Salon.com > voter suppression

GOP consultant: Voter ID, long lines help “our side”

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:35:00 +0000

A Republican consultant admitted that Voter ID laws and long lines at the polls help Republicans win elections, saying that, "A lot of us are campaign officials -- or campaign professionals -- and we want to do everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that's voter ID, sometimes we think that's longer lines -- whatever it may be."

Huffington Post, which first pointed out the comments, reports that Tranter owns Vlytics, a "data consulting" company that was paid more than $3000 by Mitt Romney's campaign.

Could voting irregularities sway the election?

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:36:00 +0000

This is the $6 billion election – the most expensive ever – and yet voters in parts of Florida and other swing states are still having to wait four hours or more to cast their ballots. Households in the biggest battlegrounds have been inundated for weeks by carefully scripted robo-calls, glossy campaign mailers and a blizzard of TV ads – no expense spared -- and yet in far too many places the voting machinery is old, creaky and in short supply. Since the polls opened this morning, there have been reports of machines freezing, misaligning, jamming and awarding votes to the wrong candidates, and of voter disinformation and intimidation, some of it generated directly by the candidates and their campaigns.

In Ohio and Florida, high-profile officials responsible for overseeing the vote weren't shy about showing their naked partisanship, seeking measure after measure – with varying degrees of success – to suppress votes likely to trend Democrat. In at least two states, Iowa and Texas, international election monitors were threatened with arrest if they got too close to a polling station.

How to steal an election

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 20:25:00 +0000

If this year's election is anything like 2008's, by the time the polls close on Tuesday night more than 120 million Americans will have cast a ballot this cycle. But not all of those votes will count. Between two and three million will never even be counted, mostly because they've been "spoiled." Another two and a half million would-be voters will have had their registrations rejected; another half million registered voters will have been purged -- wrongly -- from the rolls; and close to that number will have been turned away from the polls when they tried to vote, in most cases because they lacked an acceptable form of ID. Add it all up, and between five and six million American citizens will have been denied the right to vote.

The disenfranchised millions won't be a random sample of Americans; they'll overwhelmingly be poor and minority voters. And as investigative reporter Greg Palast explains in his latest book, "Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps," they will have been taken out of the game thanks to a coordinated campaign devised by the likes of Karl Rove and funded by America’s super rich -- people like the Koch brothers, hedge fund titan Paul Singer, and Texan corporate raider Harold Simmons, among others — to keep voters, overwhelmingly Democratic voters, from the polls.

Election Day registration: The anti-voter ID

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 20:15:00 +0000

"Voter ID" has become the GOP's weapon of choice in the fight to keep Democrats from voting, but progressives may have found an answer: Election Day registration.

Virtually unknown two years ago, voter ID laws, which require citizens to present a certain form of government-issued photo identification at the polls, came into vogue when Republicans used their electoral gains in 2010 to pass them in states from Texas to Wisconsin to South Carolina. Approximately one in 10 potential voters in these states lack photo ID, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, without which they will not be able to cast a ballot in November. Studies have found that minorities, college students and poor voters -- groups that tend to vote Democratic -- will be disproportionately impacted by these new laws.

How GOP voter suppression could win Florida for Romney

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:55:00 +0000

You might think being responsible for arguably the worst election debacle in American history, in 2000, would have spurred Florida's politicians to make the state the nation’s model for excellence in election administration. But in the past few years state Republicans, from Gov. Rick Scott on down, have worked tirelessly to come up with ways to limit the number of voters -- overwhelmingly, Democratic voters -- able to cast ballots on Nov. 6. And, with President Obama and Mitt Romney effectively tied for the state's crucial 29 electoral votes, these restrictions could end up determining who wins the presidency. In 2000, the contest came down to 537 votes; the number of people who may already have been left out of the process or will be by election day dwarfs that number many times over.

The election that won’t end

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:44:00 +0000

Are you enjoying this election? If so, I have some good news: We as a nation will definitely continue arguing about it long after it finishes in two weeks. (If it manages to finish in one night!)

Here's the landscape two weeks out: Every conservative either believes or has decided to claim to believe that Romney is winning. He's running away with this thing, all the momentum's on his side, he's obviously closing the deal, etc. The Drudge splash all day has been an Obama picture headlined "NEEDS A MIRACLE" (then you click through to an AP story that does not have anything in it about Obama "needing a miracle"). The liberals, though, have decided that Romney is bluffing, faking confidence, and that he's aided in this by a press that is wedded to a "Romney's unstoppable momentum" narrative. (See: Mike Tomasky, Alec MacGillis, Jonathan Chait.) Statistically, the polls are split nationally and Obama retains a small but significant lead in enough states to win reelection. Nate Silver says the president has a 70 percent chance of winning, well down from his peak, but still better odds than Silver's model gave him in parts of July and August.

Six fixes for American democracy

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:57:00 +0000

 As the 2012 election crests with all its chaos — billionaire-driven TV ad wars, legal fights over voter suppression tactics, endless fundraising e-mails and worries about stealing the vote — progressives need to remember what’s been destroying our democracy and what solutions are needed to restore the balance of power in America.

Now is the time to note precisely what’s wrong, what’s gotten worse and what’s completely broken in key corners of the electoral process. That’s because once the dust settles after Election Day, the impetus to fix things will wane among the political victors, media and much of the public, as it does after every big election. The winners will say there is not a problem because they won. The press will start covering the new administration. And weary voters will want to look ahead to solutions, not back to old problems.

Will voter suppression and dirty tricks swing the election?

