In the audio recording below, a famous Republican voice explained her position on women voters – they shouldn’t be allowed to vote at all.
“If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat [sic] president,” the Republican said. She then goes on to explain that taking away women’s right to vote is a “personal fantasy” of hers.
Listen.
There are numerous examples where Rand Paul supported or supports – depending on the time of day – the Republicans effort to suppress the vote through voter I’D measures.
That of course is not the news.
What made news was an apparent effort by the senator to distance himself from his fellow Republicans when he said that those in favor of voter restrictions should step back from marking it a central part of their platform.
“I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people,” he said.
Paul then goes on Hannity to sooth the base of the Republican party by reaffirming that he is in fact, in favor of voter ID laws, and that his original flip flop on the issue was “overblown.” The country’s drug policies have a restrictive effect on the minority vote, he said, while the GOP’s voter ID efforts may not.
Paul added that if the Republican Party is making voter ID a “central theme and issue,” his colleagues must be sensitive to how some minority voters will perceive those efforts as an attempt to shut them out of the voting process.
“I’m trying to go out and say to African-Americans ‘I want your vote, and the Republican Party wants your vote’ … we have to be aware that the perception is out there and be careful about not so overdoing something that we further alienate a block of people that we need to attract,” he said.
The New York Times is reporting that pivotal swing states under Republican control are embracing significant new electoral restrictions on registering and voting that go beyond the voter identification requirements that have caused fierce partisan brawls. The bills, laws and administrative rules — some of them tried before — shake up fundamental components of state election systems, including the days and times polls are open and the locations where people vote.
In all, nine states have passed measures making it harder to vote since the beginning of 2013. Most have to do with voter ID laws. Other states are considering mandating proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate or a passport, after a federal court judge recently upheld such laws passed in Arizona and Kansas. Because many poor people do not have either and because documents can take time and money to obtain, Democrats say the ruling makes it far more difficult for people to register.
If your wife is planning a run for the presidency and the opposition has an in your face effort to suppress the vote, you would do whatever you can – legally of course – to make sure that she gets a fair shot at winning. And you wouldn’t wait until she announce her intention to run.
You’ll get on the ball as soon as possible, explaining to all that what the opposition is trying to do is wrong. You’ll go on the offense. You’ll fight!
Bill Clinton has began the fight. Realizing that his wife would need a supportive Congress, the former president has already been on the campaign trail, supporting other like minded Democratic candidates, and now this – an ad painting out how the opposition is trying to suppress the vote.
For all those wondering if Hillary was going to run for president, wonder no more.
Video
Former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright (D) was denied a Photo ID for voting purposes in Texas over the weekend by the state’s Department of Public Safety (DPS).
The 90-year old Wright, who is lucky enough to have an assistant to drive him to and from the DPS office, says that while he believes he’ll be able to get an ID in time to vote in this Tuesday’s election, he’s concerned the state’s “unduly stringent requirements on voters” will reduce turnout.
According to the Star-Telegram, Wright’s driver’s license expired in 2010 and — because he no longer drives — he didn’t bother to renew it. That expired license, he learned Saturday, is not good enough to obtain a Photo ID to vote under the law TX Republicans passed in 2011. That law will be in effect, for the first time, on Tuesday. The state statute had previously been nixed just last year by the U.S. Dept. of Justice and by a 3-judge federal court panel after being found discriminatory, in violation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), as based on statistics supplied by the state itself.
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court gutting a key provision of the VRA over the summer, however, Texas announced the law would finally be enforced for the upcoming election.
Wright is hardly the only well known figure to be stung so far by the Lone Star State Republicans’ purposely disenfranchising law. And the hoops that many voters — even ones like Wright, who says he’s voted in every single election since 1944 — must now jump through in order to have a chance at their vote even being counted at all, is remarkable…
Last month in Corpus Christi, for example, 117th District Court Judge Sandra Watts was forced to sign an affidavit when trying to vote early, after the name on her driver’s license didn’t match the one she was registered under. Her driver’s license included her maiden name as her middle name, as once required by Texas law, but her voter registration didn’t. “What I have used for voter registration and for identification for the last 52 years was not sufficient yesterday when I went to vote,” she explained to local media. The name on her license had been the same for 52 years, and she’s voted in every election for the last 49. “This is the first time I’ve ever had a problem voting,” she said.
Another story in the Republicans fight to take away your voting rights. And this time, the truth about their real reason for implementing voter ID and other voting restrictions is once again told.
In an interview on Comedy Central, North Carolina Republican official Don Yelton said that the changes Republicans are making would have the intended effect of taking votes away from Democrats. To quote Mr Yelton, voter ID laws “is going to kick the Democrats in the butt.”
In the interview, which aired Wednesday night, Yelton tells Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi that the new voting law, which mandates voter identifications, the curtailing of early voting operations and does not allow college students to vote using their school ID, “is going to kick the Democrats in the butt.”
He also dismisses concerns that the law will particularly affect communities of color by saying, “If it hurts a bunch of lazy Blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it.”
Don was fired from his job after making his statements in the interview, but he is saying that if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn’t change a thing.
It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. It’s also apparently hard to teach an old racist to be tolerant.
