Tag: voter id

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Politics voter suppression

GOP Official Brags – Voter ID Will “kick Democrats in the butt,” and “Hurt Lazy Blacks”

Don Yelton

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.

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Politics

Republican Governor Rejects Voter ID Laws in Michigan

Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan surprised his fellow Republicans on Tuesday, refusing to sign two bills that would have required voters to show photo identification before obtaining an absentee ballot. The vetoes are an election-year rarity for the party, which has pressed for tougher voter identification laws nationwide.

They were passed by lawmakers two weeks ago. “These reforms will make a good election system even better by adding appropriate safeguards and improving transparency,” Mr. Snyder said. He said the vetoed bills “could create voter confusion among absentee voters.”

Sara Wurfel, a spokeswoman for the governor, said that confusion had to do with a part of the bills that would have made voters check a citizenship box before receiving a ballot. Mr. Snyder suggested that verification of a person’s citizenship should be done only once, when a voter is first registered, she said.

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Politics Voter registration voter suppression

Voter Suppression – The Case Of 96 Year Old Dorothy Cooper

In all her years of voting, 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper from Chattanooga Tennessee never had any issues, in fact, she admits to only missing one election in the last 70 years – the vote for John F. Kennedy in the 60’s, because she moved and couldn’t register in time.

But now we have Republicans who have gone on a rampage, trying to suppress and discourage as many voter from the poor and minority communities as they possibly could. And Dorothy Cooper is now fighting to vote in the 2012 elections.

Mrs. Cooper heard that a voter ID will be required to cast her vote in 2012. She gathered a few pieces of documents  – a rent receipt, her birth certificate, a copy of her lease and her voter registration card, and headed down to her local ID office, only to be turned away without an ID. According to the clerk, she needed to present a marriage certificate showing her last name is Cooper and not Alexander, as it appears on her birth certificate.

“But I don’t have my marriage certificate,” Mrs. Cooper told the clerk, but it was to no avail as she was denied the Voter ID.

Tennessee Department of Safety spokeswoman Dalya Qualls said in a Tuesday email that Cooper’s situation, though unique, could have been handled differently.

“It is department policy that in order to get a photo ID, a citizen must provide documentation that links their name to the documentation that links their name to the document they are using as primary proof of identity,” Qualls said. “In this case, since Ms. Cooper’s birth certificate (her primary proof of identity) and voter registration card were two different names, the examiner was unable to provide the free ID.”

Despite that, Qualls said, “the examiner should have taken extra steps to determine alternative forms of documentation for Ms. Cooper.”

The State has promised to work with Mrs. Cooper, to get her the Voter ID.

Mrs. Cooper’s case will not be an isolated one. As the elections approach, it is expected that this story will be repeated hundreds of thousands of times, as people all across the nation come face to face with these new Republican voting laws. And although Mrs. Cooper is determined to get her voting ID, the same cannot be said about the majority of individuals who already feel disenfranchised and discouraged by the process. These people will eventually pack it up and call it quits, which is exactly what the Republicans are hoping for.

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