The vice chairman of President Trump’s commission on election integrity sent a letter to all 50 states Wednesday requesting information on their voter rolls.You can bet your paycheck that if a Democratic administration had done this, every Republican now breathing would have lost their damned minds.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is seeking several pieces of information about voters, including their names, birthdays, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers and their voting history dating back to 2006.
At last count, 41 states are telling Trump to fuck off.
One of them is not Missouri's Republican Secretary of State, Spawn of Ashcroft, whose eagerness to cooperate with this bullshit is contrasted by the state's refusal to adopt the Real ID standards for state-issued identification cards and how pissed they were about turning over information about people who have gun permits.
Republican resistance to the intrusion of the Federal government seems to be contingent on who is making the ask.
So does Russia need an update already from the 198 million voter files Deep Root Analytics left in a non-password protected file on a website for them to scoop up a few weeks ago?
ReplyDeleteThese bozos shouldn't be trusted with grandma's shopping list, let alone the names, addresses, last four digits of SSN, voting and legal history of every voter in the country.
This, to some extent, is a political stunt. They know they are only entitled to the public records, and they could do their job using them, but if they generate a massive pushback to their request for all of this other information, they can use it to sell the lie that there is massive voter fraud that the pushback is trying to cover up, and justify the kind of voter suppression they need to keep winning elections as their administration loses popularity.
It's the same specie of stunt that president four-year-old is using on the White House Press corps: call them the enemy so that anything they do to counter the restrictions he has imposed on them validates his accusation and justifies the restrictions.
Except the kind of restrictions Kobach is after amount to massive voter suppression that flies in the face of the very idea of our system of government.
Kobach is as responsible for the election of president four-year-old as any other single factor. His crosscheck program purged hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters from the rolls in three states the president carried by less than a hundred thousand combined, because they had the same name as a voter in a different state, and often not even the same middle name.
That's the kind of ratfucking we're dealing with.
I say trusting them with our information is the height of foolishness.
-Doug in Oakland
And I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteAt least, however, no matter how ineptly, he's trying to get a handle on Voter fraud.
Been happening in Chicago longer than I've been alive. Examples everywhere. Mostly DNC hotspots, but some RNC one's too. See also Detroit and Philly.
Voter ID would solve most of it, but the DNC fights it because it will be racist to have to have an ID or something, even though one must have to have an ID to do anything else in this country.....
Remember: Vote early, Vote often.
I live just outside Detroit. According to local news stations, reports of voter fraud have been false except for one case, and that was in Oakland county, the Republican stronghold of SE Michigan. Doesn't bode well for the argument.
ReplyDeleteDale
My goodness DTWND, you think that the Right needs anything but the flimsiest of pretexts to justify their brown-shirt goose-step towards Total Righteous Control?
ReplyDeletesaid it, I believe it and that settles it.
* God (or what I think God to be), Chicken Little, the Imperial Kleagle of Francois Parish, Ashcroft's ghost, Paul Manafort. Everybody's telling fairy stories these day...and the ones you receive from the Beyond via your tooth fillings get the most credence.
I used to point out that only dead-nuts science can do things like put a man on the moon, but even that argument no longer has any potency given that people believe that there's a slave colony of kidnapped children on Mars. After all, even dead-nuts science can't yet do that......
B, verified accounts of fraud, please. Not the bullshit stuff of the "people being bused up from Boston to vote in NH" flavor.
ReplyDeleteVoter fraud is astonishingly rare. It's almost like the Sasquatch of Crime; Republicans swear it happens nationally on a wide scale, but there is no proof of that.
So yes, I believe that the GOP is on their "voter fraud" kick to keep poor people, minorities and the elderly (who often don't have valid photo ID because they don't drive) from voting.
But then again, I also believe that if the GOP could change the Constitution to limit voting to white male property owners, they'd do it in a heartbeat.
ID's are free, generally where they put in place voter ID laws. If you can get out to register to vote, you can get an ID. THat Mantra doesn't fly, in reality. you need an ID for everything else, and oddly, black people have 'em too....(those who say that blacks can't figure out how to get an ID are insulting the intelligence of black people....
ReplyDeleteI cannot prove voter fraud anymore than you can disprove voter fraud.
But there are a LOT of 'Clerical Errors" in blue cities: http://6abc.com/politics/action-news-investigation-voting-from-the-grave/1575596/
Lots more in Chicago and other "Blue" places. Likely in Republican places too, I just can't seem to find any widespread stories about it.
That is why everyone "KNEW" Hillary was gonna win. They knew Donald Trump was gonna get close. He, surprisingly, beat the "margin of Fraud".
Stewart, you are correct. Nowadays, anybody can find just about anything to justify their position on the interwebs at anytime. That's all the "proof" they need. Hell, some don't even need proof, they just know it to be true, so it is.
ReplyDeleteDale
B., tell that to the residents of the 29 country's in Alabama where there are no Drivers License Offices...incidentally, the 8 of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of black residents are among these counties. So now, to get a "free" ID, a resident has to take at least half a day off work and find transport.
ReplyDeleteYou are making a common mistake. The average low wage worker can't take off anytime they want, and often work M-F during most of the hours that ID issuing locations are open. Many cannot afford a day off work, or will be fired for taking a day off. These facts are well known by the people crafting these laws and regulations, and used to further their purposes.
CP: SO, then how do they vote? Polls close at 6.....
ReplyDeleteI mean, generally, at least one day a week, the DL facilities are open late, and usually a half day on Saturday.
ANd, to be honest, if one wants to exercise the franchise, one can take time ONCE in 2 years to get a license or an ID. And if they are that rural that there isn't a DL facility in the county, how do the residents get to work without a car?
One day in 2 or 4 years (depending on the election cycle you wish to vote in) to get an ID. I find your objection to be like all your others..... Poor so can't because poor.
At some point one must both make an effort and choose to do something.
Besides, to get government help and services, one must have an ID. Same to cash a check or to open a bank account. So if no ID, then how can they get paid? How can they live?
You can live without an ID, B. I've done it myself. And you failing to understand why something is difficult for someone does not, in fact, make it less difficult.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans are trying to make it harder for non-republicans to vote. In North Carolina the court found that they had specifically targeted black people with their voter suppression laws.
Kobach's crosscheck program purged millions of voters from the rolls for having the same name as a voter in another state, and often not even the same middle name. That's just cheating.
And needing to sell the lie of widespread voter fraud in order for your party to keep winning elections does not make the lie any more true.
-Doug in Oakland
B., from the State of Alabama website, DMV hours are 8-4:30 M-F, period (except a couple of big cities outside the Black Belt). How they vote is usually get in line after 5, if they can...otherwise they can't vote, but that doesn't let you stop them from having the right to vote. And, no, you don't have to have a picture ID like you think. It isn't easy, but it can be done. As a bonus, some of the possible ID forms some of these people have are valid for some of what you mention, but not voting (I wonder why). Oh, and some walk 5-10 miles to work, some ride in a van from their employer, and most DON'T live in a rural area, just a poor, black area.
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