The Republican Party's war on voting

[rdean]

On March 7, 1963, civil rights activists were brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during the infamous "Bloody Sunday" march, for advocating for the right to vote. This week, forty-seven years later, today's civil rights leaders retraced the march from Selma to Montgomery, protesting what NAACP President Ben Jealous calls "the greatest attack on voting rights since segregation."

Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons.

Within days, the crucial battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Virginia will become the latest GOP states to pass legislation erecting new barriers to voting. If, as expected, the new laws lead to fewer Democrats casting ballots in November, both states could favor Republicans, possibly shifting the balance of power in Congress and denying Barack Obama a second term.

Pennsylvania will be the ninth GOP state since 2010 to require a photo ID in order to vote; the state's law mandates a government-issued ID or one from a college or nursing home. According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, 11 percent of U.S. citizens lack a government-issued ID, but the numbers are significantly higher among young voters (18 percent), voters 65 or older (18 percent) and African-Americans (25 percent). Based on these figures, as many as 700,000 Pennsylvanians may not be able to vote in the next election. (Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele claims 99 percent of Pennsylvanians possess the proper ID, which seems unlikely given the state’s large student, elderly and African-American population).

GOP War on Voting Targets Swing States | Ari Berman | Politics News | Rolling Stone

As long as the law is applied equally, nobody is having war declared on them. If we're going to have a voter registration program at all, requiring a photo ID--as long as it is free of charge--is no infringement on anybody's rights to cast a ballot. What good is it to have registration if we're not going to require the registrant to prove who they are?

I say we should follow the constitution and trust in the founders.

 

[rdean]

There is all kinds of "voter fraud".

Misleading voters and stuffing the ballot box are what Republicans do best.

Showing up at a precinct and pretending to be someone who is registered there, knowing they are registered there, knowing they won't be there and voting in their place AND not getting caught seems awful risky for a single vote and a possible 5 year prison term.

Yet, this is the stuptified thinking of the right wing. They catch on to a single phrase and run with it. It's why they don't understand the joke, "My favorite color is shine".

If you were trying to make any sort of point there; you've failed miserably.

I made the point. You simply didn't understand it.

 

[The T]

On March 7, 1963, civil rights activists were brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during the infamous "Bloody Sunday" march, for advocating for the right to vote. This week, forty-seven years later, today's civil rights leaders retraced the march from Selma to Montgomery, protesting what NAACP President Ben Jealous calls "the greatest attack on voting rights since segregation."

Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons.

Within days, the crucial battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Virginia will become the latest GOP states to pass legislation erecting new barriers to voting. If, as expected, the new laws lead to fewer Democrats casting ballots in November, both states could favor Republicans, possibly shifting the balance of power in Congress and denying Barack Obama a second term.

Pennsylvania will be the ninth GOP state since 2010 to require a photo ID in order to vote; the state's law mandates a government-issued ID or one from a college or nursing home. According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, 11 percent of U.S. citizens lack a government-issued ID, but the numbers are significantly higher among young voters (18 percent), voters 65 or older (18 percent) and African-Americans (25 percent). Based on these figures, as many as 700,000 Pennsylvanians may not be able to vote in the next election. (Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele claims 99 percent of Pennsylvanians possess the proper ID, which seems unlikely given the state’s large student, elderly and African-American population).

GOP War on Voting Targets Swing States | Ari Berman | Politics News | Rolling Stone

As long as the law is applied equally, nobody is having war declared on them. If we're going to have a voter registration program at all, requiring a photo ID--as long as it is free of charge--is no infringement on anybody's rights to cast a ballot. What good is it to have registration if we're not going to require the registrant to prove who they are?

I say we should follow the constitution and trust in the founders.

 

[alan1]

I say we should follow the constitution and trust in the founders.

So, does that mean you think blacks and women shouldn't be allowed to vote?

