I think it’s clear that these incidents of voter intimidation which have been reported in New Jersey, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Maryland are the work of a single misguided pollworker and not indicative of any larger problem.
At a time when the Republicans control the White House, both houses of Congress, and roughly half (perhaps even a majority, I’d have to look it up) of the governorships and state legislatures, why are you characterizing the Democrats as “the party in power”?
Seems to me if the “party in power” is to come under special scrutiny for fear of the possibility it will abuse its momentary advantage to perpetuate itself in power, that burden falls on the Pubs, not the Dems – both because of the current political situation, and because of the Pubs’ shameful and egregious recent history in this area. Just to take one example, which party made the unprecedented decision to redistrict Texas twice in the same Census period?
Republicans are the party of voter intimidation not because they are especially more evil, but because voter intimidation is generally more effective on Democratic base wards than it is on Republican base wards. First of all, Democrats are far more concentrated geographically: you can target them better. Second of all, many of our major constituencies, like minorities, are easy to target because they are geographically segregated. Democrats would love to be able to fight back, but it’s just not as easy. You can’t flyer a rich suburb with “make sure you bring your itemized list of tax deductions with you to vote” and expect it to make much difference. You can’t target white men (the Republican base) without targeting white women (generally important to the Democrats). So it’s largely a waste of time. Given that turnout often benefits Democrats and hurts Republicans, it’s pretty common that Republican Secretaries of State make voter registration as difficult as possible. But again, this is more historical opportunity: fighting to keep people to vote just HAPPENS to benefit Republicans right now. If it helped Democrats, I expect the roles would reverse. It’s still pretty screwed up though. While I can’t deny that I would love to give Republicans a taste of their own medicine just for once, I don’t think even I could stomach stealing peoples lawn signs and then leaving threatening notes, which is so par for the course that it barely merits mention anymore in most swing states.
National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (AKA Motor Voter Law)
Pub. L. 103-31, May 20, 1993, 107 Stat. 77
White House Clinton (D)
Senate Democrat
House Democrat
And clearly, those who were in power in 1993 are the ones who are currently abrogating their responsibility to adequately investigate allegations of voter fraud.
Bring on the vigilantes!
They were the ones who created the dysfunctional voter registration system that is the law of the land today.
46,000 NYC residents are registered to vote in New York AND Florida. 68% of them are Democrats.
Massive and blatant voter fraud, in New Orleans for example, is never prosecuted.
The dead, illegal aliens, non-citizens, and felons, show their support for Motor Voter by voting early and often.
Any Republican who supports reform or enforcement of the law is immediately attacked by the Democrats and their allies.
I thought you were complaining about “loose or nonexistent enforcement of the voting laws”. Motor-voter registration is part of the voting laws. And where’s you’re cite for the assertion that the “dead, illegal aliens, non-citizens, and felons” are casting votes in significant numbers? (Bear in mind, also, that in some states felons do have the right to vote.) Also where’s your cite for your (implied) assertion that motor-voter registration is what makes that possible?
And where’s your demonstration of the relationship between poor enforcement of voting laws and vigilante tactics of intimidation of people based upon their ethnic, income, and residential status? Where’s your proof that these are the people who are engaging in voter fraud (indeed, your citation of New York-Florida voters seems to indicate that it’s affluent white voters who are the fraudsters) and where’s your evidence that these tactics are reasonably calculated to remedy the actual violations rather than just scare supporters of the opposing party into not voting?
I’ll have to say, I find your deep “concern” about voter fraud extremely disingenuous.
Registered in both places or vote in both places? Being registered in multiple places doesn’t mean you got to vote twice. And if you DO vote twice, it would be easy to show: who votes where is public record. So do you have any evidence that this registration actually translates into unfair voting in most or many or even some of these 46,000 cases?
Update: From The Nation website, “The Daily Outrage” column, September 23, 2004 – http://www.thenation.com/blogs/outrage?bid=13&pid=1844:
:mad: :mad: :mad:
Any Michigandopers know anything about this?
