How DO Republicans 'Win'? — Pt 1: GOP's Interstate 'Name Cross Check' Voter Suppression Program May Kick Millions Off Voting Rolls (Video)

How DO Republicans 'Win'? — Pt 2: GOP Suppressed 500,000 Texas Voters In Upcoming Elections

The Republican's Clown Prince: Rick Perry - The governor and his
Texas Republicans are like criminals on steroids. (Photo by Ed
Schipul)

By Brad Friedman
This is not unexpected, though its still disturbing to those concerned about voting rights — and the possibility that more than half a million legally registered voters in Texas may not be allowed to vote in this November’s election.

A three judge panel on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has, for now, blocked the U.S. District Court’s ruling last week in Texas, issued after a full trial on the merits of the law, which had struck down state Republicans’ polling place Photo ID voting restriction after finding it deliberately discriminatory and a violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal Voting Rights Act.

Following Tuesday’s order by the 5th Circuit [PDF] reversing the lower court ruling, for now, the plaintiffs challenging the state statute said, almost immediately, that they plan to file an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to put the law back on hold before the November elections.

Voting rights proponents worry that, if the Court holds true to its recent rulings in voting rights cases in NC, in OH and, most recently, in WI, they are likely to allow Texas’ discriminatory law to stay in place this November, pending a full hearing on the merits at a later date.

There is, however, some important differences in the Texas case than in those other three, which we’ll explain in a moment.

Texas had appealed the initial 147-page ruling [PDF] by U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonazles Ramos, issued last week, which found that the Texas Photo ID voting statue, SB 14, “creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose.” She also determined that the state requirement that voters produce one of a few very specific types of state-issued Photo ID when voting at the polling place amounted to an “unconstitutional poll tax”, since all such ID requires at least some payment by voters…


On Tuesday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel (two Republican appointees and one Democratic appointee) issued their order to stay the lower court’s ruling, effectively putting the law back into effect for the November election. Early voting in Texas begins on October 20th.

“Essentially, all the marbles of this 5th Circuit order come down to ‘it’s too close to the election to stop the law from going into effect, because pollworkers will be confused,”explains election law expert Justin Levitt of the NYU Brennan Center for Justice.

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How DO Republicans 'Win'? — Pt 3: 40,000 Voter Registrations 'Lost' By Georgia Sec Of State

The Man Who Did The Dirty Deed: Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp.
(Screen capture from YouTube video)

By karoli
In September, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp expressed concern that too many minority voters were registering to vote for the November midterms and so he found it necessary to subpoena the records of at least one group working to register more Black and Latino voters.

Now he has gone and "lost" 40,000 voter registration forms handed in by one group.

The Root:

According to an Al-Jazeera report, it’s a sentiment that the staffers at Third Sector Development are expressing. The nonprofit organization was on a mission to register as many black and Hispanic people in the state of Georgia as possible so that voter turnout for the upcoming midterm elections in November would be high. And they were successful at it, until they received word that about half of the applications they submitted for processing have gone missing in action.

“Over the last few months, the group submitted some 80,000 voter-registration forms to the Georgia secretary of state’s office—but as of last week, about half those new registrants, more than 40,000 Georgians, were still not listed on preliminary voter rolls. And there is no public record of those 40,000-plus applications, according to state Rep. Stacey Adams, a Democrat,” Al-Jazeera explained.

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How DO Republicans 'Win'? — Pt 4: Koch Group Mailing Fake Voter Information To Discourage Voters

"Soul of a Koch" (Illustration by Ronald David Jackson)

By Joan McCarterFollow

The Kochs' Americans for Prosperity must have decided they need to do some "voter information" in what's an awfully tight race for governor in Illinois. According to the Daily Kos Elections Outlook, there's about a 4-point spread between Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn and Republican Bruce Rauner. Enter AFP to try to create a little chaos in the election. And like in North Carolina, where they sent hundreds of thousands of fraudulent mailers, they're upsetting people by sending mailers to their dead loved ones.

[...]

See, the mailer made it seem like it had one from County Clerk Bean. All over the state, people have been calling their county clerks to find out if they really do have to re-register, because all of the mailings from AFP are meant to look like they're coming from elections officials.

