{"id":5836,"date":"2011-09-13T00:04:51","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T07:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5836"},"modified":"2011-09-13T00:04:51","modified_gmt":"2011-09-13T07:04:51","slug":"fighting-the-republican-war-on-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/13\/fighting-the-republican-war-on-voting\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting the Republican war on voting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Requiring a picture ID to vote does not have to be voter suppression, but the rash of Republican voter ID laws are, because they are designed to keep people most likely to vote for one party from voting.  For example, in Fitzwalkerstan, formerly Wisconsin, Republicans passed such a law and then closed most of the DMV offices in Democratic areas.  They made the ID free, if requested, to evade the \u201cpoll tax\u201d issue.  But they ordered DMV workers not to inform voters they can request a free voter ID.  When a clerk blew the whistle, they fired her.  Ohio is another state with similar voting rights problems, and residents there are fighting the Republican war on voting.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"13voter-suppression\"<\/font><\/p>\n

That image is a pretty graphic representation of the right-wing’s successful voter suppression efforts<\/a><\/font>, thanks to ALEC<\/a><\/font> and a lot of reactionary state legislatures. But in Ohio, they’re mad as hell and not taking it anymore. Via the ACLU:<\/font><\/p>\n

Luckily, Ohio may offer a glimmer of hope for those of us fighting to safeguard voting rights. Voters around the Buckeye State are taking to the streets, circulating petitions that would allow a referendum to be held on Ohio House Bill 194<\/a><\/font>, a bill passed in June 2011 that would severely limit voters\u2019 access to the ballot box by limiting early voting, prohibiting poll workers from assisting voters completing election forms and ballots, and making it more difficult for local boards of elections to promote early voting to all registered voters.<\/font><\/p>\n

Ohio is the same state that gathered 900,000 signatures to repeal SB 5<\/a><\/font>, the draconian anti-union law shoved through the state legislature, with ALEC’s willing participation and support yet again.<\/font><\/p>\n

But back to Ohio House Bill 194 for now. There’s an energy in the air, an energy that the right wing should worry about.<\/font><\/p>\n

People are quickly organizing petitions in all corners of the state. I signed the referendum petition myself last weekend at a church on the east side of Cleveland. A whole team of volunteers were holding signs and talking to passersby about the legislation.<\/font> Voters came from miles around\u2014the woman in line in front of me made an hour long drive from the Akron area in her minivan with a group of friends because she \u201cjust couldn\u2019t wait to find a petition in my town.\u201d<\/strong><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars<\/a>><\/p>\n

If you click the top link in the embedded article you\u2019ll get the ACLU interactive graphic, where you can look at the problem state by state.<\/font><\/p>\n

Kudos to the people of Ohio and to people everywhere who are fighting the Republican Party\u2019s plot to establish a permanent plutocratic regime of one party rule by cheating the poor, the elderly, college students, disabled people, minorities, etc. of their right to vote.  The Republican Party is a cancer that must be excised at the ballot box.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Requiring a picture ID to vote does not have to be voter suppression, but the rash of Republican voter ID laws are, because they are designed to keep people most likely to vote for one party from voting.  For example, in Fitzwalkerstan, formerly Wisconsin, Republicans passed such a law and then closed most of the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}