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

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Black Floridians were pretty outraged in 2000 when they were turned away from the polls. That didn't mean they were able to cast a ballot.

But "black Floridians" were able to appeal the ruling long before the election - the list was public and people could check on their status. Remember, it's up to the public to register to vote and keep those registrations current.

Palast probably didn't mention that part, did he.

[paft.livejournal.com]

bdj: But "black Floridians" were able to appeal the ruling long before the election - the list was public and people could check on their status. Remember, it's up to the public to register to vote and keep those registrations current.
Palast probably didn't mention that part, did he.

Yes, actually, he did. In some cases warning letters were sent out...

Madison County's elections supervisor, Linda Howell had a peculiarly personal reason for distrusting the central voter file. She had received a letter saying that since she had committed a felony, she would not be allowed to vote..

She's unsure of the number of warning letters that were sent out to county residents when she first received the list in 1999, but she recalls that there were many problems. "One day we would send the letter to have someone taken off the rolls, and the next day, we would send one to put them back on again..."

At least one county, however, didn't bother.

Etta Rosado, spokesoman for the Volusia County Department of Elections, said the county essentially accepted the file at face value, did nothing to confirm the accuracy of it and doesn't inform citizens ahead of time that they have been dropped from the voter rolls.."I don't think that it's up to us to tell them they're a convicted felon," Rosado said. "If he's on our rolls, we make a notation on there. If they show up at a polling place, we'l say, 'Wait a minute, you're a convicted felon, you can't vote.'"Condrun (June Condrun Orange County's deputy supervisor of elections) noted that about one-third of the letters, whicht he county sent out by regular mail, were returned to the office marked undeliverable. She attributed the high rate of incorrect addresses to the age of the information sent by DBT, some of which was close to 20 years old, she said.

And once you got a letter, the burden of proof was on you to show you weren't a convicted felon or, --if you were a convicted felon in another state which did not rescind voting rights -- that your rights, which had not been taken away in the first place, had been restored. (It should be noted, that states cannot rescind the voting rights of people convicted of felonies in other states that don't disenfranchise convicted felons.) The process of getting paperwork and court records could take as long as two years.

You know, Jeff, it might help if you actually READ Palast rather than talking through your.

I mean, come on. I read one of YOUR favorite writers, didn't I?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Since they were required by law to post the list, Palast is simply making things up.

As he always does.