“Efforts to tighten voter requirements have become a major issue in the presidential election. Over the last few years, many states have passed voter identification laws, and many of those are being challenged in court,” The New York Times writes.
“Now, a network of conservative groups is waging an aggressive campaign on the ground. In a report this month, the liberal-leaning organizations Common Cause and Demos cited True the Vote as the central player in this effort, which it called a threat to the fundamental right to vote.
“It is not about party or politics; it is about principle,” Ms. (Catherine) Engelbrecht said.
“While she portrays True the Vote as nonpartisan, it grew out of a Tea Party group, King Street Patriots, that she founded in Texas. An examination shows that it has worked closely with a variety of well-financed organizations, many unabashed in their desire to defeat President Obama.”
“In the past year, Americans for Prosperity, an organization founded by the billionaire Koch brothers, and other Republican-leaning independent groups have sponsored meetings featuring Ms. Engelbrecht and other True the Vote speakers.
The rest of the article is here.
Exit question: Will this happen in our towns? Remember “Reports of Poll Worker and Voter Intimidation by McClintock Campaign Staffers in Truckee.”
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Wouldn’t it be a fine thing to see the community, all dressed out in purple, come together to pull the curtain back to expose the real ilk behind the curtain if the BS is even thought about messing with our local, county or State elections. Great to see them slilther back down that dark, dank hole in which such deceit is birthed. I am all in, even a hospital bed with oxygen tanks, if that was what it called for.
I don’t know how many studies and research needs to be done before enough people understand this is a phantom problem so there can be a voter suppression solution.
Here is one of the studies.
http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/
Yup, and I want to see if it happens in our community.
Just the title suggests a dedication to voter intimidation.
A friend of mine was living on the Rosebud Rez in 2004 and saw first hand how Republicans “trued the vote” so that Tom Dashle lost re-election.
I caught a quick report about how in Ohio True the Vote was being allowed to challenge the eligibility of 800,000 voters. How did the group get the authorization to do that? Were they given the authorization to do that? Anyone else hear anything?
I can maybe agree to voter ID requirements. IF more than adaquate time were provided and state effort was made to assist citizens in acquiring the demanded documents. what I mean by that is the law wouldn’t go into effect until 2020 and that the State would provide adaquate public service announcements. Current demanding and short implimentation efforts are not in good faith. They are a deliberate attempt to purge or intimidate fellow citizens. That is unpatriotic and if they are given power we haven’t seen anything yet.
Wanda,
I have heard Philadelphia, PA purge is the most egregious. Across the nation somewhere in the area of 5 million votes could be suppressed, more than enough to steal an election.
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/09/13/as-pa-supreme-court-considers-voter-id-appeal-hundreds-rally-to-overturn-law/
Several elections Down Ballot, too.
Curtis,
Your right, we never really think about lower offices during a presidential year. I think the lower offices might be just as if not more important ones to watch.
Voter fraud (statistically insignificant) is an old, old GOP bogeyman invented to suppress votes, and it has been successful.
Here (in this 38-second video) Paul Weyrich, “founding father of the conservative movement,” explains why it is important from the GOP perspective to suppress votes:
And just to show beyond any doubt that today’s GOP legislators know full well why they are enacting voter ID laws, here (speaking in June 2012) is Mike Turzai, a GOP legislator in Pennsylvania.
He says “Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania … ” (23-second video):
Here’s our own Secretary of State Deborah Bowen discussing the issue:
I think the voter intimidation is likely to be more of an issue here. Based on what we know and the concerns we here expressed by VOTERS, we might benefit as a County to have a rather aggressive NO BS allowed at polling locations. My guess is Greg is on top of this and knows full well the history and potential for a big stink.
Yup. Stay tuned.
The best way to get voter suppression begun and finished in a big way would be to get a tea party member in the Voter Registars seat. That was why Greg had a tea party challenger this last time. We had a partisan Republican in that seat in recent memory. Party affiliation of this voter (me) was switched without my knowledge until I found out in the primary. She didn’t produce my 1990 voter registeration form. She produced my 1981 registeration form to argue that I was Republican.
