After the 2018 Blue Wave, Republicans Are Making It Harder to Vote

[prettylight 2619]

 

[Farmer Vincent 10575]

John Roberts Just Finished the Job of Turning American Democracy Into a Charade of Self-Government

"The Republican Party carried out a two-pronged plan in the 2010 election cycle, first working to sweep state-level races and obtain GOP control of statehouses across the country. In many states — most notably North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin — they then drew maps that some lawmakers admitted were intended to create uncompetitive districts and lock in control for their party."

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a28212049/supreme-court-gerrymandering-john-roberts/

[prettylight 2619]

Kagan, dissenting for 4 Justices, in yesterday’s gutting of partisan gerrymander challenges. "the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people."

https://twitter.com/neal_katyal/status/1144247039393292288

 

[prettylight 2619]

"Extreme gerrymandering, naked voter suppression and stripping power from offices the other party manages to win all the same — these practices seem if anything more prevalent here than in the failing democracies of Eastern Europe."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/opinion/socialism-2020.html

 

[prettylight 2619]

 

[grieker 3739]

5 hours ago, prettylight said:

 

Where's the bill?  What's it say?  C'm on

[prettylight 2619]

15 hours ago, grieker said:

Where's the bill?  What's it say?  C'm on

courtesy of Grieker--so it doesn't get buried in the fast-moving news and politics forum:

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by prettylight

[grieker 3739]

Meanwhile progressives are pushing for illegal (criminal) aliens to vote.

Texas' top elections officer: 95,000 non-citizens found on state's voter rolls

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas officials are contacting county election authorities statewide to determine whether people who are not U.S. citizens are registering and illegally voting.

The announcement was decried by voting rights advocate as a thinly veiled effort to purge the registration rolls and to discourage participation at the ballot box.

Texas Secretary of State Whitley, the state's top elections official, said his office has been working with the Texas Department of Public Safety seeking to determine whether non-citizens are participating in Texas elections. He was appointed in December by Gov. Greg Abbott.

"Through this evaluation, the Texas Secretary of State's office discovered that a total of approximately 95,000 individuals identified by DPS as non-U.S. citizens have a matching voter registration record in Texas, approximately 58,000 of whom have voted in one or more Texas elections," Whitley said in a Friday news release.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/01/25/texas-election-official-95-000-non-citizens-found-voter-rolls/2683399002/?fbclid=IwAR3LMvBl7clHjta5-aqSppL6VtmjFT3-XggyE8K9JJ8T-4AQWBo4F1BnJnQ

 

[GeezUS 1176]

38 minutes ago, grieker said:

Texas' top elections officer: 95,000 non-citizens found on state's voter rolls

Last month the secretary of state’s office said it was investigating the legal status of 95,000 registered voters who had provided work visas or green cards as documents when they obtained a driver’s licence or ID, which may suggest they were not citizens.

Of these, according to the Texas Tribune, the secretary of state’s office said about 58,000 individuals cast a ballot in one or more elections since 1996. Officials said the names identified are “WEAK” matches that counties may choose to investigate or not.

Those figures have proven to be invalid, as outlets including the Texas Tribune found that tens of thousands of those counted were US citizens.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/texas-secretary-of-state-retracts-figures-on-illegal-voters-2019-2

[Pastor of Muppets 5762]

39 minutes ago, grieker said:

Meanwhile progressives are pushing for illegal (criminal) aliens to vote.

Texas' top elections officer: 95,000 non-citizens found on state's voter rolls

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas officials are contacting county election authorities statewide to determine whether people who are not U.S. citizens are registering and illegally voting.

The announcement was decried by voting rights advocate as a thinly veiled effort to purge the registration rolls and to discourage participation at the ballot box.

Texas Secretary of State Whitley, the state's top elections official, said his office has been working with the Texas Department of Public Safety seeking to determine whether non-citizens are participating in Texas elections. He was appointed in December by Gov. Greg Abbott.

