Category Archives: Voter Supression

April 24, 2013 · 6:49 AM

Conservative Group Photoshops Out Minorities In Mailer Opposing Pro-Voting Legislation

Speechless…

Think Progress

A conservative group connected to Colorado’s Secretary of State has been sending political mailers — including a picture of a darker-skinned woman whose face was digitally removed and replaced with a white woman’s face — in an attempt to oppose a landmark voting bill that may soon become law.

Colorado is currently considering a major piece of legislation to improve the state’s voting laws by implementing Election Day Registration, automatically sending mail ballots to every voter, and creating a real-time voter database to detect and prevent fraud. It passed the House last week and will now be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a frequent speaker at True The Vote events who uses his perch to warn about the supposed threat of voter fraud, is leading opposition to the bill, which is supported by a number of Republican County Clerks and the Colorado County Clerks Association.

Now, a dark money group named the “Citizens for Free and Fair Elections”, which lists its address as that of Gessler’s former firm, the Hackstaff Law Group, is sending out photoshopped mailers in an attempt to pressure the election clerks into switching their position.

Here is the mailer:

The mailer’s background was taken from the following Getty Images photo:

Except for two key differences. The original photo included a darker-skinned woman in a white hoodie sweatshirt, but the altered version in the mailer took out her face and replaced it with the exact same face of the white woman standing alongside. In addition, a dark-skinned man standing behind her in the photo was removed from the mailer entirely.

ColoradoPols, the first site to catch the photoshop job, shows the two side-by-side:

Gessler, in a statement released Sunday evening, denied involvement in the matter.

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January 29, 2013 · 12:15 AM

Virginia Electoral College Rigging Scheme Would Further Disenfranchise Minority Voters

History will not look kindly upon these types of proposals nor the people who support them…

Think Progress

As the Virginia Senate’s Privileges and Elections Committee prepares to take up a bill to rig bill the state’s electoral college vote, Democrats and even Republicans are distancing themselves from the effort, calling it “a bad idea,” “skewing,” and a “partisan bill aimed at defying the will of the voters.” A Think Progress analysis of Virginia voter demographics reveals another major flaw with the proposal: it would significantly dilute the influence of minority voters.

The 2012 Virginia Congressional maps, authored by Delegate Robert Bell (R) based on the 2010 U.S. Census, divided the state’s estimated 8,001,024 people into 11 Congressional districts. Though the state population is more than 20 percent African American — and more than 31 percent non-white — just one Congressional district contains a majority of non-white voters (the Third District, which is majority African American). Though white non-Hispanic Virginians makeup just 68.6 percent of the population, they comprise at least 58 percent of the population in all of the other 10 districts.

While many of the electoral college-rigging schemes being pushed by Republicans nationally would still allocate two electors based on the popular winner in the state — the Virginia plan would not even do that. State Sen. Charles “Bill” Carrico Sr.’s Senate Bill 723 would allocate 11 electors based on the popular winner in each of the House districts and two to whichever candidate won the majority of those gerrymandered House districts.

So, with more than one-fifth of the population, African American Virginians would go from having about 20 percent of the say to just controlling one-thirteenth of the state’s electoral votes under the Carrico plan. And racial minority voters overall would go from having about 31 percent of the say, to also controlling just 7.7 percent of the state’s electors.

And while African American voters would of course have some say in districts where they do not make up a majority, more than a quarter of them them are packed into the 3rd district, meaning the remaining 73 percent would be in districts where they comprised, on average, just about 16 percent of the population. This would be a significant retrogression of influence for minority voters. Given Virginia’s history of racial discrimination and the fact that much of the state remains a Voting Rights Act covered jurisdiction, this maneuver might well be not just anti-democratic, but also illegal.

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August 15, 2012 · 1:28 PM

Rick Scott Vows New Voter Purge In Florida Before Election

Florida Secretary of State Rick Detzner

A comprehensive report was just released yesterday concluded that “voter fraud” is virtually non-existent.  The proverbial cat is out of the bag and yet Governor Rick Scot of Florida has decided to do yet another purge on “ineligible” voters.