 

[The T]

On March 7, 1963, civil rights activists were brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during the infamous "Bloody Sunday" march, for advocating for the right to vote. This week, forty-seven years later, today's civil rights leaders retraced the march from Selma to Montgomery, protesting what NAACP President Ben Jealous calls "the greatest attack on voting rights since segregation."

Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons.

Within days, the crucial battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Virginia will become the latest GOP states to pass legislation erecting new barriers to voting. If, as expected, the new laws lead to fewer Democrats casting ballots in November, both states could favor Republicans, possibly shifting the balance of power in Congress and denying Barack Obama a second term.

Pennsylvania will be the ninth GOP state since 2010 to require a photo ID in order to vote; the state's law mandates a government-issued ID or one from a college or nursing home. According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, 11 percent of U.S. citizens lack a government-issued ID, but the numbers are significantly higher among young voters (18 percent), voters 65 or older (18 percent) and African-Americans (25 percent). Based on these figures, as many as 700,000 Pennsylvanians may not be able to vote in the next election. (Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele claims 99 percent of Pennsylvanians possess the proper ID, which seems unlikely given the state’s large student, elderly and African-American population).

GOP War on Voting Targets Swing States | Ari Berman | Politics News | Rolling Stone

OMG I have to prove I'm authorized to vote. WAH



Only an idiot of colossal proportions thinks that is a bad idea.

Nah only those that think Illegals that wish to stay here and the DEAD voting from the grave...

 

[initforme]

Any founder who owned a slave has zero respect of mine.

 

[rdean]

I say we should follow the constitution and trust in the founders.

So, does that mean you think blacks and women shouldn't be allowed to vote?

The Constitution only uses the gender neutral "people" or "person" and never specifically mentions either sex, male or female. The Constitution was thus phrased to apply equally to both women and men.


Contrary to common opinion, women were not denied the right to vote by the original Constitution--the individual states were left to determine their own requirements for voting. It was at the state level that women were unconstitutionally denied their right to vote. The states lost the power to exclude citizens from voting on the basis of sex with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Are women mentioned in the original constitution

You sit in front of the Internet. Didn't you bother to look anything up?

 

[rdean]

I say we should follow the constitution and trust in the founders.

So, does that mean you think blacks and women shouldn't be allowed to vote?

[T]he point is that the “three-fifths clause” had nothing at all to do with measuring the human worth of blacks. Northern delegates did not want black slaves included, not because they thought them unworthy of being counted, but because they wanted to weaken the slaveholding power in Congress. Southern delegates wanted every slave to count “equally with the Whites,” not because they wanted to proclaim that black slaves were human beings on an equal footing with free white persons, but because they wanted to increase the pro-slavery voting power in Congress. The humanity of blacks was not the subject of the three-fifths clause; voting power in Congress was the subject.

The Original Constitution and the Three-Fifths Myth | American Vision

You sit in front of the Internet, don't you bother to look anything up?

 

[alan1]

I say we should follow the constitution and trust in the founders.

So, does that mean you think blacks and women shouldn't be allowed to vote?

The Constitution only uses the gender neutral "people" or "person" and never specifically mentions either sex, male or female. The Constitution was thus phrased to apply equally to both women and men.


Contrary to common opinion, women were not denied the right to vote by the original Constitution--the individual states were left to determine their own requirements for voting. It was at the state level that women were unconstitutionally denied their right to vote. The states lost the power to exclude citizens from voting on the basis of sex with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Are women mentioned in the original constitution

You sit in front of the Internet. Didn't you bother to look anything up?

Why do you oppose states rights that are one of the cornerstones of our government?

 

[alan1]

I say we should follow the constitution and trust in the founders.

So, does that mean you think blacks and women shouldn't be allowed to vote?

[T]he point is that the “three-fifths clause” had nothing at all to do with measuring the human worth of blacks. Northern delegates did not want black slaves included, not because they thought them unworthy of being counted, but because they wanted to weaken the slaveholding power in Congress. Southern delegates wanted every slave to count “equally with the Whites,” not because they wanted to proclaim that black slaves were human beings on an equal footing with free white persons, but because they wanted to increase the pro-slavery voting power in Congress. The humanity of blacks was not the subject of the three-fifths clause; voting power in Congress was the subject.