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How DO Republicans 'Win'? — Pt 5: 'Jim Crow All Over Again' — Voting Restrictions Loom

'The real reason for the laws is to lower turnout, to hold onto power by keeping those who in opposition from exercising their solemn right.'

"Recent changes by state courts and the Supreme Court have left voters in Texas confused and without key protections once afforded by the Voting Rights Act," says Barbara Arnwine, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. (Photo: Theresa Thompson/flickr/cc)

By Deirdre Fulton
With Election Day just around the corner, voting rights advocates warn that new laws ranging from photo ID requirements to early voting cutbacks to voter registration restrictions are disenfranchising student, minority, and elderly voters.

November 4 marks the first major federal election since the U.S. Supreme Court "put a dagger in the heart of the Voting Rights Act," as Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis said last year. The Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder stripped many communities of a key federal protection that required election officials to get government approval for voting changes; as a result, several states have pushed forward restrictive laws that studies show undermine the voting rights of American citizens.

A report released in September by the Government Accountability Office, for example, showed that voter ID laws decreased turnout to a greater degree among new, young, and African-American voters.

Earlier this week Bill Moyers and Michael Winship wrote explicitly: "The real reason for the laws is to lower turnout, to hold onto power by keeping those who in opposition from exercising their solemn right—to make it hard for minorities, poor folks, and students, among others, to participate in democracy’s most cherished act."

On Wednesday, Al Jazeera America reported on a 27-state "crusade against voter fraud" that "threatens a massive purge of voters from the rolls." The Interstate Crosscheck program, used by election officials to identify suspected double voters, is in fact scrubbing African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Hispanics from the voter rolls, the publication's six-month investigation found.

"Millions, especially black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters, are at risk. Already, tens of thousands have been removed in at least one battleground state, and the numbers are expected to climb," Greg Palast wrote for Al Jazeera America. "The three states’ lists are heavily weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim — ones common among minorities, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic...If even a fraction of those names are blocked from voting or purged from voter rolls, it could alter the outcome of next week’s electoral battle for control of the U.S. Senate—and perhaps prove decisive in the 2016 presidential vote count."

"It’s Jim Crow all over again," 91-year-old Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King, Jr., told Palast.

Voter ID laws are already having a chilling effect in Texas. On Friday, the Brennan Center published actual stories of voters in Texas who have experienced difficulty participating in the democratic process. One young registered voter was misinformed and told that he could not vote because his ID had expired—but because it had expired less than 60 days previous, he should have been allowed to cast his ballot.

In another case, a man "was not allowed to vote with his expired license even though he had a Texas ID with his picture on it, his voter registration card, and even his birth certificate."

"In many cases, Texas failed these voters twice—first by requiring identification they did not have, and second by not training election officials to help them navigate the rules," the Center stated.

The nonpartisan voter advocacy coalition Election Protection on Thursday announced a radio advertisement campaign (mp3), airing in English and Spanish, focused on informing Texas voters about their rights.

"Recent changes by state courts and the Supreme Court have left voters in Texas confused and without key protections once afforded by the Voting Rights Act," said Barbara Arnwine, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and one of the Election Protection coalition members. "The new Voter ID requirement will potentially disenfranchise more than 600,000 registered Texas voters who do not have the required photo ID, and most of the affected voters are African American, Latino and low-income."

Election Protection is encouraging anyone who experiences problems voting to call: 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683).

Reprinted with permission from Common Dreams.

Republican Neo-Nazis Are Trying To Purge Minorities From Illinois Voting Rolls — This Is How They 'Win' Elections

Democrats Fear GOP Effort To Purge Illinoisans From Voter Lists Will Suppress Minorities

If Republicans were honest, they'd dress like this guy. (Photo from KOMUnews)

By Sophia Tareen
In a sign of how close the contest for control of President Barack Obama's home state is expected to be, Illinois Republicans are mounting what they call an unprecedented and costly campaign to have ineligible people purged from voter lists and recruit their own election judges before November.

With their sights on unseating a Democratic governor and winning back several congressional seats, Republicans have allocated $1 million in Cook County alone — from fundraising and the Republican Governors Association — to examine voter rolls and recruit 5,000 GOP election judges to watch over polling places in Democrat-heavy Chicago.