Think Progress

Gov. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) handpicked Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced on Tuesday that the administration will soon begin another voter purgeto remove “ineligible” voters from the rolls before the November 6 election. Florida county election supervisors remain weary of the effort, however, telling ThinkProgress that they may not have enough time to implement the purge.

 

Last month the U.S. Department of Homeland Security agreed to a request from Florida and other states to allow them to compare voter rolls against the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. Though it is unclear how this list can logistically be used by the states, Detzner told elections supervisors the state would be developing a list of names   for “additional actions in accordance with applicable laws.”

But even if Scott’s purge survives multiple lawsuits challenges its timing and legality, the mechanics of removing people from the voting rolls between now and the November elections may render Detzner’s efforts moot.

Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall (R) told ThinkProgress that she has received no communication from the state whatsoever and does not see how she would have time to carry out the effort:

The law hasn’t changed for the process we have to go through. You’re looking at the letter going out [to those identified by the state as potentially non-citizen voters], then they get 30 days to respond, [then the county would] advertise the names in the paper, [and after that it would require an additional] 30 days to remove [the voters] from the records. I don’t think we can do it. Physically, I don’t think we can do it. That doesn’t mean we can’t check to see after the election [if any non-citizens voted]… I don’t want anyone on the books who isn’t eligible, but that’s what the odd-numbered years are for.

In other words, it would take at least 60 days between when the counties sent out letters and when the counties could remove any voters from the rolls. With the election just 83 days away, that does not leave much time.

Continue reading here…

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June 22, 2012 · 4:11 PM

Partisan Republicans Aggressively Seeking To Become Election Officials In Florida

I wonder why they’re aggressively seeking to become election officials in Florida?  Could it be because Romney must win Florida to have a chance at winning the Presidency?

I cannot believe how blatant and desperate Republicans in Florida have been on so many issues, but especially voter suppression…

Think Progress

Republican lawmakers in states like Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin have spent the last several months introducing and, in some cases, passing laws designed to suppress largely Democratic voters ahead of the general election.

Nowhere have these efforts advanced further than in Florida, where Governor Rick Scott has defied the Department of Justice’s order to cease his highly controversial and ineffective voter roll purge, in which hundreds of eligible voters—including many Latinos and self-idenitified Democrats—have been booted from the rolls.

All of this has succeeded in politicizing the most impregnable institution of democracy: elections.

The Herald-Tribune in Sarasota, Florida reports that election supervisors, long considered dull administrative desk jobs with little to no influence on policy, have become hotly contested jobs, attracting political heavyweights in some counties along the state’s West Coast:

• In Sarasota County, three-term county commissioner Jon Thaxton, a Republican, is challenging supervisor Kathy Dent.

• In Manatee County, state Sen. Mike Bennett, a Bradenton developer known for antagonizing Democrats in Tallahassee, is banking that his decade of name recognition will help him succeed retiring supervisor of elections Bob Sweat.

• In Charlotte County, former four-term county commissioner Adam Cummings is looking to unseat first-term incumbent Paul Stamoulis.

• In Hillsborough County, former state Rep. Rich Gloriso, a Republican, passed up an opportunity to run for the state Senate to instead run for supervisor of elections.

The trend is troubling, and could perhaps signal the next front in an ever-expanding political battlefield. Already, a handful of isolated Election Day incidents—most notably Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus’ botched 2011 special election in Wisconsin—have stirred controversy.

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June 13, 2012 · 12:52 AM

GOP Front Group Suing States To Force Voter Purges

A screen shot from True the Vote’s website

This is going to get uglier than it already is.   For instance, Florida is a swing state and Romney must win Florida to even be in the running.  I suspect this is why they are playing hardball with the voter purge there and in several other states as well.

Think Progress

A Tea Party group is suing states to try to purge their voter rolls before November’s election. True the Vote, an arm of the King Street Patriots, has filed a suit against the state of Indiana, alleging that the state has poor “list maintenance” of its voters.

This suit kicks off a series of state-focused attempts by True the Vote, serving as a co-plaintiff with the conservative “watchdog” group Judicial Watch, to limit voter turnout this election season. Voter purges may be presented under the guise of fairer elections, but the idea of “cleaning” a list usually results in legal voters — overwhelmingly voters of color — being kicked off the rolls.

