Says Republicans trying to keep people of color from voting
If you want full coverage of Hillary Clinton's closed off appearance at Texas Southern University yesterday (no questions allowed), you need to turn to the British tabloids. They couldn't fill the arena, so they closed off most of it with a blue curtain. (I guess they even had to pump in additional crowd noise.) Naturally, Hillary played racial politics at this historically-black university. Of course, this was the event in which it was announced beforehand that no reporter's questions would be allowed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3111535/Hillary-Clinton-plays-raucous-HALF-arena-black-university-claims-opponents-want-disempower-disenfranchise-people-color.html
How despicable is it for her to tell these young black students that Republicans are trying to keep them from voting? How does she even remain viable as a candidate in the face of these daily embarrassments and scandalous revelations? If this were a Republican, her candidacy will have been laughed out of town by now. If she were a Republican, she would have blamed it all on alcoholism and disappeared into some rehab facility.
How despicable is it for her to tell these young black students that Republicans are trying to keep them from voting?
ReplyDeleteWell, unfortunately, that's true. Given that a majority of American voters vote Democrat, not a large majority, but a majority, the only way Republicans can control the federal government, and any swing state, is gerrymandering and voter suppression.
I don't like gerrymandering, but they both do it. As to actual voter suppression, pls be specific. How have the Republicans tried to suppress votes?
ReplyDeleteWell, there's voter ID, which is a solution in search of a problem. Of the handful of cases in each state where someone actually voted who shouldn't have, I think maybe one could have been solved by requiring each voter to produce voter ID. I work at the polls, and I see all kinds of other problems. Courts have begun to grapple with the fact that for those without ID, who don't have in their possession a copy of their birth certificate, it can be time-consuming and expensive to get one. Basically, the only reason to propose such legislation is to keep some number of people from voting, and most of those excluded are American citizens of age 18 or over who are not currently in prison or on paper. (Those who are -- there are easily referenced lists, and they don't get to register. I've handled those lists too).
ReplyDeleteThen there is the Republican penchant for shortening the number of days for advance voting or absentee voting. IF such measures were rife with fraud, they should be shut down altogether. But the truth is, they facilitate voting by people who have to work all or most of election day, people who have physical disabilities, etc., and they shorten the lines for elections with substantial turnouts. The only logical reason to shorten them, but keep them, is, well this makes too much sense to repeal, but we're going to pare back how effective they are and keep as many people from voting as they can.
Is there a bias to this process? I quote the father of a disabled man in a wheelchair whom I used to pick up for his morning ride to the day program he was enrolled in. The father, retired from a lifetime of factory work, asked me "A guy like you, driving this bus, how can you afford to vote Republican?" True that. I'm not sure I can afford to vote Democrat any more either, but you know when polls are taken about people's confidence in congress? No matter who has a majority, people give Democrats a 15% confidence rating, and Republicans 10%. Nothing much to boast of there. "We're 50 percent more trusted than the Republicans!" Yeah, but that's a very low bar.
Basically, the GOP wants to favor voting by people with prosperous means, not wealthy, but prosperous, who have leisure time and flexibility in their schedules, have an easy time with transportation, etc. That's not 100 percent Republican, but it leans maybe 60/40 or 55/45 that way, and they're not trying to be everyone's darling, just the first across the finish line.
Far be it from me to defend Republicans, but what's the problem with showing your id to vote? You have to show your id to get on a plane, don't you?
ReplyDeleteAnd if you don't think there is such a thing as voter fraud, I give you the Illinois vote in the 1960 election when every corpse in every graveyard in Chicago went to the polls and voted for Kennedy.
How about Loretta Sanchez, who was elected out here in OC against Bob Dornan thanks to the illegals who voted?
How about St Louis in the 2000 election when they closed re-opened closed re-opened the polls that allowed John Ashcroft to be defeated?
How about Minnesota where the missing car with the trunk full of ballots allowed Al Franken to be elected?
Out here in California, if you have a name and address of someone and get to the polls before that person, you can vote and nobody is allowed to ask for ID.
You think ACORN never engaged in voter fraud.
PS: Even James O'keefe got through ACORN's activities.
ReplyDeleteOf 1.3 million voter registrations generated by ACORN in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, some 400,000 (31%, or nearly a third) involved either duplicate names, dual/multiple registrations, or were otherwise fraudulent in some manner. Surely some unknown number, whether large, medium, or small, of the remaining 900,000 were also fraudulent in one way or another (no one is 100% accurate) and resulted in voter fraud by Dems/libs, since ACORN was not registering many, if in fact any, Republicans.
ReplyDeleteAssuming all of those allegations are true Gary, NONE of them would have been prevented by requiring voters to show ID in order to get a ballot.
ReplyDeleteDuplicate names are rather easily caught. There is a single voter list for each ward. Your address mandates which ward you can vote in. I can't begin to tell you how many times, working at the polls, I have looked up an address in a book and told a voter, you have to go to this school at this address, that's where anyone with your address votes.
The main result of the kind of fraud elwood recites is that a bunch of con artists make money off of outfits like ACORN for producing names that will never result in voters. Which is rather stupid on ACORN's part, I agree.
I resent having to show ID at all. The fact that I sometimes have to doesn't make me anxious to extend it to voting.
And by the way, graveyard voters don't have to show ID, they just have to have help from thin pencil Louie.