “checking voter lists” on or just before elections in the name of preventing voter fraud to too obviously a disenfranchisement tactic em,ployed to nominally prevent a nonexistent problem.
Area GOP now says the story was fabricated and they never had any plans to do this. Not so sure I believe that, but it seems it won’t be happening, which I think we all can agree is good.
There needs to be volunteers, like at Planned Parenthood, who walk people into their polling stations and help them know what their rights are if they’re questioned.
Cal, the Democrats would have a lot stronger leg to stand on, in this instance, if they hadn’t been just as cynically trying to weed out military ballots in FL after the 2000 election.
I don’t pretend that they’ve been as rampant as the Republicans have been, but the Democratic effort is the only one I know that was specifically tied to the national organization.
FTM, I still have a bad stink in my nose from the 2000 election where I got a voter registration notice, letting me know that all was in order with my registration; but when I got to the polling place, they had no record of me. I had to fill out a provisional ballot. It was particularly interesting, because that was a hugely contested election for the Senatorial race, and the only other registered Independent I know was also made to fill out a provisional ballot. Obviously not enough to provide proof of anything. But it still stinks.
IMNSHO, both parties are willing to disenfranchise anyone they can’t count on to vote for their candidates, any way they may.
Cynical or not, the Dems were merely pushing for enforcement of Florida’s election laws, not trying to pull a fast one.
But isn’t this also an attempt to ensure enforcement of the letter of the election laws? I agree it goes against the intent. And is pretty shitty. And deserves to be squashed.
ETA: You can’t call enforcement of the letter of the law kosher in one instance and then call it a fast one in the next based on who’s doing it.
And enforcing that people live in the district is also enforcing election laws. All is fair in politics, right?
Except that in this case they would be challenging people based on the evidence that doesn’t prove that they live out of the district.
not that it matters, since they’re not doing it at all.
Short of reinstituting a poll tax and taking away women’s right to vote, nothing will approach the egregious Republican antics in Florida of purging the voter rolls based on partial SSNs and names that sounded similar to those of criminals. The fuckers are criminals and traitors and will likely never change.
This is all pretty academic now since they say they aren’t doing it, but that appears to have been the debate here- whether they were going to challenge the votes of people about to lose their homes (and thus, addresses), or people who’d already lost their homes.
That’s how it is in California too. I help with running voter registration booths, and when I attended a training session to learn all about registering people to vote, this was addressed. If someone wishing to register is homeless, they have to give a description of where they usually hang out, for instance, “under the I-5 underpass on First Street.” We’re supposed to try and get a mailing address too, a relative’s house or something, in case an issue with their registration comes up and they need to be contacted. I guess, if they can’t provide a mailing address and a problem comes up with their registration, somebody would have to hike down to the overpass and find them. Or so I was told.