"Through this evaluation, the Texas Secretary of State's office discovered that a total of approximately 95,000 individuals identified by DPS as non-U.S. citizens have a matching voter registration record in Texas, approximately 58,000 of whom have voted in one or more Texas elections," Whitley said in a Friday news release.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/01/25/texas-election-official-95-000-non-citizens-found-voter-rolls/2683399002/?fbclid=IwAR3LMvBl7clHjta5-aqSppL6VtmjFT3-XggyE8K9JJ8T-4AQWBo4F1BnJnQ

 

spreading more disinformation again?

[grieker 3739]

6 minutes ago, Pastor of Muppets said:

spreading more disinformation again?

Thank you for clearing that up.  So just what is the threshold?

[Pastor of Muppets 5762]

1 hour ago, grieker said:

Thank you for clearing that up.  So just what is the threshold?

I would say zero, pretty much the going rate. When election tampering has been found, it is usually the republicans throwing out (likely democrat) absentee ballots, or advertising the wrong election dates in minority districts, etc.

[grieker 3739]

16 hours ago, Pastor of Muppets said:

I would say zero, pretty much the going rate. When election tampering has been found, it is usually the republicans throwing out (likely democrat) absentee ballots, or advertising the wrong election dates in minority districts, etc.

Uh huh.  Progressives NEVER do that kind of shit, as is not evidenced anywhere.

[Pastor of Muppets 5762]

1 minute ago, grieker said:

Uh huh.  Progressives NEVER do that kind of shit, as is not evidenced anywhere.

That statement is more correct than not.

[prettylight 2619]

In some Republican controlled states, gerrymandering has made it all but impossible for Democrats to retake assemblies, even when they win a majority of the statewide vote. This chart sums it up: http://bit.ly/2JwFNyP 

[grieker 3739]

[prettylight 2619]

 

[prettylight 2619]

courtesy of FV:

North Carolina GOP Operative Faces New Felony Charges That Allege Ballot Fraud

"Prosecutors in North Carolina filed new felony charges against a Republican political operative accused of ballot tampering in a congressional election in 2018."

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30/746800630/north-carolina-gop-operative-faces-new-felony-charges-that-allege-ballot-fraud?utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR0CvGLMwifhb2oVi5TGNPrEw03iqj2rO841uGAp7fYj_tPPLcLV9LdEo-E

[grieker 3739]

9 hours ago, prettylight said:

courtesy of FV:

North Carolina GOP Operative Faces New Felony Charges That Allege Ballot Fraud

"Prosecutors in North Carolina filed new felony charges against a Republican political operative accused of ballot tampering in a congressional election in 2018."

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30/746800630/north-carolina-gop-operative-faces-new-felony-charges-that-allege-ballot-fraud?utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR0CvGLMwifhb2oVi5TGNPrEw03iqj2rO841uGAp7fYj_tPPLcLV9LdEo-E

Contagious , since it is happening elsewhere. 

[prettylight 2619]

courtesy of FV:

 

Alarm over voter purges as 17m Americans removed from rolls in two years

"While the rate of voter purges elsewhere has declined slowly, jurisdictions released from federal oversight by a watershed 2013 supreme court ruling had purge rates “significantly higher” than jurisdictions not previously subjected to oversight, the Brennan Center found in a previous report."

"The voting rights act barred jurisdictions with “evidence of actual voting discrimination” – for example registration tests and a voter rate at least 12% below the national average – from changing their voting procedures without “pre-clearance” from federal authorities.

In Shelby county, the supreme court declared that “nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically” and released the so-called section 5 jurisdictions from oversight. Chief justice John Roberts wrote that “the tests and devices that blocked ballot access have been forbidden nationwide for over 40 years”.

But the ruling was criticized for apparent blindness to contemporary voter suppression practices including strict voter identification laws, partisan gerrymandering, and aggressive voter purges."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/01/voter-purges-us-elections-brennan-center-report

[prettylight 2619]

Just now, Farmer Vincent said:

Court Upholds North Dakota Law Stripping Voting Rights From Native Americans

"The case is as much about local infrastructure and lack of regard for North Dakota’s indigenous population as it is about voter suppression and a state forcing voters to comply with a requirement that the state itself has made impossible to follow."