The Original Constitution and the Three-Fifths Myth*|*American Vision

You sit in front of the Internet, don't you bother to look anything up?

I know exactly what the 3/5 was. My post said nothing about that, did you read it? Or are you just making shit up about me now?

 

[daveman]

I say we should follow the constitution and trust in the founders.

So, does that mean you think blacks and women shouldn't be allowed to vote?

Only white male landowners.

Right, derp?

 

[daveman]

So, does that mean you think blacks and women shouldn't be allowed to vote?

The Constitution only uses the gender neutral "people" or "person" and never specifically mentions either sex, male or female. The Constitution was thus phrased to apply equally to both women and men.


Contrary to common opinion, women were not denied the right to vote by the original Constitution--the individual states were left to determine their own requirements for voting. It was at the state level that women were unconstitutionally denied their right to vote. The states lost the power to exclude citizens from voting on the basis of sex with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Are women mentioned in the original constitution

You sit in front of the Internet. Didn't you bother to look anything up?

Why do you oppose states rights that are one of the cornerstones of our government?

Derp loves him some all-powerful Federal government, with unelected bureaucrats making life decisions for him.

 

[The T]

The Constitution only uses the gender neutral "people" or "person" and never specifically mentions either sex, male or female. The Constitution was thus phrased to apply equally to both women and men.


Contrary to common opinion, women were not denied the right to vote by the original Constitution--the individual states were left to determine their own requirements for voting. It was at the state level that women were unconstitutionally denied their right to vote. The states lost the power to exclude citizens from voting on the basis of sex with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Are women mentioned in the original constitution

You sit in front of the Internet. Didn't you bother to look anything up?

Why do you oppose states rights that are one of the cornerstones of our government?

Derp loves him some all-powerful Federal government, with unelected bureaucrats making life decisions for him.

Rderp is a Man made of not himself.

 

[Avatar4321]

i say we should follow the constitution and trust in the founders.

so, does that mean you think blacks and women shouldn't be allowed to vote?

[t]he point is that the “three-fifths clause” had nothing at all to do with measuring the human worth of blacks. Northern delegates did not want black slaves included, not because they thought them unworthy of being counted, but because they wanted to weaken the slaveholding power in congress. Southern delegates wanted every slave to count “equally with the whites,” not because they wanted to proclaim that black slaves were human beings on an equal footing with free white persons, but because they wanted to increase the pro-slavery voting power in congress. The humanity of blacks was not the subject of the three-fifths clause; voting power in congress was the subject.

the original constitution and the three-fifths myth*|*american vision

you sit in front of the internet, don't you bother to look anything up?

who the hell are you and what did you do with rdean?!?

 

[Conservative]

On March 7, 1963, civil rights activists were brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during the infamous "Bloody Sunday" march, for advocating for the right to vote. This week, forty-seven years later, today's civil rights leaders retraced the march from Selma to Montgomery, protesting what NAACP President Ben Jealous calls "the greatest attack on voting rights since segregation."

Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons.

Within days, the crucial battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Virginia will become the latest GOP states to pass legislation erecting new barriers to voting. If, as expected, the new laws lead to fewer Democrats casting ballots in November, both states could favor Republicans, possibly shifting the balance of power in Congress and denying Barack Obama a second term.

Pennsylvania will be the ninth GOP state since 2010 to require a photo ID in order to vote; the state's law mandates a government-issued ID or one from a college or nursing home. According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, 11 percent of U.S. citizens lack a government-issued ID, but the numbers are significantly higher among young voters (18 percent), voters 65 or older (18 percent) and African-Americans (25 percent). Based on these figures, as many as 700,000 Pennsylvanians may not be able to vote in the next election. (Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele claims 99 percent of Pennsylvanians possess the proper ID, which seems unlikely given the state’s large student, elderly and African-American population).

