Friday, June 1, 2012

Ihre Papiere, bitte!

http://www.postonpolitics.com/2012/05/florida-voter-registration-restrictions-harsh-and-impractical-federal-judge-rules/

"Well," they always state, "you have to show ID to buy beer, cigarettes or cash a check so, why not show a photo ID to vote?"

Well, because there is dilemma involved in those actions that often result in crime and a photo ID is a good way of attempting to thwart that dilemma/crime.

Voter fraud is not a dilemma. In fact, it's .00004% of all voting. Not much of a dilemma really.

What is a dilemma is republicans losing close races and scrambling to figure out how they can gain an edge in those close races. When you are stuck running a Mitt Romney- a guy your own base doesn't really like- you have to scramble a bit to help your cause. So, to that end, you try and make folks believe that voter fraud is rampant!

It's not. That .00004% figure is real. Most cases of voter fraud turn out to be clerical errors. Someone moved and didn't change their address- things of that nature.

Our voting process isn't broken so, why fuck with it? The answer is to thwart likely democratic voters. These include young people, blacks and seniors. Part and parcel of this non-issue of the dire necessity of photo IDs has also been to restrict early voting and absentee ballots. This is where students and seniors factor in. If a kid lives in Illinois but attends school out west, he or she may not be able to afford to travel home just to vote in an election. Troops overseas as well. Old folks love early voting as it is a convenience. And many city dwellers do not drive. And they are also people of color. And all these people tend to have the common denominator of being likely democratic voters.

THAT is the dilemma. Fraud doesn't have a damn thing to do with it. You lose a race by a mere 5,000 votes or you barely win by the same, you do whatever you can to make sure that doesn't happen again. The link above shows the depraved politics of it all. A 48 hour window to turn in registrations? Really? Why?

Hoops are one thing. Flaming hoops are another. It wasn't that long ago that our Southern states had poll taxes and literacy tests and the like to specifically inhibit Blacks from voting. I see people talking about bringing that back, saying only homeowners should vote...landowners...you should have to pass a test....

Oh, NOT to exclude Blacks, of course. Just simply, people who  have land and the intelligence to vote have earned the right to vote and have more of a vested interest in our country than renters, I guess.

Suddenly, voting is a privilege?

It's been years for me but, you prove who you are on the front end when you register. After that, you vote in your precinct amongst your friends and neighbors and your signature is examined by someone you likely already know and you vote. It isn't like buying cigarettes or beer. You can buy those things at thousands of places. You can only vote in one. After the election, votes are examined for discrepancies and fraud. Corrections are made. Some votes might be rejected. Usually it doesn't matter unless the election was close. Later, the results of the election become official. This works, now, better than ever.

This is still America. It's not 1930's Germany. One of the ways we keep it from being Nazi Germany is by voting. Comparing today's republicans with Nazi's has become cliche in way. I can't help it though because these people keep fucking acting like Nazi's when they do these things. Hitler and his minions didn't come right out and tell Germany of their plans to murder six million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and various other "undesirables". Most Germans would have balked at that. You have to ease people into genocide, make them think it's necessary. You know, even later, as the war unraveled Germany, it was still a *secret* because they didn't advertise.

It's what the GOP is NOT telling people now that is most frightening. They're not telling us what their end game is. As long as they do not, they can achieve it. Similar to the recent USSC decision that allows allows any person arrested for any offense to be strip-searched, they've already got their minions saying: "Well, if you don't like it, just don't break the law! DUH!"

It makes you wonder if, back in the day in Germany, similar idiots didn't say: "If you are not Jewish, Gypsy, homosexual (etc.) what do you have to worry about?"

Well, everything, I suspect. Past is prologue.

4 comments:

Sue J said...

So, you have to put your signature on something in order to vote? Our system is obviously different. On reaching the age of 18 we fill in a form available from the post office which puts us on the Electoral Roll. On polling day we attend a polling station within our catchment - usually one of the local schools. When we get to the front of the queue the polling officials cross us off the Electoral Roll, ask us if we've voted anywhere else and then give us the voting paper which they have signed. At no time do we have to put a signature to anything. Voting is anonymous.
I assume that there is some cross-checking of the Electoral Rolls to make sure you haven't voted more than once.
I think I mentioned previously that voting is compulsory here. If you don't vote and don't have a very good reason why, you are fined.

ex-ferrer said...

Oh my! Compulsory voting would NEVER fly here! Voter turnout is habitually low and always something the media complains about. I think republicans count on it though and, thus, the creation of hoops for likely democrat voters. Mobilize your people and stymie the opposition. We vote on Tuesdays which is a problem too. That's when folks are working. There's talk of changing it to Saturday but- again- that would just encourage/enable people to vote. They really want to keep us barefoot and pregnant. Restricting early voting and absentee voting is pretty transparent in intent. The process should ENCOURAGE people rather than annoy them.

Sue J said...

All our voting is done on a Saturday - they use the schools as polling booths. You can do a postal vote if you will be away from your electoral area on voting day and I think there is some arrangement for the housebound too. The schools are open from 8 am until 6 pm.
Voting on a working day seems rather stupid to me. It limits the amount of time to register your vote. Nobody wants to take time off work to vote. Why don't they change it?

ex-ferrer said...

Except for Saturdays, that is how it has been working here. We vote on Tuesdays out of some sort of tradition, I guess. But, how did that tradition start? It dates back to before Unions and 40 hour work weeks and I suspect that then, as now, the idea was to keep as few people voting as possible so each *side* could think they had the best chance of winning. Saturday voting makes so much sense! That's probably why it may never happen. Our voter turn-out usually runs at 50% at best. *They* count on that. The media complains about that. Why on earth would they now add MORE hurdles to the process to discourage even more people from voting unless nefarious forces were behind it all? Austrailia's requirement could catch on if we got excited about the fines and the money-making aspect of that. It's how we think here...