Republicians turn voter suppression up to 11 this election

[Axulus]

Election expert Greg Palast: Thanks to GOP voter suppression, “Democrats may have effectively lost”

...

Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state, purged 550,702 Georgians from the voter rolls in 2016 and 2017 — that is, canceled their registrations. I’m not guessing. After much resistance, Kemp turned over the names and addresses of each one of these purged voters in response to a threat of a federal lawsuit (which I filed in federal court in Atlanta and served on Kemp Friday).


Of these, we are certain that 340,134 were wrongly removed, with no notice that they were purged.

...

How did Kemp pull off this mass purge? He moved voters from his state’s so-called "inactive" list to "canceled," based on his assertion they had all moved out of the state or out of their county.

But they hadn’t moved. According to a team of experts led by John Lenzer, CEO of CohereOne, 340,134 had never moved at all.

...

Besides what I call the "postcard trick" to remove a third of a million voters, Kemp has a devil's toolkit of vote-bending tricks.

For example, Kemp sent out consultants to tell counties to close polling stations — which, notably, are in black neighborhoods. I saw this in Georgia’s 6th congressional district, which partly accounts for Democrat Jon Ossoff's defeat in the special election there in 2017. My daughter, a Georgia voter, could tell you all about how Kemp (and other GOP officials) have kept polling stations off college campuses.

Kemp is requiring "exact matches" of voter ID, letter by letter, number by number, to match with state and federal records which are filled with typos. If your name is García-Márquez, forget about getting registered. Hyphens and accents -- and you know which voters have those -- are unlikely to meet this crazy test. This is the heart of the problem with the 53,000 pending registrations — some five years old — that have not been put on the rolls.

Then there are the threats and intimidation against voter registration groups. GOP officials sent the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to raid the offices of 10,000 Koreans Vote, threatening criminal charges against volunteers registering voters on weird nonsense grounds. After two years of "investigation," charges were dropped but the registration effort was shut down.

...

In addition to Georgia, I’ve already posted the ridiculously large purge lists of Indiana, Nevada, Nebraska, Illinois and Colorado on GregPalast.com, with more coming.

In the case of Indiana, for example, our experts found an inordinately large number of voters on Kobach’s Crosscheck list (46 percent), sent to Indiana’s GOP officials, had been purged. When asked about this, the lawyer for the Indiana Board of Elections admitted that it appeared that Indiana had purged voters in violation of a federal court order. Violation or not, at least 20,000 voters tagged by Kobach were wrongly removed from the voter rolls in a state with a tight U.S. Senate race.

...

We are looking at dead-heat races in Nevada, Indiana and Arizona where you shouldn’t be surprised to see a "red shift," that is, Republican victories in races where exit polls show a Democratic win. That’s explained by provisional and absentee ballots rejected (because of registration or ID or other problems)—people can tell pollsters how they voted but not if their vote was counted.

The fact that millions of voters lost their registrations without notice that they’d been purged means that Democrats may have effectively lost any chance of winning key elections before a single vote is cast.

https://www.salon.com/2018/10/28/el...d-trick-wrongly-purged-340000-georgia-voters/

 

[Elixir]

Election expert Greg Palast: Thanks to GOP voter suppression, “Democrats may have effectively lost”

...

Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state, purged 550,702 Georgians from the voter rolls in 2016 and 2017 — that is, canceled their registrations. I’m not guessing. After much resistance, Kemp turned over the names and addresses of each one of these purged voters in response to a threat of a federal lawsuit (which I filed in federal court in Atlanta and served on Kemp Friday).


Of these, we are certain that 340,134 were wrongly removed, with no notice that they were purged.

...

How did Kemp pull off this mass purge? He moved voters from his state’s so-called "inactive" list to "canceled," based on his assertion they had all moved out of the state or out of their county.

But they hadn’t moved. According to a team of experts led by John Lenzer, CEO of CohereOne, 340,134 had never moved at all.

...

Besides what I call the "postcard trick" to remove a third of a million voters, Kemp has a devil's toolkit of vote-bending tricks.

For example, Kemp sent out consultants to tell counties to close polling stations — which, notably, are in black neighborhoods. I saw this in Georgia’s 6th congressional district, which partly accounts for Democrat Jon Ossoff's defeat in the special election there in 2017. My daughter, a Georgia voter, could tell you all about how Kemp (and other GOP officials) have kept polling stations off college campuses.

Kemp is requiring "exact matches" of voter ID, letter by letter, number by number, to match with state and federal records which are filled with typos. If your name is García-Márquez, forget about getting registered. Hyphens and accents -- and you know which voters have those -- are unlikely to meet this crazy test. This is the heart of the problem with the 53,000 pending registrations — some five years old — that have not been put on the rolls.

