696 replies to this topic

[LFC]

Rich T Bikkies, on 08 August 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

Superb, but I did do a double-take at first. The world really does need a new type-face called Ironic.

Ask and he shall receive. Or at least download supposedly for free.

http://www.fontspace...onts/ironick-nf

I like the name change to "Ironick" from somebody who publishes as "Nick's Fonts".

[Rich T Bikkies]

LFC, on 08 August 2014 - 04:48 PM, said:

Ask and he shall receive. Or at least download supposedly for free.

http://www.fontspace...onts/ironick-nf

I like the name change to "Ironick" from somebody who publishes as "Nick's Fonts".

Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.

[Joanna]

D. C. Sessions, on 08 August 2014 - 04:33 PM, said:

I believe your point was to take that out of his control.

yep. He has been shortenning early voting time, shortenning hours, closing voting station, mostly in the minority districts. With every next elections Florida is in the news again, with long lines to cast a vote (7-8 hours in Miami-Dade). not mentionng kicking people from the voting lists. Tea Party heaven...

[AnBr]

Then there are the machinations of Ohio's Secretary of State Jon Husted tinkering around with early voting and limiting voting machines in democratic districts and over supplying them in heavily Repug districts. Repug Ken Blackwell did similar in 2004 at the same time that the then CEO of Diebold (the manufacturer of the voting machines in Ohio at the time) swore he would do whatever it took to make sure that Bush won Ohio.

[Practical Girl]

Yesterday, SCOTUS blocked Wisconsin Voter ID law (6-3), and a district court judge in TX rules TX ID law is racially discriminatory and violates the Voting Rights Act. TX AG's office vows to fight the decision.

Safe, for at least this election cycle. I'll be interested to see if the Wendy Davis camp jumps on this and attaches gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbot to a fight to uphold racism. He may be able to distance himself from this, but it is still his current office.

[indy]

I think in the TX case the judge described the law as intentionally discriminatory, which is grounds to put the state back under the preclearence requirement of the voting rights act. I don't think the judge has decided whether or not to do that yet.

[Practical Girl]

Texas Voter ID law back "on" From yesterday, regarding 5th Circuit ruling:

Quote

Texas should require photo voter identification in this year’s general election, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday, overturning an earlier ruling by a federal district judge in Texas

[Sinan]

We keep ignoring the simplest solution to this if we had a clean slate to work with, pass an amendment that guarantees the right to vote, defines who can vote, when they can vote, how they can vote, how the votes are counted for all national elections or offices. Then, we pass legislation stating that each and every citizen be issued a tamper proof SS ID card upon birth or in replacement for the current card. This card would become all you need to vote. A red, white and blue card means you are a citizen, a green card means you are a non-citizen. Using this card and an accurate database which you only manage for locating your address, each of us votes anywhere we want for national elections using the internet, the phone system, the polling booth or some other means that is secure and managed by an impartial body made up of experts such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If each state wants to adopt this for their own elections, they can. If they don't, then they can use their own system.

Implement this over time, give it 10 years to be implemented. Registration becomes a thing of the past. All you have to do to vote is use your PIN or show this ID and away you go.

[Progressive whisperer]

For some values of "simplest" which involve a 2/3rd majority of congress that can't agree on ANYTHING, but might decide to amend the constitution to do something against the perceived interest of the majority party in the house. And then get it ratified by the states...

[D. C. Sessions]

The only amendment needed for Federal elections is the 15th. Read it.

Well, that and a different Supreme Court. One that won't rule that a principle called "equal State sovereignty" takes precedence over the explicit wording of the 15th. But that's going to be easier than passing a new Amendment to do what the 14th was supposed to (and didn't) so we passed the 15th (which didn't) and then the 24th (which now hasn't) were all supposed to do.

[Sinan]

Hence we see that the constitution itself insures that nothing radical happens unless one party controls every branch and then has the nerve to actually change things. Even if we wanted to relax the amendment process, we could not due to the inherent obstacles in place. We only act when we have to act and even then, we take our time.

[D. C. Sessions]

Sinan, on 16 October 2014 - 11:40 AM, said:

We only act when we have to act and even then, we take our time.

One hundred fifty years and counting, so far.

[Traveler]

Yeah, for all its problems, the old US of A constitooshun still looks like the best game in town (among the big players that is).

[LFC]

Waddya' know. It looks like if you ask people whether or not they support voter ID laws, the answer may depend upon the picture that goes along with the question. Color me unsurprised.