Employees in her office stayed mum but I’ve since met folks who had the same experience.
The angry republicans in this county produced the worst supervisors race in my 33 years here, a republican property rights leader who hired a hit man to kill his neighbor, a republican candidate for supervisor who barged into my nieghbor’s home demanding she vote for him (terrorified her), and a community news paper that is anything but. With a terrorism record like that I’ve closed my ears to their arguments but not their malfesence and I’m never voting republican.
Wanda,
If I remember correctly that was one of Barry Pruett’s issues when he ran against Greg Diaz.
The hard right has been trying to get their hands on the “nonpartisan” clerk-recorder job since the days of Fran Freedle! I think it’s a strategy, not a coincidence. Watch and see what happens this election season with the voter fraud (ie, voter suppression) issue in our county.
Hey Wanda, great post…just for the record it was not Supervisor Drew Bedwell that tried to hire a hit man to kill his neighbor over a 6 inch (unstated irony) property line dispute; it was his fellow property rights activist, co-leader of his group, co-conspirator in the campaign to defeat NH 2020, and political confidant, Bill Weismann.
Wanda, I truly feel for your neighbor. He is lucky it wasn’t my house. A few screams of “RAPE” and a shotgun would have ended his political career.
It seems to me that it’s only voter fraud if the other side wins according to these people.
I wonder what Herb Caen would have made of this place?
The voter identification changes are an underhanded Republican effort to shift the vote to their favor. But, it also demonstrates a point that there is a greater need in the Democratic party for better voter education.
The only reasonable long term solution to this latter problem is to look at our educational system. Did you folks know that in our own back yard a large percentage of our young, like at Nevada Union High School for example, are not even aware there is an election going on? These people are easily manipulated by sound bites instead of making reasoned decisions.
Democracy requires not only the right to vote but the ability to vote intelligently. A battle over whether people can properly identify themselves in order to win an election is short sighted and misses this point.
Greg,
It makes me wonder why the republican party wants to privatize and defund public education so badly?
I don’t think there is a simple answer. My first impulse would be to view a weaker education system as a greater opportunity to manipulate the masses but that has already happened. Further cuts to education might break the back of bureaucratic control and set education free from bubble tests and put it back in control of the grass roots where it belongs. The blindness of the plutocratic agendas will be their undoing.
The hypocrisy on this issue of voter fraud is similar to that over the national debt and stimulus.
They express outrage over the effect that new stimulus would have on that debt and the burden that imposes on future generations of our children. (And don’t forget our children’s children. Oh the humanity.) There is no concern express, however, over the clear and present burden that that lack of stimulus has on the job market and the effect that has on our children CURRENTLY graduating from college into a nonexistent market, and encumbered with massive debt. Shameless hypocrisy.
Similarly, when confronted over the lack of evidence for significant voter fraud, they express outrage that there might be “even one fraudulent vote.” They express no concern, however, over the much greater numbers of those who will be denied the right to vote for lack of a photo ids. Shameless hypocrisy.
This is happening only where there is the power to make it happen. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts shamelessly.
It’s hard to imagine why someone would want to commit fraud in order to vote.
Right! It is much easier to imagine someone committing fraud to keep others from voting.
One vote doesn’t mean much, (usually). But, like money banks hold over night from many depositors, interest is earned. Not much per depositor, but when pooled together, perhaps millions.
If I recall correctly Dershowitz’s book on Bush/Gore in Fla., many thousands of votes were basically ‘stolen’, or fraudulently trashed, ,adding up, with help from SCOTUS, to make Fla. red. In collusion with officials in Texas who sent lists of one time incarcerated individuals from Tx to FLA. Then the Florida officials scratched these names from the voter rolls. Of course, the demographic of those eliminated from the voter rolls was overwhelmingly likely to vote Democratic. It is a long time since I read Dershowitz’s account of went went on, but I think I got the basics correct.