Republicans Escalate Voter Suppression Efforts

What do you do when you belong to a political party that finds its message and policies rejected by the majority of voters?  You try to limit those who can vote to those who are buying your agenda of exclusion, racism, homophobia and economic war on the poor, the non-white and anyone your base deems "other."  This is precisely what the Republican party is seeking to do across the country, especially in states where Republicans still control state legislatures.  As a column in the Washington Post notes, Texas - where the growing urban areas are increasingly voting Democrat and are nearing a point of being able to out vote the backward rural regions of the state - is a prime example.  Rather than change their agenda, Republicans simply want fewer and fewer people to be able to vote if they might not be buying the GOP's toxic agenda.  To be totally candid, the GOP no longer believes in democracy. Here are column highlights on the GOP voter suppression effort:

MOBILE POLLING places that popped up on college campuses and other population-dense areas were “the most effective program we had,” Dana DeBeauvoir, the chief elections official in Travis County, Tex., told the New York Times. That would explain why Texas Republicans shut them down.

The Times reported last week that, as Texans head to the polls, it will be substantially harder for college students to vote. A new state law required all polling places to remain open for the state’s full 12-day early-voting period. Localities could not afford to keep the pop-up sites open that long, so colleges in Austin, Brownsville, Fort Worth and elsewhere have had to close them. That guarantees lower turnout among people whom Republicans do no want voting: Democratic-leaning students.

Early voting is meant to enable more people to vote: Shift workers, for example, who cannot wait in line at a polling place on a Tuesday can still have a voice. Texas’s law turns that vote-enabling system into a vote-suppressing weapon. Republicans throughout the country have embraced voter suppression as a strategy for party survival, and this is one more sad example.

In Florida, Republicans have tried repeatedly to end early voting on state campuses. They also tried to circumscribe the reach of a law that allows former felons to vote, even after voters overwhelmingly approved the law in a referendum. Republicans in New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin have made voting difficult for students in various ways; Republicans often use voter identification laws to exclude student voters, rejecting forms of ID that college students are likely to have. Typically, the pretext is the need to block in-person voter fraud — a practically nonexistent problem in the United States.

Citizens are citizens, whether they are 18 or 88. All should be encouraged to vote. But year in, year out, even jurisdictions not run by people seeking to discourage voting have trouble keeping lines reasonable, equipment functional and the experience less than excruciating. As 171 George Mason University students who recently had their registrations rejected can tell you, as The Post reported, registering from a campus address can be particularly difficult.

States should be trying to fix such problems, starting with competent staff and convenient polling locations and hours, rather than removing opportunities for eligible voters. Congress should require states to register people automatically when local government authorities have the information needed to do so — DMV records, for example. And the Republican Party should stake its future on offering policies and candidates that can attract voters — not on keeping potential voters away from the polls.

The GOP in its present incarnation needs to die - the sooner, the better.  This from a former Republican. 

Mark Herring Hires Outside Counsel on Challenge to GOP Voter ID Law

As the Virginia GOP has become increasingly out of step with a majority of Virginians and changing demographics have made winning state wide elections nearly impossible, rather than change its agenda and enter the 21st century, the Virginia GOP has opted instead to work to disenfranchise voters hostile to the party's extremist and racist policies.   One example id the voter ID law rammed through the GOP dominated Virginia General Assembly where Republicans hold sway thanks to gerrymandered districts.  Now, Attorney General Mark Herring has brought in outside counsel to avoid a conflict of interest as Democrats challenge the Virginia GOP's anti-democratic handiwork.  Here are highlights from the Daily Press:

Attorney General Mark Herring will outsource the legal defense of the state's voter ID laws and other election practices, Herring's office announced Friday afternoon.

The move allows Herring, a Democrat who voted against voter ID when he was in the state Senate, to avoid arguing directly in the law's defense. His office said Mark F. "Thor" Hearne II, a partner in the D.C. offices of Arent Fox, will handle the case, which Democratic groups filed against the state earlier this month.

Democrats challenging the law argue that Virginia's photo ID law is unconstitutional, but their case is much broader than that. It challenges long waits times on election day and says the Republican-controlled legislature deliberately targeted minority voters, young people and other likely Democratic voters when it rewrote voting rules.

The case was brought by Mark Elias of Perkins Coie, an attorney and firm with deep Democratic ties. The suit is part of a multi-state effort to challenge voting rules ahead of the 2016 elections. The firm is also challenging Virginia's election districts in a pair of ongoing suits.

Herring said in a statement Friday that outside counsel for the voter ID case was needed to avoid "any concern that my previous advocacy would result in anything less than a vigorous defense."

"Nothing is more fundamental than the right to vote and my position on these issues is clear," Herring said in the statement. "I have consistently opposed these measures and worked hard in the legislature to combat them."

The speaker's office declined to comment Friday on Hearne's selection. Howell and other Republican legislative leaders may hire their own attorney in this case, as they did in the cases challenging Virginia's election districts.

The Virginia GOP needs to grasp the simple concept that if your platform cannot win a majority of voters, it's the platform that needs to change rather than changing rules so as to keep people from voting. 

