Tag: voter id laws

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Politics

Wisconsin Republican Caught Voting for Scott Walker Five Times in One Day

Ah Republicans. You claim Democrats were guilty of voter fraud and you create laws to keep them from going to the polls to vote. But as it turns out, the people committing these frauds are members of your party.

A Wisconsin insurance executive and Republican donor was charged with voting illegally more than a dozen times in four elections.

The Journal-Sentinel reported that 50-year-old Robert Monroe was caught as a result of an investigation into a possible illegal voting by his son in Waukesha County. But after his son denied requesting an absentee ballot from his father’s address in Shorewood, suspicion turned to Monroe.

A complaint claimed that Monroe voted five times in Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) recalled election. He also was accused of voting illegally in a 2011 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, a 2012 primary, and the 2012 presidential election.

Although the complaint did not state who Monroe voted for, WISN determined that he had donated money to Republican state Sen. Alberta Darling.

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Politics voter suppression

Rand Paul Flips, Flops, Then Flips Again on Republican Voter Suppression Efforts

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.

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Politics Republican voter suppression

Republicans Ramp Up Their Voter Suppression Efforts

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.

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Politics

Powell Warns Republicans – Your Voter Suppression Laws Will Backfire

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday predicted that Republican attempts to pass voter ID laws would “backfire” by energizing minorities to vote them out of office.

Powell took aim at efforts on the state legislature level to require that people show photo identification to vote.

“These kinds of procedures that are being put in place to slow the process down and make it likely that fewer Hispanics and African Americans might vote I think are going to backfire, because these people are going to come out and do what they have to to vote, and I encourage that,” Powell said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Following the Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act, Republicans in states like Texas and North Carolina are advancing legislation that would require voters to show photo ID at the polls.

“They claim that there’s widespread abuse and voter fraud, but nothing substantiates that,” Powell said. “There isn’t widespread abuse.”

A Republican who has been increasingly critical of his party in recent years, Powell endorsed President Obama in both 2008 and 2012.

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Politics Texas voter suppression

Federal Judges Strikes Down Voter Suppression Law in Texas

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.

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