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Viviette Applewhite, the 93 year-old who was one of the plaintiffs in the Pennsylvania voter ID case, received her ID card this week. Despite voting in practically every election since she became eligible, she didn’t have a driver’s license or Social Security card, and her birth certificate features a different name than the one on her other documents. But the state waived these impediments, which should have made her ineligible for a photo ID card, and provided her one anyway.
We’re supposed to believe that this is proof that Pennsylvania will make whatever effort necessary to get eligible voters the ID they need. But of course, this is just one high-profile case, out of as many as 750,000. In fact, during the last few days, Pennsylvania made it more difficult for eligible voters, not less. After Judge Robert Simpson pronounced himself confident that the state would get photo IDs to whoever needed them and make everyone in the state aware of the new requirements, Pennsylvania dropped plans to make it easier to obtain absentee ballots or register to vote.
On the same day a judge cleared the way for the state’s new voter identification law to take effect, the (Governor Tom) Corbett administration abandoned plans to allow voters to apply online for absentee ballots for the November election and to register online to vote.
A spokesman for the Department of State said county elections officials told the agency that implementing the new online initiatives as well as voter ID requirements was too much to handle less than three months before the election.
This is really rich. The voter ID requirements are sure to cause a total mess, with hundreds of thousands of voters scrambling to obtain the necessary documents. But a WEBSITE tips the scales into being too much to handle? I have an idea for clearing out the workload, you could simply drop the voter ID requirement, which Pennsylvania admitted during that court case would not lead to any in-person voter fraud, which has never happened in the state’s history.
Keep in mind that Pennsylvania already makes it tough on voters. There are no early voting opportunities, and it has one of the most restrictive absentee ballot rules in the nation. Voters requesting an absentee ballot because of difficulty getting to the polls from sickness or disability, or a planned trip out of town, must submit proof, in the form of a doctor’s note or trip itinerary.
Now they’ve included this voter ID law, without making the process of registration or absentee balloting any easier. This is quite a scandal.
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the election strategy for rmoney and rayn is substantially built on turnout of their base and denial of the franchise through various voting obstruction efforts, including changing voter registration rules, reducing voter registration access, reducing polling hours and absentee voter access, along with attacks on existing registered voters through bogus voter roll purges.
rmoney and rayn hand in hand with courts that will do nothing to protect the franchise. Is the justice department asleep.
are troops not available to enforce voting rights?
will we stand for it.
No one could have seen this coming. /s
Democrats play for cocktail weenies and lobbying gigs.
Republicans play for keeps.
The real “voter suppression” is that voter “choices” are limited to 2 packs of corrupt whores who work for the same plutocrats. In simpler terms, no choices at all. Half of eligible voters don’t bother. They’re on to the game.
If the dems up there were really on the ball then they should have immediately filed another suit based on the new situation on that day. And they need to be on the lookout for ANYONE who has trouble of any kind in getting one of these ID’s. If they waived these requirements for this one person then they should now do the same for anyone else……..and the dems need to be on the ground ready in an instant to take up the fight in the first instance when they are not waived. Unfortunately it’s just so typical of the democrats to just not understand how serious these things are.
I’m beginning to think the dems don’t care about these citizens because they would just vote for more welfare since their hero Slick Willie dismantled welfare.
Book Salon up with Kate Bornstein’s A Queer and Pleasant Danger: A Memoir hosted by Autumn Sandeen
If the Administration gave a damn about voter suppression, you’d think that the Attorney General would be wearing a path to the Supreme Court, or defending the efforts to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised, or that they would perhaps, possibly mention that despite all the scare-mongering over almost no instances anywhere of voter fraud is that the real issue is legitimate voter disenfranchisement. Apparently, neither party gives a tinkers damn that the real issue is voter disenfranchisement.
But this Administration does not appear to be concerned.
That concerns me, and that’s why I’m voting Jill Stein.
Philadelphia with it’s still best in the country public transit system, despite years of neglect has a large number of residents without cars or drivers licenses.
Harrisburg traditionally hates Philadelphia,
http://www.city-data.com/forum/city-vs-city/1234560-there-any-other-states-like-pa.html
There is a disaster a foot when it comes to public transit since Phillys horse and buggy roads can’t take any more cars.
What do you expect from the rabid racist republicans other than roadblocks ?
Corbert another diebold selected fraud.
“A spokesman for the Department of State said county elections officials told the agency that implementing the new online initiatives as well as voter ID requirements was too much to handle less than three months before the election”
Think about this and the law regarding CHANGES Too short a period before an election. They just blew the enactment/enforcement of the law.
RMoney and Count Dracula have the refs in their corner and figure they can suppress enough D’s and steal enough votes through rigged machines that they can pull off a close election. Barry acts as though he doesn’t care. This fall is shaping up to be another train wreck like 2000.
The majority of election fraud is perpetrated using absentee ballots. Common sense would tell anyone actually trying to deal with such fraud, an exceedingly rare occurrence anyway, that single voter fraud is a far too difficult way to sway elections.
Collecting absentee ballots in, say, senior citizen homes, and filling them out and mailing them is a far more efficient way to steal an election.Or using a touch screen machine created by a company headed by a right wing republican fat cat donor…I’m just saying here.
The Republican Party has, for decades, attempted to reduce the numbers of voters while the Democrats encourage large numbers of voter turn out. At the same time this seemingly criminal and far to close to the election effort by the GOP highlights exactly how incompetent is the Democratic Party in combating the ruses and machinations of the rightward leaning Elephants.