Then there are the threats and intimidation against voter registration groups. GOP officials sent the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to raid the offices of 10,000 Koreans Vote, threatening criminal charges against volunteers registering voters on weird nonsense grounds. After two years of "investigation," charges were dropped but the registration effort was shut down.

...

In addition to Georgia, I’ve already posted the ridiculously large purge lists of Indiana, Nevada, Nebraska, Illinois and Colorado on GregPalast.com, with more coming.

In the case of Indiana, for example, our experts found an inordinately large number of voters on Kobach’s Crosscheck list (46 percent), sent to Indiana’s GOP officials, had been purged. When asked about this, the lawyer for the Indiana Board of Elections admitted that it appeared that Indiana had purged voters in violation of a federal court order. Violation or not, at least 20,000 voters tagged by Kobach were wrongly removed from the voter rolls in a state with a tight U.S. Senate race.

...

We are looking at dead-heat races in Nevada, Indiana and Arizona where you shouldn’t be surprised to see a "red shift," that is, Republican victories in races where exit polls show a Democratic win. That’s explained by provisional and absentee ballots rejected (because of registration or ID or other problems)—people can tell pollsters how they voted but not if their vote was counted.

The fact that millions of voters lost their registrations without notice that they’d been purged means that Democrats may have effectively lost any chance of winning key elections before a single vote is cast.

https://www.salon.com/2018/10/28/el...d-trick-wrongly-purged-340000-georgia-voters/

Yup. The Republican party is united in its determination to destroy representative democracy. The dems aren't that united about anything. Could be the end of America as those of us over 40 remember it.

 

[RVonse]

Yup. The Republican party is united in its determination to destroy representative democracy. The dems aren't that united about anything. Could be the end of America as those of us over 40 remember it.

The dems want to create their voting base by opening the border gates and letting everyone come in and enjoy free welfare.

One is as bad as the other. Actually, as bad as I hate corruption, at least the Republicans are not trying to destroy whats left of the country with their scheme.

In any case, I agree with its the end of America as those over 40 remeber it.

 

[Opoponax]

The dems want to create their voting base by opening the border gates and letting everyone come in and enjoy free welfare.

One is as bad as the other. Actually, as bad as I hate corruption, at least the Republicans are not trying to destroy whats left of the country with their scheme.

In any case, I agree with its the end of America as those over 40 remeber it.

Is this sarcasm?

Illegal immigrants can't vote, and there's zero evidence they have. There's also zero evidence that the Democratic party is trying to create a new base or ad to its existing one by actively trying to not enforce border laws.

According to the article, which is quite credible, the Republicans actually are trying to destroy representative democracy by robbing people of their right to vote.

I'm over 40. What was so great about America in the 1970s? I was a kid back then and life seemed simpler, family closer, and lots of other neat things. But I was a kid, and that was my child's perception. So now as an adult, I can look back to those times and understand that my experience had nothing to do with the economic conditions, the economy, post-Vietnam, racism, pollution, or crime (especially crime) of the era.

That's why I asked if you were being sarcastic. There's zero evidence to support your assertions and given the conditions of "back then," it seems odd to remember the time period based on what a child raised in a safe environment would believe the world was like.

 

[RVonse]

Im not being sarcastic. If you do the research, the Democrats in the past were against immigration (legal or otherwise) as much as the R's today. It was only after they realized how programs like amnesty have benefitted Democrats voter rolls, they now have done a complete 180. And the fact they have officially abandoned the working class of this country.

 

[ZiprHead]

Im not being sarcastic. If you do the research, the Democrats in the past were against immigration (legal or otherwise) as much as the R's today. It was only after they realized how programs like amnesty have benefitted Democrats voter rolls, they now have done a complete 180. And the fact they have officially abandoned the working class of this country.

You have some weird ideas about history.

A Reagan Legacy: Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants

 

[Axulus]

Im not being sarcastic. If you do the research, the Democrats in the past were against immigration (legal or otherwise) as much as the R's today. It was only after they realized how programs like amnesty have benefitted Democrats voter rolls, they now have done a complete 180. And the fact they have officially abandoned the working class of this country.

You have some weird ideas about history.

A Reagan Legacy: Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants

Very few of them end up being allowed to vote anyway (you have to become a citizen to vote).

Furthermore, there isn't some natural law that they will prefer Democrats to Republicians. If Republicians reached out to them more and altered their platform to appeal to them, they could easily vote for more republicians.

 

[ZiprHead]

Im not being sarcastic. If you do the research, the Democrats in the past were against immigration (legal or otherwise) as much as the R's today. It was only after they realized how programs like amnesty have benefitted Democrats voter rolls, they now have done a complete 180. And the fact they have officially abandoned the working class of this country.

