Forum Post: Voter Suppression 101 ~ How Conservatives Are Conspiring to Disenfranchise Millions of Americans
Posted 12 years ago on April 4, 2012, 11:05 p.m. EST by JIFFYSQUID92
(-994)
from Portland, OR
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Voter Suppression 101 How Conservatives Are Conspiring to Disenfranchise Millions of Americans (If you can't win a fair election, CHEAT! That's how we got stuck with W and the Great Recession!! Making the Rich ever so Richer!!)
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/04/voter_suppression.html
By Scott Keyes, Ian Millhiser, Tobin Van Ostern, Abraham White | April 4, 2012
The [democratic] right to vote is under attack all across our country. Conservative legislators are introducing and passing legislation that creates new barriers for those registering to vote, shortens the early voting period, imposes new requirements for already-registered voters, and rigs the Electoral College in select states. Conservatives fabricate reasons to enact these laws--voter fraud is exceedingly rare--in their efforts to disenfranchise as many potential voters among certain groups, such as college students, low-income voters, and minorities, as possible. Rather than modernizing our democracy to ensure that all citizens have access to the ballot box, these laws hinder voting rights in a manner not seen since the era of Jim Crow laws enacted in the South to disenfranchise blacks after Reconstruction in the late 1800s.
Talk about turning back the clock! At its best, America has utilized the federal legislative process to augment voting rights. Constitutional amendments such as the 12th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 23rd, and 26th have steadily improved the system by which our elections take place while expanding the pool of Americans eligible to participate. Yet in 2011, more than 30 state legislatures considered legislation to make it harder for citizens to vote, with over a dozen of those states succeeding in passing these bills. Anti-voting legislation appears to be continuing unabated so far in 2012.
Unfortunately, the rapid spread of these proposals in states as different as Florida and Wisconsin is not occurring by accident. Instead, many of these laws are being drafted and spread through corporate-backed entities such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, as uncovered in a previous Center for American Progress investigative report. Detailed in that report, ALEC charges corporations such as Koch Industries Inc.(John Birch Society founders), Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and The Coca-Cola Co. a fee and gives them access to members of state legislatures. Under ALEC's auspices, legislators, corporate representatives, and ALEC officials work together to draft model legislation. As ALEC spokesperson Michael Bowman told NPR, this system is especially effective because "you have legislators who will ask questions much more freely at our meetings because they are not under the eyes of the press, the eyes of the voters."
The investigative report included for the first time a leaked copy of ALEC's model Voter ID legislation, which was approved by the ALEC board of directors in late 2009. This model legislation prohibited certain forms of identification, such as student IDs, and has been cited as the legislative model from groups ranging from Tea Party organizations to legislators proposing the actual legislation such as Wisconsin's Voter ID proposal from Republican state Rep. Stone and Republican state Sen. Joe Leibham.
Registering the poor "to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals."
-Conservative columnist Matthew Vadum (CONTINUED)
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/04/voter_suppression.html
Well, these crazy democracy and America -hating Republicons brought the fucking "John Birch Society" (Koch Bros) and the "war against Birth Control" back from the Right Wing trash heap of history, so nothing the crazy-Cons do should surprise us! Next, will the crazy-Cons resurrect McCarthy or declare America a Monarchy??? Who will they crown?? "Make a sex tape so we can all watch," Rush or the real [thug] punk who murdered Treyvon Martin in cold blood?? Anything is possible in the delusional world of these Republicons!!
Unite and Win! Unite and Win! 2010 Never EVER Again!!
Register and Vote! Register and Vote! "We the 1%" NOT What They Wrote!!
No More Keys for These Crazed GOPs!
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/04/voter_suppression.html
Great post. Very important issue to shed light on.
Spread the word.
When you consider that the only lessons the Cons learned from the Nixon Scandal was not to get caught or to change the rules, we must wonder just how many elections besides Bush and Cheney were stolen.
They have NO shame. They have NO morals.
The fact that we aren't paid and are just concerned American citizens totally blows their fascist Minds! (But, zombies aren't concerned, don't know from "citizens" and don't have minds.)
Unite and Win! Unite and Win! 2010 Never EVER Again!!
Register and Vote! Register and Vote! "We the 1%" NOT What They Wrote!!
These cultist neo-cons and teabaggers are making us the laughing stock of the world. I wonder if we will ever recover from the sheer shame of it?
Obama made a big difference and restored a lot of confidence abroad. But during those awful Raygun-Bush-Bush years I warned that the UN was established to handle just this kind of fascist roguery.
They understand, but if I was them, I'd keep my finger on the button. I know this ain't PC, but with this raging domestic terrorism, we need to join the civilized world and adopt Euro laws and practices for guns and RW hate-lie propaganda. The Cons blew it! The over-reach has gone wild! The Roberts Five need to go, recall!!
I heard a good factoid on Hartmann the other day, that the Nazis weren't fascist, they were a fucked up "religious cult." Hmmm, that makes sense. GOP ~ Satanists. An unquestioning cult whose Charlie Manson is a greed-addled segment of the 1%, willing to sacrifice the entire world for their master, seeking only the reward of glorious Armageddon. GOD, that's like lyrics to a Foreigner song gone RW-Jihad wrong! Worse, it's the GOP platform!!!!
Meanwhile, we have to get out the Vote!! 2010 Never EVER Again!!
Good post.
Good answer!
Hope we are all listening to Prog-Talk and share any pearls we have out there.
Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartmann, Norman Goldman, Malloy, Ring of Fire...!!!
Conservative = pro-aristocrat. The whole point of Conservatism is to prove to others that "we are better than you and we're going to put you in your place."
They're anti Civil Rights, anti Women's Rights & anti Voting Rights. Ultimately, they're anti-everything that isn't rich. These people think that they are better than us, so they are passing legislation to control us, marginalize us, and keep us from doing anything to stop them. They're insane.
We need to reach out to the people that are brainwashed by this drivel and get them to WAKE UP!
It's ("conservative") is a co-opted label, like Republicon, etc, for this movement which is really a cult (a twisted form of unquestioned religion with an agenda like the Nazzis were) and their Charlie Manson is a segment of the 1% that is just insane with greed. Cons are their political employees, the minions are the "Family," straight-up zombies and there's no "getting through" to them or "Waking them Up." We, citizens of America, The People, the 99%, have the numbers. But we can't pout like many of us did in 2010 which made this mess much MUCH worse as we saw states and Congress overtaken by these Cultist-Cons and left Obama to "try" and negotiate with alone.
It's RW Jihad, Hillbilly Taliban, suicide bombers, hate-fear-authority addled, praying for Armageddon, don't think, just obey and believe ZOMBIES!!
Unite and Win! Unite and Win! 2010 Never EVER Again!!
Register and Vote! Register and Vote! "We the 1%" NOT What They Wrote!!
If YOU Don't Vote, YOU Don't Count!!
Hi JIFFY, Good post. Best Regards
It's the only way the (R)epelican'ts can win.
They take after their masters, and just cheat.
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