True the Vote’s agenda is clearly political, as can be evidenced from their website that lists Wisconsin’s recall election as a ‘victory’ (despite day-of claims of voter fraud) and Florida as an upcoming target. Other states on the list for lawsuits include more than half are swing states in play this election season:

According to a Judicial Watch investigation voter rolls in the following states appear to contain the names of individuals who are ineligible to vote:Mississippi, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Florida, Alabama, and California. As part of its 2012 Election Integrity Project, Judicial Watch has put these states on notice that they must clean up their voter registration lists or face Judicial Watch lawsuits.

The Obama Justice Department has failed to enforce Section 8 the NVRA in court, having last filed a lawsuit to enforce voter list maintenance requirements of the NVRA in 2007. The current DOJ it is now opposing Florida’s Section 8 efforts to remove non-citizens from the voting rolls.

“This lawsuit is a historic step in restoring integrity to the American system of electing its leaders,” stated True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht.“Dirty election rolls can lead to election fraud and stolen elections.”

Attempts at “list management” aren’t quite as clear-cut as the press release makes it out to be. Florida’s recent tussles over voter rolls have resulted in voter suppression efforts — though it was technically aimed at non-citizens, those kicked off the rolls included two 90-plus world war two veterans. But while those voters were purged under the banner of protecting elections, fraud in the state is still less likely than getting hit by lighting.

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May 31, 2012 · 6:38 PM

BREAKING: Federal Judge Blocks Florida Voter Suppression Law

Thank goodness…

Think Progress

A federal judge blocked much of Florida’s year-old voter suppression law today as an unconstitutional infringement on speech and voting rights.

Last year, the Republican-held Florida legislature passed HB 1355, which imposed harsh new restrictions on third-party voter registration groups, requiring them to turn in completed registration forms 48 hours — to the minute — after completion, or face fines. Outside groups often register hundreds of people at a time and, before this law, had used a quality-control process that took days to ensure the accuracy of submitted forms. With the onerous restrictions now in place, some groups like the League of Women Voters were ultimately forced to cease registration drives in the Sunshine State.

In blocking the new law, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle wrote:

The statute and rule impose a harsh and impractical 48-hour deadline for an organization to deliver applications to a voter registration office and effectively prohibit an organization from mailing applications in. And the statute and rule impose burdensome record-keeping and reporting requirements that serve little if any purpose, thus rendering them unconstitutional even to the extent they do not violate the NVRA. [...]

The plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm if an injunction is not issued, first because the denial of a right of this magnitude under circumstances like these almost always inflicts irreparable harm, and second because when a plaintiff loses an opportunity to register a voter, the opportunity is gone forever.

Though state judges and the Department of Justice have already taken steps to prevent voter disenfranchisement, Hinkle’s decision is the first time a federal court has blocked one of the most recent round of state voter suppression laws.

Voters have already begun to experience the effects of new anti-voting laws. Minority voter registration is down significantly from the 2008 election. Among Latinos nationwide, voter registration has dropped five percent; for blacks, registration rates are down seven percent.

New York University’s Brennan Center, which studies voting rights issues, hailed the decision. “Florida’s law and others approved in the past year represent the most significant cutback in voting rights in decades,” said director Wendy Weiser. “Today’s decision will help turn the tide.”

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May 30, 2012 · 9:15 AM

Virtual Blackout From National Media On Voter Suppression In Florida

In 2000, Florida was the deciding factor in the Presidential race.  Both candidates were neck and neck with the vote tallies.  Complaints of voter intimidation by then Secretary of State, Katherine Harris who purged over 170,000 people as “convicted felons”.  The actual number of felons on the list was less than 60,0000.  This means that 110,000 innocent people (registered Democrats) lost their vote that day.  A number that would have pushed Al Gore over the top.

The same thing is being done in Florida today.  However, this time it’s not about felons, it’s about  citizenship “eligibility”.

George W. Bush (W)  2,912,790  -  Republican 

Al Gore                       2,912,253       Stats: Wikipedia

Think Progress

Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) has directed his administration to purge the state’s voting rolls of thousands of registered voters prior to the November election. But his list, which purports to include only “non-citizens,” targets mostly Democrats and Hispanics and, as ThinkProgress hasdocumented, may disenfranchise hundreds of citizens who are eligible to vote.