[...]

Illinois Democrats, in turn, fear the GOP "voter integrity" campaign could echo initiatives elsewhere aimed, they say, at making it difficult for minorities and other traditional Democrats to vote if they don't have required identification or there's any question about eligibility.

"We don't interpret these efforts as anything other than voter suppression," said Rikeesha Phelon, a spokeswoman in Illinois for the Democratic Governors Association.
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Voting Rights Advocates Try to Blunt Attempts at Voter Suppression in States By Placing Court Oversight Back on the Map

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states and local governments with a history of discrimination no longer needed to submit new voting laws for federal approval. Now, voting rights advocates are trying to put them back under oversight using the courts and Congress.

By Kara Brandeisky
When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act last June, justices left it to Congress to decide how to fix the law. But while Congress deliberates, activists are turning again to the courts: At least 10 lawsuits have the potential to bring states and some local jurisdictions back under federal oversight – essentially doing an end-run around the Supreme Court’s ruling.

A quick refresher: The Voting Rights Act outlaws racial discrimination against voters. But the law’s real strength comes from its “preclearance” provision, which forces jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to submit new voting measures to the federal government for approval.

In last summer’s Shelby County v. Holder ruling, the Supreme Court threw out the part of the law that spelled out when states were automatically subject to federal oversight. States that have been released from preclearance have already passed a rash of new restrictive voting measures, as ProPublica reported earlier.

Enter the lawsuits, which hinge on a different part of the Voting Rights Act, the so-called “bail-in” provision. It lets federal courts impose preclearance if a state or local jurisdiction violates the Constitution’s 14th or 15th amendments, which guarantee equal protection and the right to vote.

ALEC at 40: Turning Back the Clock on Prosperity and Progress in the United States - CMD Special Report

For this report, which focuses on ALEC’s 2013 legislative agenda, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) researched five areas: 1) Voter ID and Stand Your Ground legislation, 2) wages and worker rights, 3) public education, 4) the environment, and 5) citizen access to the courts. Research continues on other areas of ALEC’s agenda. Key Findings:

ALEC's having a big party - at our expense.

    •   CMD identified 466 ALEC bills from the 2013 session. 84 of these passed and became law. ALEC bills were introduced in every state in the nation and the District of Columbia in 2013. The top ALEC states were West Virginia (25 bills) and Missouri (21 bills).

    •    Despite ALEC’s effort to distance itself from Voter ID and Stand Your Ground by disbanding its controversial Public Safety and Elections Task Force, 62 of these laws were introduced: 10 Stand Your Ground bills and 52 bills to enact or tighten Voter ID restrictions. Five states enacted additional Voter ID restrictions, and two states passed Stand Your Ground.

    •    CMD identified 117 ALEC bills that affect wages and worker rights. 14 of these became law. These bills included so-called “Right to Work” legislation, part of the ALEC agenda since at least 1979, introduced in 15 states this year. Other bills would preempt local living or minimum wage ordinances, facilitate the privatization of public services, scrap defined benefit pension plans, or undermine the ability of unions to organize to protect workers.

    •    CMD identified 139 ALEC bills that affect public education. 31 of these became law. Just seven states did not have an ALEC education bill introduced this year. Among other things, these bills would siphon taxpayer money from the public education system to benefit for-profit private schools, including the “Great Schools Tax Credit Act,” introduced in 10 states.

ALEC wants American Justice weighted in favor of rich.

    •    CMD identified 77 ALEC bills that advance a polluter agenda. 17 of these became law. Numerous ALEC “model” bills were introduced that promote a fossil fuel and fracking agenda and undermine environmental regulations. The “Electricity Freedom Act,” which would repeal state renewable portfolio standards, was introduced in six states this year.

    •    CMD identified 71 ALEC bills narrowing citizen access to the courts. 14 of these became law. These bills cap damages, limit corporate liability, or otherwise make it more difficult for citizens to hold corporations to account when their products or services result in injury or death.

Read the full report with charts of ALEC bills HERE.

Reprinted with permission from PRWatch.