Despite the fact that he and his party are doing all they can to suppress the votes of African Americas and Latinos.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a tea party senator with a long history of opposition to civil rights laws, told an audience in Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday that there is no evidence of black voters being excluded from the franchise. According to local NPR host Phillip Bailey, Paul said that he does not believe “there is any particular evidence of polls barring African Americans from voting,” during a speech to the non-partisan Louisville Forum.
If Paul is not aware of the evidence indicating widespread efforts to prevent African Americans from voting, then he must not be looking very hard. During the 2012 election, black and Hispanic voters waited nearly twice as long to cast a ballot as white voters. In Florida, lines of up to six hours led an estimated 201,000 people to become frustrated and leave the polls.
These lines existed largely because of a voter suppression bill signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) which reduced early voting hours in the state. After the election, top Republicans admitted that the purpose of cutting early voting was to reduce Democratic turnout.
One Republican operative conceded that early voting was cut on the Sunday proceeding Election Day because “that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves.”
Get a clue Paul! You’re blinded by your own politics.
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that if soldiers from Ohio can cast ballots ahead of time, everyone else should have the same opportunity.
The court said that the state had not shown compelling evidence for why only one group should be permitted to cast ballots on the three days before Election Day. The decision, strongly advocated by the Obama campaign, will likely lead to more ballots cast from poor and elderly voters.
There is no word yet on whether the swing state will appeal the decision.
After previously trying to restrict early voting, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) today reversed course on his decision to block county boards of elections from setting their own early voting hours in the days leading up to the November election.
Last month, Husted and Ohio Republicans led an effort to limit early voting hours in Democratic counties, including those with major cities like Columbus and Cleveland, while expanding early voting in Republican counties. After the ensuing uproar, Husted moved to restrict voting hours across the state, only to have his cuts to early voting restored by a federal court.
Husted responded to the ruling by refusing to comply with the court order. Expanding voting hours, he claimed in Directive 2012-40, will “only serve to confuse voters.” Therefore, the directive read, he was “prohibit[ing] county boards of elections from determining hours for the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday before the election.” The move led Judge Peter Economus to set a hearing for September 13: “The Court ORDERS that Defendant Secretary of State Jon Husted personally attend the hearing,” his release read.
Facing a direct court order, Husted has chosen instead to back down. This afternoon, Husted’s office released Directive 2012-42 with a brief message: “Directive 2012-40 is hereby rescinded.” As a result, county boards of elections will now be allowed to set their own hours, pending Husted’s appeal of the Obama for America v. Husted decision.
h/t: ThinkProgress
Voter ID laws have become a hot-button issue leading up to the November presidential election, pitting state legislatures proposing and sometimes passing such laws against civil rights advocacy organizations who argue the laws are designed to keep minorities from the ballots.
In issuing their 56-page opinion Thursday, the judges wrote that the Texas law likely would have a “retrogressive effect” on the ability of minority voters to cast ballots and said the “implicit costs” of obtaining necessary ID “will fall most heavily on the poor.” The three-judge panel also noted that a disproportionately high percentage of African Americans and Hispanics in Texas live in poverty.
Texas and other proponents of voter ID laws say the measures are necessary to prevent voter impersonation or fraud. Last year, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Wisconsin passed new voter ID laws while Texas,South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee tightened existing laws.
Governors in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina vetoed strict new voter ID laws. This week, South Carolina’s law is on trial in front of a three-judge panel in the same federal courthouse where the Texas law was struck down.
The Republican push to suppress American votes and kill democracy received the go ahead in Pennsylvania today, as a judge refused to stop the new voter ID law. Although lawyers for the Republicans provided no evidence of a voter fraud problem in the state, the law will now be enacted.
Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson said he would not grant an injunction that would have halted the law, which requires each voter to show a valid photo ID. Opponents are expected to file an appeal within a day or two to the state Supreme Court as the Nov. 6 election looms.
“We’re not done, it’s not over,” said Witold J. Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who helped argue the case for the plaintiffs. “It’s why they make appeals courts.”
The Republican-penned law — which passed over the objections of Democrats — has ignited a furious debate over voting rights as Pennsylvania is poised to play a key role in deciding the presidential contest. Plaintiffs, including a 93-year-old woman who recalled marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1960, had asked Simpson to block the law from taking effect in this year’s election as part of a wider challenge to its constitutionality.
Republicans defend the law as necessary to protect the integrity of the election. But Democrats say the law will make it harder for people who lack ID for valid reasons to vote.
Their attempt to suppress the vote in South Carolina with the implementation of voter ID laws, was stopped by the Obama administration, but this is not derailing the Republican governor, Nikki Hailey, as she and her administration promises to take the case to court in the form of a law suit.
“The will of the people was that we want to protect the integrity of the voting process,” Haley said. “And if you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed, if you have to show a picture ID to get on a plane – you should have to show an ID to do that one thing that is so important to us, which is that right to vote.”
Exactly Haley, “the right to vote.” Buying Sudafed or getting on a plane is not a “right.” Voting is, and it is protected by the Constitution. So why exactly are you and your Republican friends trying to put a condition on our rights, rights that are protected by the United States Constitution?
Seems unconstitutional to me Haley. Didn’t you take an oath to uphold the constitution?