The Tea Party's Ideal Nation Rejects Basic American Beliefs

Like the Christofascists who increasingly live in a fantasy world detached from objective reality and in open opposition to modernity and knowledge, the Tea Party's adherents cling to image of America that (i) never existed and (ii) in reality runs afoul of many basic American beliefs -  I attribute the phenomenon to the fact that the Tea Party has an 85% or more overlap with the Christofascists.  Among the thing one hears constantly is the Tea Party meme of returning to the rule of the U.S. Constitution and democracy, yet what they really want is akin to a fascist state where they inflict their beliefs on the majority of Americans. Sadly, too many in today's GOP are only too ready to jump on board the anti-democracy train.  Here are excerpts from a piece in Salon that looks at the hypocrisy of the Tea Party loons:

[I]f a recent Slate analysis of the Tea Party worldview from conservative pundit Reihan Salam is correct, it’s the Tea Party — more than what remains of Occupy Wall Street, or the Davos crowd  — that most stridently represents those citizens who reject actual, real-world American democracy. Salam jokingly refers to the U.S. of the Tea Party’s dreams as “Teatopia,” . . .

What I’d argue, rather, is that the Tea Party’s philosophy of government (again, as understood by Salam) has embedded within it an aversion to basic democratic principles that goes far beyond a typical contempt for Washington, politicians and pundits. When Salam writes that Teatopia is founded on a commitment to a “robust federalism” intended to let “different states … offer different visions of the good life” and allow citizens to “vote with their feet” by moving to whichever state best reflects their values, he’s not describing a common aversion to corruption or a distaste for political theater. He’s describing a childish and essentially anti-political belief that a return to an Articles of Confederation-style U.S. order — in which each state is more of a sovereign unto itself than a member of a larger American whole — will produce 50 mini-nations where everyone basically agrees.

If we take into account the recent Pew report on polarization, which found a full 50 percent of “consistently conservative” respondents saying it was important to them to live in “a place where most people share my political views” vs. only 35 percent of “consistently liberal” and 22 percent of “mixed” respondents saying the same, Salam’s “Teatopia” makes perfect sense. If you’re made uncomfortable by the very idea of sharing sidewalk with someone on the other side, why wouldn’t you pine for a future in which you’re so tucked away among your kind that you come to forget people who think differently even exist?  

[T]he animating spirit of Teatopia is also, at its core, childish. It reflects a psychological makeup that privileges certainty, loathes ambiguity, celebrates purity and is awash with a mild but persistent sense of vulnerability and fear. Teatopia is a place where one never has to wonder about the veracity of her basic assumptions about what Salam calls “the good life.” It’s a place where no one ever has to grapple with the uncomfortable reality of other human beings living full, rewarding lives while concurrently making major decisions one thinks are self-evidently incorrect. It’s a place where one need never acknowledge that there are people who dream vastly different dreams and, what’s more, believe they have just as much right as anyone to make those dreams come true. 

Like the author, I believe that their is a psychological defect - a sickness, if you will - that causes both the Christofascists and their Tea Party first cousins to desperately fear those deemed "other" and anything that differs from their fantasy world beliefs.

Washington Post: Virginia Attorney General Race Should End with Recount

A number of posts on this blog have looked at the conjecture that failed GOP candidate Mark Obenshain might try to steal the Attorney General Race by throwing the contest into the GOP dominated Virginia General Assembly.  Even conservative Bearing Drift blog has opposed such a move as have numerous newspaper editorials around Virginia.  The Washington Post has joined this list as the first day of the recount saw Mark Herring's lead increase.  Here are editorial highlights:

A RECOUNT is under way to determine the winner of last month’s stupefyingly tight election for attorney general in Virginia. Whether the victor is state Sen. Mark R. Herring (D-Loudoun) or state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), both men should declare now, before results are announced by week’s end, that they will respect the outcome.

That seems so modest a proposition that we are abashed at having to argue its merits. It amounts to embracing the idea that candidates must respect the will of the voters, a convention sanctified by U.S. history, tradition, consensus and law.

Mr. Obenshain trailed Mr. Herring by 165 votes (out of 2.2 million cast) when the State Board of Elections certified the results on Nov. 25; that margin widened Monday, the first day of the recount, to 185 after a fraction of the ballots were reviewed. The trouble is that Mr. Obenshain has maneuvered to leave himself wiggle room for a challenge even if the recount confirms that he has lost. That would be a gross error.

If the General Assembly were to overturn the result of the recount in the absence of egregious evidence of fraud or malfeasance, it would amount to the nullification of the democratic process. That would be so whether it was done by the Republicans, who now control the legislature, or the Democrats, who have controlled it in the recent past and may again in the future.

No evidence supports his insinuations. There is no sign that oddities cited by the Obenshain camp — some ballots submitted late to the clerk’s office; others cast by voters who went to the wrong polling station or showed up without identification — amount to anything approaching electoral fraud or wrongdoing. To all appearances, the Republicans have been picking at nits. That’s par for the course in any recount. What’s important, though, is that the recount, once finished, should be the final word.