The story of a sitting governor of a state with a history of presidential election shenanigansknowingly purging his own, eligible constituents from the voter rolls is the definition of major news, and yet remarkably, in the first five months of the year, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today have published a total of zero articles about Scott’s actions. The New York Times did slightly better, printing one story on page 16 of the Friday, May 18th edition. The article ran under the credulous headline: “Florida Steps Up Effort Against Illegal Voters.”

Florida’s local newspapers, led by The Miami Herald, have been far more diligent in reporting the governor’s effort to disenfranchise eligible voters. While it may be easy to dismiss this as local fare, the implications of Scott’s purge could potentially swing the presidential election come November. Remember, months before anyone had ever heard of hanging chads, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (R) conducted a similar cleansing of the voter rolls in 2000, which resulted in thousands of eligible voters being knocked off the rolls in time for the infamous Gore v. Bush election.

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March 29, 2012 · 4:07 PM

Santorum To ThinkProgress: ‘The Only Reason You Don’t Have A Voter ID Is You Want To Continue To Perpetrate Fraud’

Think Progress

To Rick Santorum, the more than 23 million  American voters who don’t have a government-issued photo ID aren’t potential victims of disenfranchisement. The presidential hopeful uses a different name: perpetrators of fraud.

ThinkProgress spoke with the Republican presidential hopeful about voter ID laws — which require that citizens present a certain form of photo identification or they are barred from voting — during a campaign stop in Milwaukee last weekend. Santorum said that he supports such laws because, as he states it, “the only reason you don’t have a voter ID is you want to continue to perpetrate fraud.” He went on to dismiss the notion that anyone might not have access to a voter ID, saying that “it’s not a problem.”

KEYES: Voter ID has been a big issue here in Wisconsin. I know Lindsey Graham has proposed a national voter ID law. Is that something you would sign as president?

SANTORUM: I think that’s a state issue. I support voter ID. In my opinion, the only reason you don’t have a voter ID is you want to continue to perpetrate fraud.

KEYES: What about folks who don’t have access to a voter ID though?

SANTORUM: As you know, in every state they allow free access to free voter ID, so it’s not a problem.

Watch it:

Santorum’s claim falls somewhere in the murky world between audacity and lunacy. More thanone in ten Americans lack a government-issued photo ID. These people are not committing voter fraud — indeed, voter fraud is rarer than getting struck by lightning — they are potentially having their right to vote stripped away. Santorum appears to have confused the disenfranchisees with the disenfranchisers.

Continue reading here…

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February 12, 2012 · 1:50 AM

This week in the War on Voting: South Dakota’s shameful legacy continues

Daily Kos

The ACLU highlights just one story from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, one story that demonstrates the plight of hundreds of voters in the state.

South Dakota is trying to prevent Eileen Janis — and hundreds of other citizens — from voting.
Eileen grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and does suicide prevention work. She registered to vote for the first time in 1984. “I always vote because my mom told me to,” she says.But when she went to cast her ballot in the historic 2008 election, she found that she had been illegally removed from the voter rolls. Though she had been convicted of a felony, her sentence to probation meant that she had not lost the right to cast a ballot. “I went [to vote] with my son who had just turned 18. As soon as I tried to vote I was told no because I was a felon.”

South Dakota has a long and shameful history of disenfranchising Native Americans, so Ms. Janis’s story is far from unique. The ACLU sued on behalf of Janis and other disenfranchised South Dakotans and won. Which, of course, isn’t the end of the story. Here at Daily Kos, robbinsdale radical alerted us to the South Dakota legislature’s efforts to deny the franchise to those with criminal convictions, even those who were never sentenced to jail time. Native Americans are disproportionately represented in the South Dakota criminal system, and this effort would hit them particularly hard.

The ACLU tells how to take action:

Tell the DOJ to protect the right to vote in South Dakota and across the nation. Andurge Congress to pass the Democracy Restoration Act, which would let Eileen—and all Americans with past convictions who are living in their communities—vote in federal elections.

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