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

[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?

[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.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'They were declaring that it had occurred on a massive basis and they had strong evidence for it. '

And they are right.

You keep moving the goalposts around. We'll never prove illegals vote because the law isn't designed to ensure illegals don't vote. Voting legally in the US is on the honor system. If you break it there's little ability to catch people who illegally vote. So yea, you'll find evidence of illegal votes but you'll probably never prove it exists.

Now if the Democrats actually favored laws to prove you were a legal voter, we'd see the illegal vote disappear. But alas, we'll just have to keep seeing towns with 110% voter turnout till then.

[paft.livejournal.com]

mb: And they are right.

And the evidence for this is...?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Non-existant people voting, higher voter turnout than people in the area, and people who didn't vote being recorded as having voted.

The most famous incident being this one where several hundred illegal immigrants voted-
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/13/cq/sanchez.html

Now go on and belittle actual incidents of voter fraud while demanding more proof be offered despite your side saying any attempt to investigate voter fraud is racist.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Oh, you mean that case where it turned out that some of those "illegal immigrants" were people who had registered to vote a week before their swearing in ceremony, some of them were naturalized citizens and had been so for years, and a few were even nuns in a convent? Hardly indicative of a massive conspiracy of illegal aliens voting.

Cite for me please, how many cases you know of where illegal immigrants have been successfully prosecuted for voting illegally. I kept hearing big, BIG stories from Republicans a few years ago about "ongoing investigations" and "Hundreds of cases of voter fraud." Nothing ever seemed to turn up.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Oh, you mean that case where it turned out that some of those "illegal immigrants" were people who had registered to vote a week before their swearing in ceremony, some of them were naturalized citizens and had been so for years, and a few were even nuns in a convent? Hardly indicative of a massive conspiracy of illegal aliens voting.'

Just as I predicted. They were people ineligible to vote and they voted. There were hundreds. You lost the argument.

'Cite for me please, how many cases you know of where illegal immigrants have been successfully prosecuted for voting illegally.'

And there's those shifted goal posts. Now I need actual convictions and not just illegal activity. A burden you certainly never set for claiming right-wing violence at the Tea Party rallies.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

It doesn't matter unless fraudulent votes are counted.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

So you believe fraudulent votes are somehow thrown out after being cast?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Yeah they usually are.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

So they go through the anonymous ballots already tallied on the machine and know which ones to delete?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Do you not know how voting works? They go through and check to make sure the person is registered and a resident and all that good stuff.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Do you not know how voting works? They go through and check to make sure the person is registered and a resident and all that good stuff.'

Registered... resident... and that's it. And that's technically wrong. You don't have to be registered in many states. You can cast a provisional ballots.

You know a utility bill is proof of residency.

I think I know now why so many left of center folks don't think voter fraud occurs. They just don't know how the system works.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Bogey, I regularly volunteer as a poll watcher. I know how the system works.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

No one has that. Once it's in the machine it's in there for good. Only absentee and provisional ballots get reviewed before tallying.

[paft.livejournal.com]

And as someone who's poll watched in New Orleans, I can tell you that the bigger problem is voter suppression.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

In New Orleans? Oh you're fucking delusional now. It's a rat city. Republicans aren't doing jack shit there.