GOP’s Imaginary Friend
Mike Keefe, Cagle Cartoons
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And “GOP raaaaaaacism causing voter disenfranchisement” is the Dems imaginary friend.
Of course, there have been many confirmed cases of voter fraud, all by Dems over the last decade.
OK can someone give me some examples of people they know that do not have picture ID’s of some sort?
I hear the arguement that this would have a bad impact on people who do not have picture IDs which would keep them from voting, but I have never come across anyone that does not have some sort of picture ID. And working in a hospital for many years, I had many occasions to have contact with all races and all income levels and most all of them had some kind of picture ID.
I think this is the Dem’s telling another boogy man story.
My mother never had picture ID because she never drove. When she wanted a new credit card at J C Penny they wouldn’t give her one without picture ID. They lost her buisness.
She wouldn’t have been able to vote the first year ID was required because a) she wouldn’t have known about it. I saw several people at the polls who had to go back to the car, or back home, and get their license (some may have given up – see below) the first year it was in effect in Ohio. b) she, being turned away, would have not asked whoever took her to the poll, to then take her home to get a SS statement (if she could find it in time), and take her back to the poll. She would have thought that a terrible imposition. It would have been. Both the poll requirement, and the ride.
I’m glad she never had to face this in her 93 years of living in Ohio. If there was a real problem, it could be solved; but voter fraud has been proved to be as the cartoon portrays – an imaginary friend for the GOP.
It is odd that the number of blacks being purged is so much higher than any other group. One would connect Republican governors with such purging if one wished to consider the exercise racist, but what governor would do such a thing? Surely it would be noticed. For the difference in numbers by race, here is a study done by the Brennen Center for Justice – again.
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/voter_purges/
Voter fraud is a very real problem, even the Supreme Court has spoken on it.
http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/is-voter-fraud-a-real-problem/voter-fraud-is-a-proven-election-manipulation-tactic
Serious people don’t deny that it exists. To many incidents have occurred and too many people have been convicted to not admit it does. Serious people who are against the GOPs measures argue that while it exists it isn’t really a problem; more insignificant background “noise” to an election. Of course given that most of it occurs out of sight in poor neighborhoods we only know how bad it gets after investigations.
I wouldn’t say that its racism dictating these GOP policies, but rather their appreciation for demographics. Minorities tend to not vote GOP. That IS because of GOP racist trends though
Some context to the Supreme Court Indiana ruling.
The only kind of voter fraud that (Indiana)SEA 483 addresses is in-person voter impersonation at polling places. The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history. Moreover, petitioners argue that provisions of the Indiana Criminal Code punishing such conduct as a felony provide adequate protection against the risk that such conduct will occur in the future.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/court-upholds-indiana-voter-id-law
The actual incidence of voter fraud in Indiana was only tangentially relevant to the validity of the law, the court ruled. While no evidence of fraud was included in the record by the respondents, “flagrant examples of such fraud in other parts of the country have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists,” including examples in Indiana itself.
It was therefore unnecessary for Indiana to show that the law responded to documented cases of voter fraud that it would attempt to prevent or penalize. The very real possibility that fraud could occur – demonstrated by the fact that it had occurred elsewhere – was sufficient rationale for the law. (My emphasis)
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/28/revisiting-the-supreme-courts-rebuttal-of-voter-id-detractors/
[Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.
Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?_r=1&sq=voter%20fraud&st=nyt&scp=3&pagewanted=all
So, because it used to occur, but doesn’t now occur, we need to do something to stop its possibly occurring in the future even if it means stopping legal citizens from being able to vote – not by requiring IDs but by purging voter rolls with incorrect information.
Again from the Brennan center.
In 2004, for example, Florida planned to remove 48,000 “suspected felons” from its voter rolls. Many of those identified were in fact eligible to vote. The flawed process generated a list of 22,000 African Americans to be purged, but only 61 voters with Hispanic surnames, notwithstanding Florida’s sizable Hispanic population.
This year they are concentrating on Hispanics. More than 60% of those erroneously purged in Florida were Hispanic.