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Back To Business
Author: Raine
Date: 12/26/2013 14:04:29
With the holiday behind us and the New Year fast approaching, I suppose it is time to get back to the business of blogging.
It's not too soon to start thinking about 2014 and the mid-term elections. It's widely-known that many Republican states have redistricted to favor Republicans. It's well-known that many of these states have changed voting rules to make it more difficult for people to vote. It's also well-documented that those disenfranchised by these new laws are minorities and elderly (who tend to vote for Democrats).
Much of this damage was done when the Supreme Court gutted the voting rights act earlier this year. That opened the floodgates to stories like this. North Carolina now has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the nation. And people like TX Governor Perry claim that there should be even tougher lD laws to shut down on 'voter' fraud. The problem is that fraud isn't the problem.
What's happening here is disenfranchisement. Now there is a lot more proof to back it up.
This study is is highly disturbing and backs up what many of us have said for years. There is hope, though. We now have someone in the people's corner to keep tabs on voter suppression.
This is going to be a big year, I can feel it!
and 
Raine
It's not too soon to start thinking about 2014 and the mid-term elections. It's widely-known that many Republican states have redistricted to favor Republicans. It's well-known that many of these states have changed voting rules to make it more difficult for people to vote. It's also well-documented that those disenfranchised by these new laws are minorities and elderly (who tend to vote for Democrats).
Much of this damage was done when the Supreme Court gutted the voting rights act earlier this year. That opened the floodgates to stories like this. North Carolina now has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the nation. And people like TX Governor Perry claim that there should be even tougher lD laws to shut down on 'voter' fraud. The problem is that fraud isn't the problem.
Between 2000 and 2010, there were:
649 million votes cast in general elections
47,000 UFO sightings
441 Americans killed by lightning
13 credible cases of in-person voter impersonation
What's happening here is disenfranchisement. Now there is a lot more proof to back it up.
According to new research by University of Massachusetts Boston sociologist Keith Bentele and political scientist Erin O’Brien, the states that have enacted tougher voter ID laws in the past few years are also the same states where both minority and lower-income voter turnout had increased in recent years.
Focusing further analysis on just 2011, when the vast majority of voter ID regulations were passed, the researchers found that states which passed the legislation were highly likely to have:
- Republicans in control of both houses of the state legislature and the governorship
- Strong probabilities of being swing states in the 2012 elections
- Minority turnout which was higher in the 2008 election and with high proportions of African-American voters
- Larger numbers of allegations of fraud in 2004, though these had a “much smaller substantive impact relative to partisan and racial factors”
Karlan will take over as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division’s voting rights section. In this role, she will oversee the Justice Department’s most important challenges to voter suppression laws — including its efforts to restore federal oversight of Texas’ election law and its challenge to the nation’s worst voter suppression law in North Carolina.
As a senior member of the Civil Rights Division, Karlan will work under soon-to-be Assistant Attorney General Debo Adegbile, who President Obama recently nominated as the nation’s top civil rights attorney. Like Karlan, Adegbile is himself a leading expert on voting rights law – indeed, he twice appeared before the Supreme Court to try to save the Voting Rights Act from the Court’s conservative majority.
This is going to be a big year, I can feel it!
and Raine