GOP War on Voting Targets Swing States | Ari Berman | Politics News | Rolling Stone

AWESOME! My vote in PA will be FULLY PROTECTED from those who would negate or usurp it! KUDOS to the PA state legislature if/when this goes through!

 

[Conservative]

The Constitution only uses the gender neutral "people" or "person" and never specifically mentions either sex, male or female. The Constitution was thus phrased to apply equally to both women and men.


Contrary to common opinion, women were not denied the right to vote by the original Constitution--the individual states were left to determine their own requirements for voting. It was at the state level that women were unconstitutionally denied their right to vote. The states lost the power to exclude citizens from voting on the basis of sex with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Are women mentioned in the original constitution

You sit in front of the Internet. Didn't you bother to look anything up?

Why do you oppose states rights that are one of the cornerstones of our government?

Derp loves him some all-powerful Federal government, with unelected bureaucrats making life decisions for him.

well, when one is not blessed with an over abundance of intelligence (like Chris, Rdean, etc.) one looks for the government to make ones important decisions.

 

[Chris]

Why do you oppose states rights that are one of the cornerstones of our government?

Derp loves him some all-powerful Federal government, with unelected bureaucrats making life decisions for him.

well, when one is not blessed with an over abundance of intelligence (like Chris, Rdean, etc.) one looks for the government to make ones important decisions.

What an ironic statement given that Republicans don't want the people to make the decisions by voting.

That's why they are blocking the vote.

 

[sitarro]

On March 7, 1963, civil rights activists were brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during the infamous "Bloody Sunday" march, for advocating for the right to vote. This week, forty-seven years later, today's civil rights leaders retraced the march from Selma to Montgomery, protesting what NAACP President Ben Jealous calls "the greatest attack on voting rights since segregation."

Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons.

Within days, the crucial battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Virginia will become the latest GOP states to pass legislation erecting new barriers to voting. If, as expected, the new laws lead to fewer Democrats casting ballots in November, both states could favor Republicans, possibly shifting the balance of power in Congress and denying Barack Obama a second term.

Pennsylvania will be the ninth GOP state since 2010 to require a photo ID in order to vote; the state's law mandates a government-issued ID or one from a college or nursing home. According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, 11 percent of U.S. citizens lack a government-issued ID, but the numbers are significantly higher among young voters (18 percent), voters 65 or older (18 percent) and African-Americans (25 percent). Based on these figures, as many as 700,000 Pennsylvanians may not be able to vote in the next election. (Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele claims 99 percent of Pennsylvanians possess the proper ID, which seems unlikely given the state’s large student, elderly and African-American population).

GOP War on Voting Targets Swing States | Ari Berman | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Tell me Chrissy, if 99.9% of the poor, downtrodden youth and elderly....... and of course felons and illegals, started voting for conservatives....... would you and the democrat party be whining so much about about something so obviously needed? I want my ID to be checked because I want the people in charge of keeping the vote fair to know who I am and make sure it's me. I have nothing to hide and don't need a lousy shit like O'Bama going through my neighborhood signing me up to vote....... I find it important enough to make sure I am qualified to vote. I also don't need a ripoff like O'Bama driving a bus through my neighborhood buying my vote for a lousy Church's chicken dinner either. Why do democrats want the vote of people that don't care enough to register on their own and get their asses to a polling place?

Even more telling is the fact that you would quote a rag like the Rolling Stone.

 

[FA_Q2]

Derp loves him some all-powerful Federal government, with unelected bureaucrats making life decisions for him.

well, when one is not blessed with an over abundance of intelligence (like Chris, Rdean, etc.) one looks for the government to make ones important decisions.

What an ironic statement given that Republicans don't want the people to make the decisions by voting.

That's why they are blocking the vote.

Blocking how?

 

[Godboy]

If anyone is too feeble to get a fucking ID, they dont deserve to vote, nor would they be qualified to vote in the first place.