Banana Republicans
by digby
The thing to keep in mind about all this, is that the Republicans are proud of it. They’re bragging about keeping people from voting. I honestly cannot think of anything more undemocratic. I’d like to say it’s un-American, but unfortunately our history shows that it’s as American as apple pie. It’s the only way this particular political faction has ever been able to stay in power for long:
Hundreds of thousands of potential voters here were left scrambling in the wake of Pennsylvania’s voter ID law — enough to prompt speculation as to whether the law could change the outcome of the election in November.
But one thing is clear: The law is already having a dramatic effect on how the election is being waged.
Democrats and their allies, who vehemently oppose the voter ID legislation, are still pinning their hopes on legal challenges to the law. But if the law survives, political organizers in Pennsylvania will have to alter their outreach plans to include identifying, contacting and getting proper identifications for thousands of voters.
“It scares the shit out of us,” Yuri Beckelman, campaign communications director for the AFL-CIO of Pennsylvania, said of the number of voters potentially affected. The union and several other allied groups are forming a statewide coalition aimed at “education and mobilization” around the voter ID law requirements.
The estimated 750,000 voters who do not have state-issued IDs in Pennsylvania surpasses President Obama’s margin of victory in 2008. Many of the voters without ID are in poor and minority communities — typically blocs that vote Democratic. Democrats’ worst fears appeared to be confirmed when the Republican leader of the state House, who helped shepherd the legislation onto the books, recently boasted that it will “allow” Mitt Romney win the Keystone State.
Democrats now have to make sure voters are aware of the law, know whether they comply, know how to meet the requirements if they don’t already — and do it all before Election Day. This could be a steep climb. Only one of five voters approached by TPM at Obama’s Pittsburgh rally Friday knew the law existed.
So the state passes a draconian voter ID law that will affect three quarters of a million potential voters and they aren’t making any effort to reach out to those citizens or help them obtain what they need? No wonder those republicans are so confident they’ve delivered the state to Romney.
This isn’t just happening in Pennsylvania, as you know. Once they succeeded in taking over the state houses in 2010 the Tea soaked GOP passed vote suppression laws and installed wingnuts into election bureaucracies. Here’s a doozy for you:
A funny thing happened to me when I went to vote in our Aug. 7 primary election. The ballot application form I was given included a question asking whether or not I was a citizen of the United States.
I’m guessing that almost anyone who reads this saw the same question.
My reaction to the citizenship question may have been different from yours — I refused to respond to it — but I assure you I wasn’t reacting out of rebelliousness. I did not respond because I believed that there was no statutory authority for the question.
I follow elections and campaign finances for a living, and I was 99% certain that Gov. Rick Snyder had vetoed legislation to put this citizenship reaffirmation on our ballot applications. It seemed to me on Tuesday morning — and still does now — that faithfulness to the rule of law required me to refuse to respond.
When I told the precinct worker my position, he told me that I’d have to respond if I wanted to vote. I chose not to vote under those circumstances.
When I reached my office, I called the Bureau of Elections and confirmed that the bill had been vetoed. Then I called my city clerk’s office and reported that I had been denied a ballot based on my refusal to respond to a question for which there was no statutory authority.
I’ve been told since that the citizenship question was merely an exercise of administrative procedure. The Department of State has a right to design its forms as it sees fit.
Really? They can unilaterally design a form that is not anchored to a law and deny me a vote if I won’t respond to it? This certainly causes me to wonder: What’s the next question going to be?
Good question. Perhaps more importantly, how can it be that the Secretary of State could unilaterally decide to ignore the Governor’s veto? In some countries she would be on the hot seat, call the whole election into question and probably lose her job. But I don’t think we’re one of those countries. Everyone will “get over it.” We don’t “look in the rear-view mirror” here (unless you are a small time drug dealer with a third strike, of course.)
In Michigan they apparently issued new instructions mid-day, but it was chaotic with some precinct not having the question at all, others refusing to obey. This is America. We’ve been at this a long time now. You’d think we’d have a little pride and behave better than a banana republic.