Democratic Push For Voting Reform In All 50 States Has GOP Frothing At The Mouth
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/08/21/democrats-take-charge-push-in-50-states-for-voting-reforms/Democratic Push For Voting Reform In All 50 States Has GOP Frothing At The Mouth
Author: Deborah Montesano August 21, 2013 10:06 am
The GOP may have out-foxed itself on the voting rights issue. Having maneuvered for years to achieve their dream of a conservative U.S. Supreme Court, they were thrilled with the SCOTUS decision in June that seemed to gut enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. What they probably didn’t anticipate was that the Democratic Party would be spurred to find a solution, and fast — a fact they might have tuned into were they not so allergic to the word “solutions.”
Last week, a 50-state initiative was rolled out by a new nonprofit organization run by Michael Sargeant, the executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. The group takes back language co-opted by conservatives, naming itself American Values First. The intent of the group is to push voting reforms that will make it a whole lot easier for all who are eligible to vote.
First of all, Democrats will push states to adopt legislation that requires all elections to be conducted by mail. Colorado finalized such a law early this year. Washington and Oregon already hold all-mail elections. The result in those two states was stunning. Before the change in their laws, both were considered swing states. Since enactment of vote-by-mail legislation, they’ve become solidly blue.
Secondly, Dems will push for states to enact universal registration, putting the responsibility for registration on state governments — for instance, by tying automatic registration of eligible voters to issuing drivers’ licenses. Such a bill failed by just one vote in Oregon last year. Rep. Lew Frederick, D-Portland, will reintroduce it in January, 2014. He said:
Ah, solutions–anathema to Republican ears! The idea of automatic, universal registration is an awesome one to most anyone else. As the Sacramento Bee recently pointed out, nearly a quarter of eligible voters in this country — 51 million people — aren’t registered. Of course, their ranks are made up largely of the poor, the young, and racial minorities. Combine automatic registration with receiving ballots by mail and elections become a whole other ball game — free of any doubts about fraud; instead, empowering those who’ve had the most difficulty exercising their civic duty. No one can make voters vote, but relieving the stress and hardship involved can bring a whole lot more of them into the process.
snip//
The GOP couldn’t be more transparent about their real concern — and it isn’t voter fraud. Their attempts at voter suppression add up to a naked power grab. However, the equation is about to change. Democrats are fighting back.
Republicans’ new focus should be on avoiding a total flush of their party down the toilet. The 50-state initiative has the potential to capitalize on the same outrage over voter suppression that drove people to the polls in 2012, when an anticipated victory was snatched from snapping, greedy, Republican jaws. This time, let’s just flush them back into the sewer from whence they came!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Yeah! Creepy gops.. always trying to make it harder to vote because they don't have anything to offer but suppression.
Mahalo babylonsistah!
h/t babylonsistah http://www.democraticunderground.com/110214137
By sending out blatant lies and distortions in the mail, pretending their candidates are not part of their cancerous brand, and even gone to the houses of people to 'pick up and mail their votes for them' FFS.
That was outright fraud. Also tried to get people to give them their ballots in other ways to toss in the garbage, no doubt. They have targeted voters from the public records that voted for Democrats in the past because they don't want their voices heard. The GOP shriek loudly about their First Amendment rights when they stomp around to shut others up so their voices aren't heard. Guess we should not be surprised at their stopping people from speaking with their vote.
But I have an suggestion to add into such bills as the one in Oregon. Since the NCLB, the federal government has used student information to recruit for the military. Why not use it for a more popular thing like voting?
Registration here requires drivers license info, or a state ID if one does not drive, and there is a lot of verification on that. In order to get my kid's ID, a lot of documentation is required, even year book photographs. It's best to get all of this during the time a person is involved in public school, and have modern documents.
I wish the government would combine a course in civics and how laws are made and the way the three branches of government work in the last semester of school. If the student passes the course they should be handed their registration application right then and there with someone to help them fill it out, if we are serious about the vote in this country.
Okay, even if they flunk the course, they will have been told a little bit, instead of learning it from media. The things I've read in the last year have almost convinced me the American people are not capable of being citizens anymore.
In almost every case of those older or who can't go the driver's license route, they have a social security number. That is a trusted data base, and why I laugh at some of what I read somedays.
If it's good enough for your company, landlord, mortage lender, property tax office, driver license, IRS, auto and healthcare insurers, pension funds, college, other schools, banks, ISP, telephone, cellphone, and dozens of other things we take for granted every day, why not make it the gold standard for voting?
I don't have to show or write down all of that when I mail my ballot. I just have to sign it, give a telephone number in case there's a problem, my street address, etc. They have all of that information on file.
The way the GOP is doing their best, with hate filled hearts to deny the 'peaceful revolution' of voting, is idiotic. The data is there, somewhere. They are obstructing the truth of who we are.
Thinking of the public workers and officials, military folks, active and current, denied their vote over technicalities, is outrageous. The reason I bring up the NCLB, the recruiting, veterans and people in the armed forces, is the same reason I spent my summers in my city's streets and parks to get people to go for this:
Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Congress and the state legislatures felt increasing pressure to pass the Constitutional amendment because of the Vietnam War, in which many young men who were ineligible to vote were conscripted to fight in the war, thus lacking any means to influence the people sending them off to risk their lives. "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote," was a common slogan used by proponents of lowering the voting age. The slogan traced its roots to World War II, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt lowered the military draft age to eighteen.
On March 10, 1971, the Senate voted 94–0 in favor of proposing a Constitutional amendment to guarantee that the voting age could not be higher than 18.[11] On March 23, 1971, the House of Representatives voted 401–19 in favor of the proposed amendment.[12] Within four months after the Congress submitted it to the states, the amendment was ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures, the shortest time in which any proposed amendment has received the number of ratifications needed for adoption.
On July 5, 1971, during the amendment's signing ceremony in the East Room, President Richard Nixon talked about his confidence in the youth of America.
'As I meet with this group today, I sense that we can have confidence that America’s new voters, America’s young generation, will provide what America needs as we approach our 200th birthday, not just strength and not just wealth but the “Spirit of ‘76’ a spirit of moral courage, a spirit of high idealism in which we believe in the American dream, but in which we realize that the American dream can never be fulfilled until every American has an equal chance to fulfill it in his own life.'[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
This goes to the heart of the matter, that even old Tricky Dick knew. The Tea Party Patriots and their bullying along with their Bircher pals, trying to bully anyone out of the right to vote is plain ANTI-AMERICAN. And denies us of the chance to make our nation be 'all that it can be.'
So I love the name of the proposed legislation and hope it passes quickly...
YOUR COMMENTS ARE RIGHT ON!
