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Good evening firepuppers! It’s Friday night, I’m wiped, and I was going to get to bed soon. But I couldn’t do so without mentioning this bit of news.
Just as ALEC’s “Stand Your Ground” Laws don’t seem to have done much to stop crime but have definitely allowed paranoid bigots to act out their deadliest desires, ALEC’s voter ID laws, which their backers tout as a way to stop the nonexistent problem of people using fake IDs to vote, have instead kept at least nine voters who have every right to vote from being able to do so. Here are some of their stories:
Ricky Tyrone Lewis is a 58 year-old Marine Corps veteran. Despite the fact that he was able to offer Wisconsin voting officials proof of his honorable discharge from the Marines, Milwaukee County has been unable to find the record of his birth that he needs in order to obtain a voter ID card.
Ruthelle Frank is an 84 year-old former elected official who voted in every election for the last 63 years, yet she will be unable to obtain a voter ID unless she pays a fee to obtain a birth certificate from the Wisconsin government — despite the fact that the Constitution explicitly forbids any voter from being charged a fee in order to vote. Worse, because the attending physician at her birth misspelled her name on her original birth certificate, she may need to pay hundreds of dollars in court fees to petition the state judiciary to correct her certificate before she can obtain a voter ID.
Dorothy Cooper is a 96-year-old African-American woman who says she has voted in every election but one since she became eligible to vote. Yet, when she attempted to obtain a voter ID, she was turned away because she did not have a copy of her marriage license. In a subsequent interview, Cooper said that she didn’t even have problems voting in Tennessee “during Jim Crow days” — only now under Voter ID.
You know, it might be time to ask certain big companies that like to promote themselves as nice guys — like, say, Microsoft and its founder Bill Gates — why they continue to back ALEC and the groups backing its initiatives when its most famous legislative fruits have given us disenfranchisement and death, both of which have the specter of racial bigotry behind them.
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PW!
There is no bad idea that ALEC will not back and this is just one more example. As for preventing legitimate voters from voting, that rather is the whole purpose after all, since there is virtually no real voter fraud (except the occasionally by Republicans).
Oh, and because it wouldn’t be Late Night without a tuneful video…
You mean like Ann Coulter?
Yep. And this guy, as well.
Hi Financial news indicates Europe has slid back into recession. Not good.
Voting I.D.should be mailed out by the registrar if they want people to vote. Maybe they don’t? Just kidding.
Voting is like the choices the door to door salesman offers, “Which do you prefer?” Known as the Which Pitch and has been used for centuries. Name your poison.
And both of them would wind up skating, IIRC.
Wow a secretary of State convicted of VF did he do time with the 99%.
Marsdragon had the longest diary comment I know of. Was there another?
Silly rabbit! Of course not. Convicted of 6 felonies and he gets sent to his room for a year.
Irony: Charlie White fell foul of the very laws he pushed.
Yup, and Coulter’s case got outright bounced. How convenient.
I guess he was trying to protect America from himself. We always knew that projection was the Republicans’ greatest strength.
Always remember, boys and girls, IOKIYAR.
That made me have a belly laugh…bet your students have some laughs occasionally.
How goes it in Big Sky Country, Doc?
Pretty good overall. A bit hectic at work, with lots going on. Weather has not been bad, a bit chilly and wet on the weekends, however. Not looking forward to the political season heating up, given the loony toons that comprise the GOP here. We are already getting a bunch of PAC ads attacking Tester.
Occasionally, unless they are in my race and ethnicity class, which has the reputation as one of the most depressing classes on campus.
They do get some good music as an intro, however.
It’s important to know that MN republican state legislator Mary Kiffmeyer, chief water carrier for the current ALEC Voter ID effort in the MN Legilature, when she did a stint as Secretary of State, became known for her efforts to disenfranchise Native Americans and University of MN students (failed on both counts). And while Sec’y of State, she overpayed herself and her staff by $190,000.00. She thought she was doing the right thing!! And finally, while on the Board of Directors of the Ostego, MN Riverview Community Bank (“Inspired by the hand of God…” I kid you not!), she and her bank were shut down by the FDIC for “unsafe and unsound banking practices.”
Between ALEC and the Tea Party, there is very little left of a functioning republican party in MN. Even the current Chair of the MN Republican Party is an ex-aide to Dick Armey (Amuricans for Prosperity/Koch Bros.). It is all getting way too scary here in MN.
Time for me to toddle off. Take care all.
Ah, Kiffy. She’s in a class by herself.
Note that she is against letting tribally-issued driver’s licenses be used as IDs, even though they meet the standards of the Real ID Act.
G’night! Give Smoke an earskritch for me.
I think I’m for Bedfordshire, meself. G’night, all!
my sis-in-law in PA told me today that they have one there–sounds pretty odious, which is the point, i guess.
It is terrible that the Repubs are trying to suppress voting through Voter-ID laws. I don’t think it does anything to continue to complain that they are doing this. They have no conscience in this area. We will not shame them into stopping. My Question is where is the Democratic party in all of this? We know they have been working on this since the 2010 elections. Why is there no drive to get people voter-ids. Getting the elderly and minorities the proper identification to vote would be much more effective than a 30 second ad. Why not take the money from on ad buy and use it to pay the fees and organizational costs of actively helping people with their documentation and taking them to the DMV to get a State ID. The resultant legitimate voters would be more loyal to you for this act than they would for a 30 second Etch-a-sketch ad buy. Continually doing stories about the Repubs suppressing the vote is not news. That is part of who they are. Beating them at their own game would be much more satisfying and effective.
I agree with you but with the thought that is now implanted by most readers of this blog: the Democratic party is part of the suppression. You have noticed how completely impervious they are to the goals of their base. This has to mean that who is getting them elected calls the tune. Change, if it is even in the cards, will not come out of the activities and participants of the two parties. This is not the time to be discouraged. Wherever I go I mean people who totally get it, who are motivated, who are actually well, well informed. They may be too old to sleep outside in occupations, they may be too young with young children to watch to be spending huge amounts of time in demonstrations, etc… But they are there and they are not fooled. We are in for some challenging times. All I am saying is that the whole R v D is a waste of psychic energy.