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:50:00 +0000

On Thursday of last week, Virginia authorities charged a man working for the Republican Party with dumping the voter registration forms of Democrats. In Albertis, Pa., authorities arrested the town’s 19-year-old Democratic city council member after he allegedly stole yard signs of his Republican opponent. In minority urban areas of Ohio and Wisconsin, an anonymous group has paid Clear Channel (owned in part by Mitt Romney's former company Bain Capital) to put up billboards proclaiming that “Voter Fraud Is a Felony.” And a Tea Party-affiliated group, True the Vote, is promising to send observers into polling places in Democratic areas, leading Democrats to cry voter intimidation.

If ballots were bullets

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:00:00 +0000

What if politicians began enacting and enforcing a spate of laws across the country that prevented millions of law-abiding citizens from buying guns in order to stop criminals from getting their hands on weapons? Would Second Amendment advocates remain silent?

That’s what is happening in America in 2012 -- except, instead of keeping millions of Americans from exercising their right to bear arms, Republican legislators, governors and secretaries of state are trying to stop millions of Americans from exercising their right to vote. Yet those who would never tolerate any curtailment of gun rights have raised nary a peep about this assault on voting rights.

Under the excuse of preventing “voter fraud,” Republican state officials are vigorously pushing voter ID laws that will make it harder -- and in some cases, virtually impossible -- for certain citizens to vote. These laws -- which require voters to show a state-issued photo ID that many Americans don’t have and will have great difficulty obtaining -- could bar 3.2 million eligible and legally registered voters from voting in the next election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan think tank.

Nine most racist moments of the 2012 election

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 13:26:00 +0000

The son of a Wisconsin candidate for Senate turned heads over the weekend when he indulged in a favorite Republican pastime: appealing to racism to get out the vote. But that moment was only the latest in a campaign chock full of race-bating appeals and utterances the Republican Party has been using to try to defeat Democrats.

The subtle appeals to racism, reminiscent of President Nixon's "Southern Strategy," help pave the way for the more outrageous forms of blatant racism.

From the coded appeals to the blatant manifestations, here are 9 racist things that have happened during the 2012 election campaign.

1. Wisconsin Senate Candidate's Son: We Can Send Obama ‘Back to Kenya’

The website Buzzfeed reports that yesterday morning, Jason Thompson told a crowd of supporters at a brunch that “we have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago — or Kenya.” Thompson is the son of former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, who is now running for Senate. In attendance at the brunch was Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Court will hear Ariz. case on voter registration

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:43:00 +0000

The Supreme Court will take up an appeal from Arizona over its requirement that people prove they are American citizens before registering to vote.

The justices on Monday said they will review a federal appeals court ruling that blocked the law in some instances.

A 12-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said that federal law trumps the Arizona requirement. Federal law allows voters to fill out a mail-in voter registration card and swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, but it doesn't require them to show proof as Arizona's 2004 law does.

The ruling applies only to people who seek to register using the federal mail-in form. Arizona has its own form and an online system to register when renewing a driver's license. The court ruling did not affect proof of citizenship requirements using the state forms.

Arizona officials have said most people use those methods and the state form is what county officials give people to use to register. But voting rights advocates had hoped the 9th Circuit decision would make the federal mail-in card more popular because it's more convenient than mailing in a state form with a photocopy of proof of citizenship.

Karl Rove tied to shady GOP operative Nathan Sproul?

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Congressman Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas) has written GOP party boss Karl Rove a letter demanding that Rove, co-founder of the conservative super PAC American Crossroads, explain his ties to a Republican operative who has been accused of electoral misconduct and voter registration fraud.

The letter, coming less than a month before the upcoming presidential election, comes at a time when increasing attention is being given to the issue of voter suppression, a technique that played a key role in Karl Rove’s victorious 2004 campaign that reelected George Bush.

This time the operative in question is Nathan Sproul, who, with his company, Strategic Allied Consulting, has been accused of electoral misconduct and voter registration fraud. Sproul’s company allegedly collected fraudulent voter registration forms, some of which had the addresses of existing Democratic voters changed so that the validity of their registration might be challenged on Election Day. His company has been hired by the Republicans to work in seven battleground states—Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Ohio. In some states, he also appears to be working under the name Issue Advocacy Partners.

Voting groups demand New Mexico suppression probe

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:40:00 +0000

Last week, we reported on a potential voter suppression effort in Sandoval County, N.M., in which Republican officials trained activists to challenge voters’ rights to cast a ballot at the polls based on faulty information. A secretly recorded video of the training, along with a briefing manual, showed that GOP officials were misrepresenting the state’s election law in a way that could lead to “situations of voter intimidation [or] unequal treatment of voters,” an election official in the state told Salon.

Today, voting-rights groups are taking action, sending a letter to New Mexico Secretary of State Dianna Duran, the state’s top election official, asking for an investigation. “We are concerned that without corrective action on your part this and other incorrect information may result in disruption, delay and potentially disenfranchisement on Election Day,” the letter states.

The state’s Democratic attorney general has already said he will investigate the training.

Texas settles “dead” voter purge lawsuit

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:44:00 +0000

Texas has settled a lawsuit brought by four living voters who were told they needed to prove they were still alive or risk getting tossed off the voter rolls.

From the Austin-American Statesman:

Their lawsuit challenged rules, adopted by Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade, that directed county voting officials to send letters to about 80,000 voters identified as "potentially deceased" by federal records. About 68,000 of the letters, however, were based on what Andrade called "weak matches" — targeting, for example, voters whose birth date and last four digits of their Social Security number matched federal death records.

County voter registrars will now have to verify a voter is dead before they can cancel a voter registration, according to the settlement.