That story doesn’t actually say that Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is a Republican.
But he is – I checked. Politics1 - Ohio Elections, Candidates & Politics
Sorry, forgot to mention that.
And for those who don’t want to read the link, let me sum up:
Ohio voter law requires voter registration cards be printed on thick, 80-lb stock paper.
If Board of Election officials of the various Ohio counties get registration cards on paper thinner than that, they have to mail a new card out to the voter. If that new card is returned before October 4–one week from today–and the BOE can clear the backlog that they are already dealing with, the voter is registered.
The whole point of the stock paper requirement was so that the cards wouldn’t jam machines in the post office. <b>But BOE officials are having to void registration cards that they’ve already received through the mail, on the basis that they’d be too dangerous to go through the mail.</b>
For shits and giggles, here’s a section of the 1971 Voting rights act, abridged:
**(2)No person acting under color of law shall -
(B)deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election. **
(Read the whole thing here.)
I’m pretty much at the “I’d laugh if I only didn’t feel like crying” stage for my country.
FYI, there’s a related GD thread going – “Right-wingers trying to block college-student voter-registration drives” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5302769#post5302769
This is a look back at a USA Today article from a couple of years ago that addressed Republican claims of double voting:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/2002-10-23-voterfraud_x.htm
<snip>
<snip>
In North Carolina, officials found that the first name on the double-voting list was that of state Rep. Martha Alexander, a Democrat who chairs the General Assembly’s panel on election laws. “It’s got to be two people with the same name and birth date,” said Gary Bartlett, director of the state Board of Elections.
[/quote]
It’s not that the Democrats are fighting reform where its needed. There just doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem as Republicans would have others think. When election officials can come up with accurate lists of names, something should be done.
If you ask me, it looked like a Tu Quoque. Tu Quoque is a fallacy in which one attempts to defend oneself or another from criticism by turning the critique back against the accuser. Whether the accuser is guilty of the same, or a similar, wrong is irrelevant to the truth of the original charge.
It’s good that you at least recognize your arguments as fallacious.
For what it’s worth I agree with Bricker that ballot eligibility laws are often biased for or against potential candidates (and I live in New York - one of the worst abusers of these laws). But in my opinion it’s like the laws barring felons from voting. Is it intended to influence an election? Yes. Is it on questionable moral grounds? Probably. But is it a violation of the law? No, and that’s a big gap in the analogy.
A little. An interesting and informative article on this is here in the Oakland Press. I chose this particular article because it seems to cover the facts fairly well, as well as put forward some interesting right-leaning spin, as you might be able to tell from the article.
Anyway, the hot-button issue here is that “Detroit” has become, or is interpreted as, a code word for “Black,” so the immediate reaction to Pappageorge’s comment was to interpret “suppress the Detroit vote” as “disenfranchise Blacks.” Pappageorge denies that his remark had racial connotations, and I believe him, because that interpretation makes less sense than simply “suppress the Democratic vote.”
However, what I found interesting was that in the rush to explain his remark, Pappageorge essentially admitted that his aim was to get fewer people to vote – albeit through legal means. [url=http://www.freep.com/news/latestnews/pm20777_20040721.htm]His explanation:
Interesting.
So what? If you care about the democratic process at all, it is illegitimate and reprehensible to try to suppress or even discourage any legally eligible voter or group of voters from voting, regardless of motivation or means. I see nothing to choose between “suppress the black vote” and “suppress the Democratic [or Republican] vote.” And I see little to choose between using lawful and unlawful means to achieve that end.
I agree. Which was why I found it interesting that, while denying that his remark was racist (and it wasn’t, IMO), Pappageorge doesn’t seem to think that encouraging voter non-participation is unethical. Nor, apparently, does the Michigan Republican Party as a whole, although I admit that I could have missed thier rejection of Pappageorge 's statement.