United
States Supreme Court: 2018 Class Picture
(Not
circled: Bader-Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor)
Add: Ohio to a few other states “Use it (vote) or Lose it”
(Lousy policy to say the least)
Seems
to me the only way the GOP can win is by devious means, even with lousy candidates
and sneaky shenanigans. Cite: This latest from the USSC reported on here
from Reuters, VOX
here, NBC
News here, and
Axios
here as well as other major outlets.
THIS
MAJOR 5-4 HIGH COURT DECISION – THE HIGHLIGHTS:
Ohio said the policy
was needed to keep voting rolls current, clearing out people who have moved
away or died. Being challenged and under current Ohio policy, if registered
voters miss voting for two years, they are sent registration confirmation
notices. If they do not respond and do not vote over the following four years,
they are purged.
Note: Trump's
administration backed Ohio, reversing
the stance taken by Democratic former President Barack Obama's administration
against the policy (surprise, surprise, surprise as Gomer Pyle would say).
GOP
SOS Jon Husted said: “This decision is validation of Ohio's
efforts to clean up the voter rolls and now with the blessing (of the) nation's
highest court, it can serve as a model for other states to use.”
Writing
for the 5-4 majority, Justice Samuel Alito said:
“The court was not deciding whether Ohio's policy is the ideal method for
keeping its voting rolls up to date. The only question before us is whether it
violates federal law. It does not.”
All
four court dissenters said: Democrats have accused
Republicans of taking steps at the state level, including laws requiring
certain types of government-issued identification, intended to suppress the
vote of minorities, poor people and others who generally favor Democratic
candidates.
The challengers also criticized what they called Ohio's “use it or lose it” (right to vote) policy
that they said violated registered voters' right to choose when to vote, noting
that some voters do not cast a ballot when they do not support any of the
candidates running.
The 1993 federal law, known by its acronym NVRA, was
enacted to make it easier to register. Many states over the decades had erected
to voting, sometimes targeting black voters.
In
a dissenting opinion, Justice Sotomayor said: “The ruling ignores
the history of voter suppression against which the NVRA was enacted and upholds
a program that appears to further the very disenfranchisement of minority and
low-income voters that Congress set out to eradicate.
Communities that are
disproportionately affected by unnecessarily harsh registration laws should not
tolerate efforts to marginalize their influence in the political process, nor
should allies who recognize blatant unfairness stand idly by.”
Note: A 2016 Reuters analysis found roughly
twice the rate of voter purging in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods in Ohio's
three largest counties as in Republican-leaning neighborhoods.
Earlier
links – same topic:
1. Here from the Washington Post:
2. Here from TruthOut.org:
Overall
Background, Introduction, and Some Facts: People are 3,615
times more likely to report a UFO sighting than they are to commit in-person
voter impersonation, according to national data. If anyone wants a good cause
to stand and fight for, then voter rights should ring your bell. A few facts re: GOP argument these new laws
prevent fraud:
Some
GOPers argue: “We must show an ID to fly, to drive, or
to buy beer why not to vote?”
I say: That kind of talk is a red herring. Those
are not constitutional rights – voting is. This is their solution that seeks a
problem. Like invading Iraq then looking for a reason.
FYI: National UFO Reporting Center records
show there were 47,000 reports of UFO
sightings between 2000 and 2010.
During the same period, just
13 people were convicted of impersonating someone else in order to vote in
their name, according to research by Justin Levitt, associate professor of law
at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. [UFO
Quiz: What's Really Out There]
Mother Jones assembled the numbers in
order to fact-check claims by many Republican lawmakers that their states are
facing rampant voter fraud. Since 2011, 24 voting restrictions have passed in
17 states. Other studies indicate low-income and minority voters are most often
disenfranchised by laws requiring voters to have government-issued photo
IDs. For example, 25 percent of voting-age African-Americans don't have
valid IDs.
Put
the 13 confirmed cases of voter impersonation into perspective this way:
1. Each
year, 15 Americans are crushed to death by their furniture or televisions.
2. Some
14 are injured by exploding toilets
3. About
100 are accidentally set on fire by their doctors during surgery.
4. Interestingly
enough: There are some 3 million Americans more likely to have a favorable view
of North Korea than to commit blatant and actual voter fraud.
Great
Example of Voter Suppression in PA: The fake and phony voter
ID / voter fraud law hampered 93-year
old Ms. Viviette Applewhite, who BTW had voted for over 50 years but cannot
now since she can't meet the new state voter ID requirement.
She like millions
of other Americans of her generation, and others who changed names, or forget
to change an address, do not have a birth certificate for any number of reasons,
and for which those harsh laws effect are the same pattern – stop people from
voting for no good reason. Ms. Applewhie, BTW is a native born black lady. Her
story is here from MSNBC News.
Voter Suppression – case reflection 2012:
1. Hispanics
make up 16% of America: The GOP got 27% percent of the Hispanic vote. The
Democrats got 71%.
2. Asians
make up 5% of America: The GOP got 26% of their vote. Democrats picked up 73%.
3. Blacks
make up 13% of America: The GOP got 6% of the Black vote. Democrats got the
rest.
4. Mr.
Obama got 60% of the vote among voters younger than 30.
5. Mr.
Obama won the female vote by 12% (56% to Romney’s 44%).
6.
Whites went for Romney 59%, and some
40% for Obama (NOTE: there are 63.7% Whites in America when Hispanics who
describe themselves as "white" are taken out of the calculation,
otherwise it is about 72% white).
Previous
links and blog posts I have made related to this subject follow since 2012:
(Please NOTE: Some links may not be valid, up to date, or have
been deleted. If so, sorry in advance):
The bottom line for GOP voter fraud issue - pure hype
Thanks for stopping by -- a big issue for sure - do
what you can to stop this wild, unfounded GOP-run hype, or in Trump style: This
is “Fake Issue.”
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