Republicans have a long history of disenfranchising people that they consider more likely to vote for Democrats. After all, they cant allow something as minute as voting rights stand in the way of establishing a 1,000 year Republican Regime of one-party rule. In a master coup, they slimed ACORN, forcing that fine into bankruptcy, using fictitious information that looked so damning that Acorn was gone before the truth that Republicans doctored the video reached the public. During the Bush Regime, they fired US attorneys who refused to file false charges against Democratic candidates on the eve of elections. Google caging to find another favorite Republican ruse. And now they’re back to using false claims of voter fraud to steal the right to vote from millions of US citizens.
In statehouses across the country, Republican lawmakers are raising the specter of “voter fraud” to push through legislation that would dramatically restrict the voting rights of college students, rural voters, senior citizens, the disabled and the homeless. As part of their larger effort to silence Main Street, conservatives are pushing through new photo identification laws that would exclude millions from voting, depress Hispanic voter turnout by as much as 10 percent, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars. In the next few months, a new set of election laws could make going to the polls and registering to vote significantly more difficult — in some cases even barring groups of citizens from voting in the communities where they live.
Conservative legislators across the country have said these laws are necessary to combat alleged mass voter fraud. But these fears are completely overblown and states already have tough voting laws on the books: fraudulent voters face felony charges, hefty fines, and even lengthy prison time. In Missouri, for example, voter fraud carries a penalty of no less than 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Yet conservatives have insisted on finding a legislative solution to a non-existent problem. In states like Indiana, where an ID law passed in 2005, both nuns and college students have found themselves turned away from the polls. Similar laws are on the books in eight other states and that number could expand dramatically in coming months… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
Nothing in this country is so precious as our right to vote. The only way I know to protect our voting rights is to remove Republicans from power at every level of government, so completely that your great grandchildren ask your children, “Who were the Republicans?”
8 Responses to “Will Republicans Steal Your Right to Vote?”
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This is very scary. I am certain they are doing so because of who the Democratic base is. The youth demographic overwhelmingly voted for the president, so if you try to enact these strict laws that could impact even student voters, who may register either at home or at their residence where they study (and we know Republicans hate education), then the Republicans will have a greater, dishonest advantage.
I agree with voter identification, but not when the GOP does it…
Of course, Kevin. Republicans are targeting the votes of those groups who trend left.
I personally experienced voter intimidation during the 2008 election by a rabid republican polling judge. Fortunately I’m not a shrinking violet – and I knew the laws. But it was a very frightening experience in that I kept thinking, “How often do those assholes get away with that?”
And even scarier when I realized – probably WAYYYY too often!
Nameless, I’m surprised that they targeted you, unless your appearance is not consistent with a higly educated professional. If they would try intimidation on you, anyone is at risk. That never happens here, because in Oregon, we have vote by mail.
Why WOULDN’T these dishonest pricks try to steal our right to vote? They and their corporate puppetmasters have been stealing everything else from us for the past 30 years! It’s getting to the point where these idiots are making a mockery out of our democracy, with this and their constant attempts to confuse voters and be obstructionist.
Jack, the Republicans have not won an honest presidential election since GHW. Both GW wins were stolen.
At the risk of sounding paranoid, it’s all a huge conspiracy with two goals: 1st) keep the Dems from voting; 2nd) which is really their top priority, keep Obama from being re-elected. Between the chronic Obama bashers on both the far-right and the far-left, this is a real posibility. I shutter to think what is going to happen on election day at the polls.
Leslie, I only hope that left wing regressives realize that Obama, with all his problems, is far and away the lesser evil. He would likely be better in a second term, because reelection would no longer be an issue.