You have some weird ideas about history.

A Reagan Legacy: Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants

Very few of them end up being allowed to vote anyway (you have to become a citizen to vote).

Furthermore, there isn't some natural law that they will prefer Democrats to Republicians. If Republicians reached out to them more and altered their platform to appeal to them, they could easily vote for more republicians.

Florida Cubans have traditionally voted Republican.

 

[Patooka]

Im not being sarcastic. If you do the research, the Democrats in the past were against immigration (legal or otherwise) as much as the R's today. It was only after they realized how programs like amnesty have benefitted Democrats voter rolls, they now have done a complete 180. And the fact they have officially abandoned the working class of this country.

It's a good thing you provided evidence to back up this absurd claim, otherwise I'd say you're completely full of shit as per usual. You're right about Demonrats abandoning the middle class though, as this article clearly shows.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do sarcasm.

 

[bilby]

Only an idiot (or an American, but I repeat myself) would be so blindly dedicated to the ideal of democratic representation that they would think "Let's not have a faceless bureaucrat in charge of voter registration and the provision of polling places; Let's make the process more democratic by giving the elected representatives direct control!"

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that needs an independent and non-political commission to run it. A commission with a written and fixed mandate to keep the most accurate possible voter rolls, to establish voting districts containing similar numbers of voters, with the shortest achievable boundaries that reflect natural divisions between areas, and to ensure good (and equal) access to polling places for all enrolled voters. A commission that requires that its members not be politically active, and that they avoid any appearance of partisanship, favour, or bias.

But Nooo. America is all about the democratic will of the people. So putting the (elected) Secretary of State, or the (elected) Governor in charge of the elections is clearly a smart move. If a little democracy is good, more must be better, right? Right?? We don't want no stinking bureaucrats. Next thing you know, we will end up electing a government. And we hate governments.

 

[fast]

Only an idiot (or an American, but I repeat myself) would be so blindly dedicated to the ideal of democratic representation that they would think "Let's not have a faceless bureaucrat in charge of voter registration and the provision of polling places; Let's make the process more democratic by giving the elected representatives direct control!"

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that needs an independent and non-political commission to run it. A commission with a written and fixed mandate to keep the most accurate possible voter rolls, to establish voting districts containing similar numbers of voters, with the shortest achievable boundaries that reflect natural divisions between areas, and to ensure good (and equal) access to polling places for all enrolled voters. A commission that requires that its members not be politically active, and that they avoid any appearance of partisanship, favour, or bias.

But Nooo. America is all about the democratic will of the people. So putting the (elected) Secretary of State, or the (elected) Governor in charge of the elections is clearly a smart move. If a little democracy is good, more must be better, right? Right?? We don't want no stinking bureaucrats. Next thing you know, we will end up electing a government. And we hate governments.

What do you mean "and equal"? The whole point of voter SUPPRESSION efforts is to combat that very thing. This isn't some game where we teach that it's not about winning but how you play the game. In games, sure, but this is politics, with real-world repercussions. We cannot have a government that behaves in unbiased fashion in pursuit of idealized goals--not when our very lives hang in the balance.

What I demand, what I expect, and what I shall have is a system put in place that makes for a better world, and if some wrong has to occur along the way trampling over some cherished principles for that to happen, then look out world, here comes some good, bad, and ugly.

Why in the hell would I favor a system of fairness if that increases the odds of success for my political opponents?

I'll consider changing my mind for an ice-cream sandwich. Doesn't that sound good? Mmm, I think it does.

 

[laughing dog]

Election expert Greg Palast: Thanks to GOP voter suppression, “Democrats may have effectively lost”

...

Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state, purged 550,702 Georgians from the voter rolls in 2016 and 2017 — that is, canceled their registrations. I’m not guessing. After much resistance, Kemp turned over the names and addresses of each one of these purged voters in response to a threat of a federal lawsuit (which I filed in federal court in Atlanta and served on Kemp Friday).


Of these, we are certain that 340,134 were wrongly removed, with no notice that they were purged.

...

How did Kemp pull off this mass purge? He moved voters from his state’s so-called "inactive" list to "canceled," based on his assertion they had all moved out of the state or out of their county.

But they hadn’t moved. According to a team of experts led by John Lenzer, CEO of CohereOne, 340,134 had never moved at all.

...

Besides what I call the "postcard trick" to remove a third of a million voters, Kemp has a devil's toolkit of vote-bending tricks.

For example, Kemp sent out consultants to tell counties to close polling stations — which, notably, are in black neighborhoods. I saw this in Georgia’s 6th congressional district, which partly accounts for Democrat Jon Ossoff's defeat in the special election there in 2017. My daughter, a Georgia voter, could tell you all about how Kemp (and other GOP officials) have kept polling stations off college campuses.

