Vote suppression in the US revs up

[babsbunny]

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201191883753799660.html

In recent years, the Republican Party has accelerated its efforts to make voting more difficult for Americans.
Heather Digby Parton Last Modified: 19 Sep 2011 14:17

In the 1964 presidential elections, a young political operative named Bill guarded a largely African-American polling place in South Phoenix, Arizona like a bull mastiff.

Bill was a legal whiz who knew the ins and outs of voting law and insisted that every obscure provision be applied, no matter what. He even made those who spoke accented English interpret parts of the constitution to prove that they understood it. The lines were long, people fought, got tired or had to go to work, and many of them left without voting. It was a notorious episode long remembered in Phoenix political circles.

It turned out that it was part of a Republican Party strategy known as "Operation Eagle Eye", and "Bill" was future Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. He was confronted with his intimidation tactics in his confirmation hearings years later, and characterised his behaviour as simple arbitration of polling place disputes. In doing so, he set a standard for GOP dishonesty and obfuscation surrounding voting rights that continues to this day.

[Drale]

1. If someone tried bullshit like that in my area

you would never hear from him again. We don't put up will voter suppression, someone always tries it and they always get the shit kicked out of them.

[lib2DaBone]

2. This is part of the Koch Bros Plan.. voter supression put in place by Koch-Bros Governors

The State Governors went to a special meeting of Koch Bros operatives in Aspen,Colorado.

They came home to their States and then instituted Voter supression. (All Identical plans)

Koch Industries spent $857,000 on lobbyists in 2004, one year before George W Bush tried and failed to privatise social security. They also donated $104,660 to his campaign. The attacks on social security needed more time to stew in the echo chamber before they could be mainstream, and given the increase in lobbyists, they have risen dramatically. In the first two years of the Obama administration, the brothers spent $20m on lobbying, according to the Centre for Public Integrity. And they've diversified their donations to a slew of Republican opinion leaders – and strategic Democrats who oppose revenue increases like Senator Ben Nelson and Governor Andrew Cuomo. But traditional lobbying has now given way to the larger, more insidious propaganda campaign aimed at changing the terms of debate on social security.