[Rabiner]

http://www.huffingto..._n_6007612.html

Now RBG is equating these voter ID laws with the poll tax that was found to be unconstitutional 50ish years ago.

[D. C. Sessions]

Rabiner, on 18 October 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

Now RBG is equating these voter ID laws with the poll tax that was found to be unconstitutional 50ish years ago.

It wasn't found to be unConstitutional, we actually passed an Amendment to make it unConstitutional. Yeah, missed opportunity to dodge the current incarnation of Jim Crow. Make of that what you will.

[LFC]

Well this is a letdown. Bolding of the judge's gobsmackingly stupid blindness to actual evidence is mine.

Quote

A federal judge on Monday upheld a North Carolina law that requires voters to show certain forms of photo identification at the polls, in a key victory for Republicans in a presidential election year who say the law is needed to prevent fraud.

The case tested a central piece of broad voting restrictions passed after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that North Carolina and other states with a history of discrimination no longer needed federal approval for voting law changes affecting minorities.

In siding with Republican Governor Pat McCrory and other state officials in dismissing challenges to the law, U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder in Winston-Salem wrote in a 485-page ruling that North Carolina “has provided legitimate state interests for its voter-ID requirement and electoral system.”

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and individual voters backed by the U.S. Justice Department had argued that the law disproportionately burdened African-Americans and Hispanics, who are more likely than whites to lack the acceptable forms of identification.

Oh, yeah. It will shock no one that he was a George W. Bush appointee.

[LFC]

After my last post, I stumbled into this piece on how effective voter suppression can really be within and between the slave red states.

Quote

Virginia McLaurin, the 107-year-old woman who melted Americans’ hearts when she fulfilled her dream of visiting the White House and meeting President Barack Obama and the First Lady — says she can’t get the government to issue her a photo ID.

According to the Washington Post, the Washington, DC Department of Motor Vehicles refuses to issue McLaurin a photo ID without a birth certificate from her home state of South Carolina. South Carolina, however, refuses to issue her a birth certificate without seeing a photo ID.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get that face card,” she told the Post. “I was birthed by a midwife and the birthday put in a Bible somewhere. I don’t know if they even had birth certificates back then.”

McLaurin lost her ID when her purse was snatched years ago. She said that she meant to replace the missing ID cards and other items, but, “I didn’t want to think about carrying around stuff that people would steal.”

This means that McLaurin — who has been invited to media appearances in Los Angeles and New York City — can’t board a plane anywhere in the United States. Because she is a D.C. resident, however, she can vote.

Were she a resident of 17 states in the country, she would not be able to vote at all thanks to restrictive voter ID laws. Republicans have enacted these laws in multiple states saying that they hope to combat voter fraud. However, these laws disproportionately impact traditionally Democratic constituencies like the elderly, the poor and voters of color to vote.

According to NYU School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, 25 percent of black adults have no form of state-issued photo ID, as opposed to only eight percent of white adults. In 2012, the Brennan Center estimated that Republican voter ID laws would keep 5 million eligible U.S. voters from the polls.

Or as George W. Bush once said, "Mission Accomplished!"

[AnBr]

A non like.

[LFC]

And it looks like Kansas has made a cluster-f*** of their voter registration. (No shock since they are a bad national joke.)

Quote

Voting rolls in Kansas are in "chaos" because of the state's proof-of-citizenship requirements, the American Civil Liberties Union has argued in a court document, noting that about two-thirds of new voter registration applications submitted during a three-week period in February are on hold.

Kansas is fending off multiple legal challenges from voting rights activists, and just months before the state's August primary, the status of the "dual registration" system remains unclear. Federal judges in separate voter-registration lawsuits unfolding in Kansas and Washington, D.C., could rule at any time. There's also greater urgency because registrations typically surge during an election year.

Kansas is one of four states, along with Georgia, Alabama and Arizona, to require documentary proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers — to register to vote. Under Kansas' challenged system, voters who registered using a federal form, which hadn't required proof of U.S. citizenship, could only vote in federal races and not in state or local races. Kansas says it will keep the dual voting system in place for upcoming elections if the courts allow its residents to register to vote either with a federal form or at motor vehicle offices without providing proof of citizenship.

All this over an issue that they can't even prove exists in any meaningful way. HAH! Just kidding. We know that it's all about voter suppression and nothing to do with secure elections. Hell, multiple Republicans have come out and admitted it.