The big problem today is that the GOP no longer believes in democracy.  Instead, its base of extremists, religious zealots and white supremacists want to impose their toxic beliefs and policies on all citizens.  It is a frightening development.  

Lynchburg News Advance: Obenshain Needs to Abide by Recount

There is growing opposition to the possible effort by failed GOP candidate Mark Obenshain to throw the decision in the Virginia Attorney General race into the Virginia General Assembly where Obenshain apparently believes that the GOP controlled legislature would give him the election regardless of the vote turn out.  Hence Obenshain's frantic efforts to fabricate "Problems" with ballots, especially in pro-Democrat Fairfax County.  The News Advance, the hometown paper of Lynchburg based Liberty University, has come out against Obenshain scheme.  Here are editorial highlights:

Despite the reticence of most of Virginia’s Republican legislators to talk about it and the best efforts of outgoing Gov. Bob McDonnell to shoot it down, the possibility of the GOP-dominated General Assembly stepping in to decide the winner of the closely contested attorney general race is not a dead issue.

If Herring’s win holds up, we hope Obenshain will respect the will of the voters. He could well pull off a “win” in the GOP-dominated Assembly, but he would be viewed by the public as a usurper who “stole the election” by partisan chicanery. That is the last thing we Virginians need.

But lawyers for Obenshain and some Republican apparatchiks have been making noises — very disturbing noises — calling into question the propriety of the vote count.

Indeed, when the state Board of Elections voted Nov. 25 to certify the results, Chairman Charles Judd, a Republican and former top-ranking official with the now-defunct Moral Majority, said he was voting to certify “with question” because he had concerns about “the integrity of data.”

Thus, in a few words, the GOP laid the foundation for Obenshain, should the recount uphold Herring’s razor-thin victory, to mount a contest of the results before a joint session of the General Assembly.

In the Herring/Obenshain race, there have been no credible charges. None whatsoever. Obenshain’s lawyers and party officials have focussed their attention on Fairfax County, where the outcome of the election was decided after days of counting absentee and provisional ballots. Some GOP stalwarts have tried to make the charge that the Fairfax vote counting process is tainted and that local officials disobeyed state directives about determining the eligibility of provisional ballots.

That, in a nutshell, seems to be the basis for this dangerous chatter of a legislative contest. It’s made all the more ironic and hypocritical by the fact that the Fairfax Electoral Board, like all electoral boards in Virginia, has a Republican majority and is led by Republican Brian W. Schoeneman.

[T]he voters and the candidates deserve the assurance that every possible eligible ballot is counted to guarantee the voters’ voices have been heard. And respected.

Today's GOP has open contempt for democracy - at least any form of democracy that doesn't disenfranchise minorities and give power to angry white male far right Christians.  It is frightening.  

Virginia Senate Panel Kills GOP Plan to Steal Presidential Elections

This blog and any number of media outlets have looked at the Virginia GOP's plan to radically change how Virginia's 13 electoral votes are allocated with a goal of allowing a GOP candidate such as Mitt Romney who failed to win the statewide vote to still "carry Virginia" and receive the vast majority of the electoral vote allocation.  Today, a Virginia Senate panel killed the GOP coup d'etat effort and proved that there are still a few decent, honorable GOP elected officials in the Virginia General Assembly, albeit their numbers have been decimated in recent years.  While the coup attempt has apparently been averted in Virginia for this year, the GOP is pushing similar efforts in other swing states.   The Virginian Pilot has coverage.  Here are highlights (note how the bill's sponsor wanted to allow his few Neanderthal rural voters to be able to override the votes of countless more voters in urban areas):

[L]egislation to change how Virginia distributes its 13 electoral votes in presidential elections was defeated in a Senate committee Tuesday, despite its sponsor’s effort to make it more palatable.

The initial proposal from Sen. Charles W. “Bill” Carrico would have moved the commonwealth away from its current winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes based on the overall popular vote.

His SB 723 called for Virginia to instead proportionately designate electoral votes by vote total in the state’s 11 congressional districts, with the last two electoral votes going to the candidate who carried the most districts.

Had that system been in place last year, President Barack Obama would have received four electoral votes, and Republican nominee Mitt Romney would have earned nine, even though Obama won the state by almost 150,000 votes.

Speaking about the bill, Carrico said he filed it on behalf of his rural Southwest Virginia constituents who feel slighted in presidential elections because their votes are outnumbered by big city dwellers and they get overlooked by candidates.  He insisted it is not an attempt “to gerrymander an election,” as some critics insinuated.

Aware his bill was in jeopardy, Carrico offered a revision to the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee that would have proportionately divided electoral votes based on candidates’ popular vote share.

The amended version was still defeated on a bi-partisan vote of 11-4, with Sen. Jeff McWaters of Virginia Beach among the Republicans who voted to table the bill.

Also opposing the bill was Sen. Ralph Smith, R-Bedford County.  While Smith sees a proportional electoral vote system as more equitable, he’s reluctant to make that kind of change in Virginia when most other states remain winner-take-all.

I have no love for Senator Jeff McWaters who has shown himself repeatedly to be an anti-gay bigot towing the Christofascist line of The Family Foundation, but at least he found the spine to refuse the directive to steal presidential elections.