Kemp is requiring "exact matches" of voter ID, letter by letter, number by number, to match with state and federal records which are filled with typos. If your name is García-Márquez, forget about getting registered. Hyphens and accents -- and you know which voters have those -- are unlikely to meet this crazy test. This is the heart of the problem with the 53,000 pending registrations — some five years old — that have not been put on the rolls.

Then there are the threats and intimidation against voter registration groups. GOP officials sent the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to raid the offices of 10,000 Koreans Vote, threatening criminal charges against volunteers registering voters on weird nonsense grounds. After two years of "investigation," charges were dropped but the registration effort was shut down.

...

In addition to Georgia, I’ve already posted the ridiculously large purge lists of Indiana, Nevada, Nebraska, Illinois and Colorado on GregPalast.com, with more coming.

In the case of Indiana, for example, our experts found an inordinately large number of voters on Kobach’s Crosscheck list (46 percent), sent to Indiana’s GOP officials, had been purged. When asked about this, the lawyer for the Indiana Board of Elections admitted that it appeared that Indiana had purged voters in violation of a federal court order. Violation or not, at least 20,000 voters tagged by Kobach were wrongly removed from the voter rolls in a state with a tight U.S. Senate race.

...

We are looking at dead-heat races in Nevada, Indiana and Arizona where you shouldn’t be surprised to see a "red shift," that is, Republican victories in races where exit polls show a Democratic win. That’s explained by provisional and absentee ballots rejected (because of registration or ID or other problems)—people can tell pollsters how they voted but not if their vote was counted.

The fact that millions of voters lost their registrations without notice that they’d been purged means that Democrats may have effectively lost any chance of winning key elections before a single vote is cast.

https://www.salon.com/2018/10/28/el...d-trick-wrongly-purged-340000-georgia-voters/

It shows how desperate the GOP is this year.

 

[Ford]

Very few of them end up being allowed to vote anyway (you have to become a citizen to vote).

Pffft! Haven't you heard? Illegal immigrants are magical! They soak up social services without working, while at the same time taking jobs from hard-working Americans. They can't vote, but at the same time millions of them voted for Hillary. That's why Trump was barely able to win the electoral college and by the way there was probably some shenanigans with his inaugural crowd numbers that we can blame on the illegals!

I say this sarcastically, but there are wingers who believe every word.

 

[Patooka]

Very few of them end up being allowed to vote anyway (you have to become a citizen to vote).

Pffft! Haven't you heard? Illegal immigrants are magical! They soak up social services without working, while at the same time taking jobs from hard-working Americans. They can't vote, but at the same time millions of them voted for Hillary. That's why Trump was barely able to win the electoral college and by the way there was probably some shenanigans with his inaugural crowd numbers that we can blame on the illegals!

I say this sarcastically, but there are wingers who believe every word.

You know that time you were late for work because your flatmate moved your car keys from the kitchen? That was the illegals fault as well.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Only an idiot (or an American, but I repeat myself) would be so blindly dedicated to the ideal of democratic representation that they would think "Let's not have a faceless bureaucrat in charge of voter registration and the provision of polling places; Let's make the process more democratic by giving the elected representatives direct control!"

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that needs an independent and non-political commission to run it. A commission with a written and fixed mandate to keep the most accurate possible voter rolls, to establish voting districts containing similar numbers of voters, with the shortest achievable boundaries that reflect natural divisions between areas, and to ensure good (and equal) access to polling places for all enrolled voters. A commission that requires that its members not be politically active, and that they avoid any appearance of partisanship, favour, or bias.

But Nooo. America is all about the democratic will of the people. So putting the (elected) Secretary of State, or the (elected) Governor in charge of the elections is clearly a smart move. If a little democracy is good, more must be better, right? Right?? We don't want no stinking bureaucrats. Next thing you know, we will end up electing a government. And we hate governments.

What do you mean "and equal"? The whole point of voter SUPPRESSION efforts is to combat that very thing. This isn't some game where we teach that it's not about winning but how you play the game. In games, sure, but this is politics, with real-world repercussions. We cannot have a government that behaves in unbiased fashion in pursuit of idealized goals--not when our very lives hang in the balance.

What I demand, what I expect, and what I shall have is a system put in place that makes for a better world, and if some wrong has to occur along the way trampling over some cherished principles for that to happen, then look out world, here comes some good, bad, and ugly.

Why in the hell would I favor a system of fairness if that increases the odds of success for my political opponents?

I'll consider changing my mind for an ice-cream sandwich. Doesn't that sound good? Mmm, I think it does.

WTF is wrong with you?