"[M]ost tribal IDs do not have a residential address printed on them. This is due, in part, to the fact that the U.S. postal service does not provide residential delivery in these rural Indian communities. Thus, most tribal members use a PO Box. If a tribal ID has an address, it is typically the PO Box address, which does not satisfy North Dakota’s restrictive voter ID law. In both the primary and general election in 2014, many qualified North Dakota tribal electors were disenfranchised because they only had a tribal ID."

https://truthout.org/articles/court-upholds-north-dakota-law-stripping-voting-rights-from-native-americans/

 

[prettylight 2619]

 

[Farmer Vincent 10575]

Why Conservatives Hate Democracy

From the 1930s to today, the modern conservative movement has tried to restrict majority rule at every turn — because they know a mass democratic movement poses an existential threat to their power.

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/conservatives-democracy-supreme-court-us-census-immigration

[prettylight 2619]

 

[prettylight 2619]

 

[Pastor of Muppets 5762]

@EllenLWeintraub's days are numbered at the FEC.

[prettylight 2619]

^

because Trump will try to get rid of her?

 

--

 

[prettylight 2619]

courtesy of FV:

 

The Federal Election Commission Is About to Partially Shut Down
As of September, the government’s election watchdog won’t be watching.

"For years, the Federal Election Commission has been barely functional. But at the end of this month—as the 2020 campaign heats up and unprecedented amounts of money flow to candidates for national office—much of the agency’s work will shut down entirely. There will be no new fundraising rules, no punishments for rule-breakers, no decisions about the outcomes of investigations, no advisory opinions issued to candidates who want to know if a specific campaign finance practice is illegal."

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/the-federal-election-commission-is-about-to-partially-shut-down/

[prettylight 2619]

North Carolina court steps up to defend democracy

For the second time in three years, a court has found that North Carolina's Republican-controlled legislature engaged in unlawful discrimination in its voting laws. Two years ago, a federal appeals court wrote that the state's strict voter ID law "target(ed) African Americans with almost surgical precision." A North Carolina state court just reiterated that phrase, holding that the state legislature drew district maps that were an unlawful partisan gerrymander under the state constitution when it crafted district lines "with surgical precision" to keep Republicans in power.

 

For the second time in three years, a court has found that North Carolina's Republican-controlled legislature engaged in unlawful discrimination in its voting laws. Two years ago, a federal appeals court wrote that the state's strict voter ID law "target(ed) African Americans with almost surgical precision." A North Carolina state court just reiterated that phrase, holding that the state legislature drew district maps that were an unlawful partisan gerrymander under the state constitution when it crafted district lines "with surgical precision" to keep Republicans in power.

 

This latest ruling is especially striking in light of a US Supreme Court decision in June that closed the federal courthouse doors to claims of partisan gerrymandering. In that decision, the high court said that cases challenging unfair district maps were too political for judicial resolution under the United States Constitution. But Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the 5-4 majority, noted that state courts could potentially fill the void. "Provisions in state statutes and state constitutions can provide standards and guidance for state courts to apply," he wrote.

A unanimous three-judge North Carolina state trial court, comprised of two Democrats and one Republican, did exactly that, invoking the state constitution's protection for "free" elections to strike down a map that kept Republicans in control of the state legislature even after they fell out of favor with the majority of the state's voters.

 

"It is not the will of the people that is fairly ascertained through extreme partisan gerrymandering," the court wrote. "Rather, it is the will of the map drawers that prevails."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/04/opinions/north-carolina-gerrymandering-ruling-defends-democracy-douglas/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+(RSS%3A+CNN+-+Top+Stories)

[prettylight 2619]

Report: More than 1600 Polling Places Have Closed Since the Supreme Court Gutted the Voting Rights Act

Most of them are in minority communities.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/09/report-more-than-1600-polling-places-have-closed-since-the-supreme-court-gutted-the-voting-rights-act/