Masterful and Skilled Con Artist is Prepared
Use
Facts to Drown Out Oncoming Dirty Tricks
Today’s post is quite long but a timely topic: “The Right
to Vote”
Overall, at least 17 million
people have been removed from the voter rolls since the 2016 election, an
uptick from the number of voters who were removed between 2006 and 2008, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice. Although it’s not known how many of those removals
were legitimate, the increase comes even as the number of Americans who move
has dropped to historic lows (NY Times).
USSC watcher and advocate, Stuart Naifeh, an attorney
at Demos who was involved in a
high-profile voter purge case at the United States Supreme Court (Husted
Ohio case) says: “Folks who benefit from having fewer people
participate are constantly looking for new ways to suppress turnout. Voter
purges is one that seems to have become more popular.”
Husted case
in a nutshell: The
Supreme Court ruling (5-4) concluded that Ohio’s voter purge system did
not violate federal laws. The Court found that Ohio’s system uses a lack of voting as just one piece of
evidence, along with the lack of
response to the prepaid return card, to trigger a person’s removal from the
rolls. Since a person not voting is not
the sole basis for removal from the rolls, the Court said, it’s legal under
federal law.
Specifically the majority opinion
said: “The dissents have a policy
disagreement, not just with Ohio, but with Congress. But this case presents a
question of statutory interpretation, not a question of policy. We have no
authority to second-guess Congress or to decide whether Ohio’s Supplemental
Process is the ideal method for keeping its voting rolls up to date. The only
question before us is whether it violates federal law. It does not. Ohio’s
process cannot be unreasonable because it uses the change-of-residence evidence
that Congress said it could: the failure to send back a notice coupled with the
failure to vote for the requisite period. Ohio’s process is accordingly lawful.”
FYI: Purging voting rolls is
not new. Federal law has required it for more than two decades – but there is a
new awareness of how purges can remove eligible voters from the rolls and
target populations that move a lot, e.g., the young, the poor, people who live
in cities, and basically groups that tend to favor Democrats.
David Becker, the executive director of the Center for
Election Innovation & Research, who works with states cleaning their voter
rolls observes: “It’s only bad when it’s done poorly. When it captures people who are
still in the state or who are still eligible voters and shouldn’t be removed.”
Where we are today: In the final weeks of
December the big news was on Donald Trump’s impeachment, but another
development with potentially serious implications for the 2020 election – and
the future of American democracy – attracted less global attention.
That took place not in the
halls of Congress but hundreds of miles away, in Wisconsin. This was where a
conservative advocacy group convinced a circuit court judge to order the
state to remove more than 230,000 people removed from the state’s voter
rolls. Keep in mind that Wisconsin was already considered a crucial swing state
in 2020, and remember that Trump won that state by fewer than 23,000 votes in
2016. More than half of the voters at risk of being purged lived in areas that
favored Hillary Clinton over Trump then and that is according to an analysis by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
A week later, one of Trump’s
reelection advisers, Justin Clark, said in audio obtained by the Associated Press telling Wisconsin Republicans that the party has traditionally relied
on voter suppression, specifically saying: “Traditionally
it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places. Let’s start
protecting our voters. We know where they are. Let’s start playing offense a
little bit. That’s what you’re going to see in 2020. It’s going to be a much
bigger program, a much more aggressive program, a much better-funded program.”
There was now even less doubt
that the Republicans intended to rely on both encouraging, and discouraging, voters
as a key part of their 2020 election strategy. Wisconsin wasn’t the only state
where removing voters from the rolls en masse came under scrutiny. The same
week, in Georgia, the state voted to remove more than 300,000 people from
the rolls.
Some 120,000 of those people were removed because they hadn’t voted since
2012 and also failed to respond to multiple notices from the state asking them
to confirm their address. The removals drew national outcry in a state that has
been at the epicenter of accusations of voter suppression.
In 2017 the then secretary of
state, Brian Kemp, removed more 500,000 from voter rolls and a month before the
gubernatorial election in 2018 he held up registrations of 53,000 under the
state’s “exact match” law where a misplaced hyphen or comma in a voter
registration record could mean more obstacles for someone to vote.
Kemp
stood in that election and defeated Stacy Abrams by just 55,000 votes. Abrams
later called Kemp a “remarkable architect of voter suppression.”
One
point of view from the ACLU losing your right to vote: At the founding of our
nation, women, African Americans, those who were unable to read or write, poor
people, and individuals with felony convictions were excluded from the ballot
box.
Over the course of our nation’s history, the right to vote has expanded to
include African Americans and women; poll taxes and literacy tests are banned.
As a result of felony, some six million people are still unable to vote because
they are incarcerated, completing probation or parole, or are precluded from voting
for having a felony conviction in their past.
ACLU worked hard with many
in-state groups in FL to pass a ballot measure that amended the state
constitution and restored voting rights to 1.4 million people with a felony
conviction. The prior law, a Jim Crow-era relic intended to disenfranchise
Black people, meant that even after completing probation and parole, people
still weren’t restored as full member of our citizenry.
As we looked toward the 2020
presidential race to create a “Rights for All platform,” we wanted to push
candidates to create a country where the right to vote was permanent. Where no
citizen is deprived of the right to vote because of a conviction, whether or
not they are incarcerated.
Voting Should Be Easier Not Difficult: Is
Voting Mandatory in the United States? No
- in the U.S., no one is required by law to vote in any local, state, or
presidential election.
