Is it About the Vote?

[paft.livejournal.com]

What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote -- and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Greg Palast, Gregpalast.com

Greg Palast has hit on what may be the method behind the madness of Arizona’s recent anti-immigrant law – voter suppression. Even if the law is overturned eventually, it can still be used in the short term to prevent thousands of legal Hispanic voters from filling out a ballot.



Governor Brewer, Palast points out, has a history of this. A very recent history. As Arizona’s Secretary of State. she oversaw a purge in which at least 100,000 voters were purged from the rolls, most of whom were Hispanic.

A Texas lawmaker is now planning to introduce a bill similar to Arizona’s.

The fact is, the right has long had a problem with the vote and all those people who actually get to do it. The typical assumption seems to be that if someone trying to vote is dark skinned, there must be some sort of dishonesty going on.

Rush Limbaugh Why, why this furious reaction to the Arizona immigration law? I’ll tell you why, that’s why I am here and you are there. The left, the Democrats, Obama, recognize that this notion of proving one’s identity is a lethal blow to their agenda….It’s regards the vote. Illegal voting, illegal voters is the only hope the Democrats have of retaining power….You see, the Democrats are betting everything on their ability to maintain vote fraud.

Beck even seems to have a problem with the very concept of “Democratic election.”

Glenn Beck
Democratic elections. You’ll hear this when they talk about the “Democratically elected leader of Iran. The democratic leader Chavez. Democratically elected you know! Castro, democratically elected, Hitler, democratically elected.” It’s code language.

The right wing is edging ever closer to coming out and simply saying that the franchise should be limited to their kind of voters – people of a certain income level, of a certain ethnic and religious background, of a certain viewpoint. That's the only way they can be sure that elections will come out they way they want them to.

As Tom Tancredo put it a tea party gathering just a few months ago:

Tom Tancredo, February 2010
Because, uh, I think we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country, (wild applause) people, people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English, (cheers) put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Since when is taking over a country by armed force the way Castro did a democratic means of election? I suppose by that standard the Bolsheviks won the election years of 1918-1922? Hitler *was* elected but by properties of Parliamentary governments that would never translate to here.

That said, this bill reminds me rather too closely of the Grandfather Clause....

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

BTW, if I may-this is one of your better recent posts....

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Under-L sez:

- Bolsheviks: check.
- Hitler: check.

Thus, the world is saved and the Sun shall rise again tomorrow morning. One more victory for Obscure Historic References & Demokrrssy. Yay!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Da Boyz do wut we ken.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Arizona Republicans have a long and proud history of challenging minority voters, going all the way back to William Rehnquist, who was a part of "Operation Eagle Eye," a group of Republicans that went to minority dominated voting districts to challenge voters.

Obviously Fatboy Rush is concerned with the possibility of over 300,000 illegals in Arizona gaining the right to vote, as a glance at the 2008 election results will show:

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Greg Palast? You ain't gonna get far with that.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[paft.livejournal.com]

What has Palast said in the past the qualifies him for the tin foil hat brigade?

[paft.livejournal.com]

He's concerned with the possibility of over 300,000 legal HISPANIC voters voting.

The notion that masses of illegal immigrants are marching to the polls to vote in our elections is a myth.

[paft.livejournal.com]

What in his piece is factually wrong?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Particularly since my own state introduced a similar kind of idea, one of the most effective Jim Crow policies to disfranchise blacks?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

It's not a myth if it exists. Just because Democrats reliably block every attempt to secure the ballot box against illegal immigrants voting doesn't mean it's not happening.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Righto, that's why they don't want amnesty extended to those that are here already: so they can't become legal voters.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Got some examples to cite of the mass prosecution of fraudulent, illegal voters that we kept being promised a few years ago?

[paft.livejournal.com]

The GOP has been doing this pretty much consistently since the 1980s.

[readherring.livejournal.com]

Nice post. But I believe that the Arizona law has more to do with reckless passage of populist legislation than with voter suppression. I'm sure that this law will anger many Hispanic and non-police-state voters to go to the polls to vote against the law's supporters. And I'm sure that the Arizona politicians took that into consideration before they proposed the law, and figured they'd get more populist support from it than they would get angry protests.

It's furiating, because I see them as trashing American rights and freedoms just to cash in on the current anger over immigration. I hope this whole thing blows up on them, and I'm frightened that it won't.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Well, Brewer's history indicates that she has an interest in suppressing the Hispanic vote. This law, even if its overturned, is a golden opportunity to prevent legal hispanic voters from getting to the polls.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

There are several cases where known fraudulent votes were cast.

And going back to the original issue. We can't prosecute illegal votes if we don't know who or where the illegal voter is.

It's really a no-brainer why Democrats insist that there be no verification whatsoever of legal votes.

[paft.livejournal.com]

mb: There are several cases where known fraudulent votes were cast.

How many of those were there? Were they successfully prosecuted?

mb: And going back to the original issue. We can't prosecute illegal votes if we don't know who or where the illegal voter is.

That's not what was being claimed by Republicans a few years ago. They were declaring that it had occurred on a massive basis and they had strong evidence for it.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0815-07.htm

[paft.livejournal.com]

b: I've read his book, "Armed Madhouse" and while he has a tremendous amount of base information in there, some of the conclusions he draws are tremendously left field.

Disagreeing with someone's conclusions is not necessarily the same as proving that he's a member of the tin foil hat brigade.

Palast's coverage of voter suppression has been very, very well documented. Nobody familiar with voter suppression history would dismiss his concerns as paranoid or kooky.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

funny stuff. janet napolitano was governor and democrat during all that time, and guess what, she was twice elected, the second time by a wide margin.

but i love how people give latinos so little credit. i also love how they're always assumed to be "dark-skinned". ah the racial stereotypes.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can remember hearing Republicans ridiculing the notion that California's rolling blackouts were the result of Enron's conniving.

Uh...Guess what?

Is there something in this piece that is factually incorrect? Please point it out.

[paft.livejournal.com]

You consider complaining about the suppression of latino voters is giving them "so little credit?" Why?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I stopped reading Palast years ago, when everything he said was factually wrong. I see no evidence of that changing judging by your snippet.