According to the U.S. Constitution, voting is a right
and a privilege.
While many constitutional amendments have been ratified since
the first election, none of them made voting mandatory for U.S. citizens.
Voter Accessibility Laws: Voter
accessibility laws ensure that people with disabilities or language barriers
are able to vote.
Who Can Vote in U.S. elections if you:
· Are a U.S. citizen
· Meet your state’s residency requirements
· Are 18 years old on or before Election Day - you can
register to vote before you turn 18 if you will be 18 by Election Day in some
states.
· Are registered to vote by your state’s voter
registration deadline. NOTE: ND has no voter registration.
Who CAN’T Vote:
·
Non-citizens,
including permanent legal residents
·
Some
people with felony convictions. Check with your state elections office about
the laws in your state.
·
People mentally
incapacitated. Rules vary by state.
· For President in the general election:
U.S. citizens residing in U.S. territories
Voter ID Laws:
About half of the states
with voter ID laws accept only photo IDs that include:
·
driver’s licenses
·
state-issued ID
cards
·
military ID
cards
· passports
Many of these states now
offer a free voter photo ID card if you don’t have another form of valid photo
ID.
Other states accept some
types of non-photo ID. These may include:
·
birth
certificates
·
Social Security
cards
·
bank
statements
· utility bills
Each
state is specific about the documents accepted as proof of
identification. Be sure you know your
state’s voter ID requirements before
Election Day.
Even if you don’t have a
form of ID that your state asks for, you may be able to vote. Some states
require you take extra measures after you vote to make sure that your vote
counts.
Some
states may ask you to sign a form affirming your identity. Other states will
let you cast a provisional ballot. States use provisional ballots when
there is a question about a voter's eligibility. States keep provisional
ballots separate until they decide whether they should count.
To
do so, they will investigate a voter’s eligibility. They may also compel you to
show an acceptable form of ID within a few days. If you don’t, your provisional
ballot won’t count.
Even with the right ID,
you may have to cast a provisional ballot. This can happen if the name or
address on your ID doesn’t match the name or address on your voter
registration. For instance:
·
You get married,
change your last name, and update your voter registration. But your driver’s
license, which you present as ID, still has your unmarried name on it.
·
You move and for
your voter ID, you present a current utility bill. Unfortunately, you've
forgotten to update your address on your voter registration beforehand. Some
states require that you notify your local registration office of any name change.
Avoid problems. Always
update your voter registration when you move or change your name. First time
voters who didn’t register in person or show ID before must show
identification. This is according to federal law.
GOP Bogus Arguments: Fraud, aliens voting, etc.
A 2012 investigation by the News21 journalism project looked at all kinds of voter
fraud nationwide, including voter impersonation, people voting twice, vote
buying, absentee fraud, and voter intimidation. It confirmed that voter
impersonation was extremely rare, with just 10 credible cases.
But the other
types of fraud weren’t common either: In total, the project uncovered 2,068
alleged election fraud cases from 2000 through part of 2012, covering a time
span when more than 620 million votes were cast in national general elections alone.
That represents about 0.000003 alleged cases of fraud for every vote cast, and
344 fraud cases per national general election, in each of which between 80
million and 135 million people voted.
The number of fraudulent votes was a drop
in the bucket. Not all — maybe not even half — of these alleged fraud cases
were credible, News21 found: “Of reported election-fraud allegations in the
database whose resolution could be determined, 46 percent resulted in
acquittals, dropped charges or decisions not to bring charges.”
A more recent investigation in NC by the State Board of
Elections similarly found just
one — out of nearly 4.8 million total votes in 2016 — credible case of
in-person voter fraud. That amounts to just 0.00002 percent of all votes.
Other
types of fraud were very rare as well: Although there were more than 500
ineligible votes, the State Board of Elections found that almost all of these
were due to people negligently voting when they genuinely thought they were
allowed to vote but legally weren’t. It was simply not the case that there were
a lot of people trying to rig the election.
The voter fraud myth has been used repeatedly to make
it harder to vote:
Ohio’s efforts are part of a
broader Republican agenda to make it more difficult to vote.
Trump has joined in these
efforts, setting up a commission to study voter fraud — a commission that was
mired by so much controversy and opposition from states that it subsequently
shut down without doing anything of significance.
But Trump and Husted, Ohio’s
secretary of state, are far from the only Republicans to take part in efforts to
restrict voting.
In 2008, many Republicans
and outlets like Fox News promoted fears that ACORN, a community
organization that focused in part on registering African-American voters, was
engaging in mass-scale election fraud.
At the time, GOP nominee John McCain
(R-AZ) warned that
ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in
voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”
(Again, there was zero evidence of this, and it did not happen.)
And the myth that undocumented
immigrants in particular are voting illegally has been promoted for years by
right-wing conspiracy websites like Infowars — citing a highly criticized 2014 report, even though one of its authors said it
didn’t find proof of widespread voter fraud.
Touting these kinds of
concerns, 23 states have enacted new voting restrictions — from strict photo ID requirements to new
limits on early voting — since the end of 2010, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
My 2 cents: Nice time to review all this because make no mistake about
it, Trump 2020, Inc. is full of tricks and will not accept him losing, popular
or EC vote … so stand by for perhaps the most-rigged and dirty election ever.
Then thank the GOP.
Thanks for stopping by.
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