A county judge in Wisconsin yesterday put on hold the state's new law requiring voters to show ID they never had to show before. Dane County Judge David Flanagan, who appears to be no fan of Governor Walker's, wrote that the law had a particularly hard effect on minorities, the poor and the elderly, and that it serves to keep people from exercising their right to vote. From his temporary injunction (pdf):
The forty uncontested affidavits offer a picture of carousel visits to government offices, delay, dysfunctional computer systems, misinformation and significant investment of time to avoid being turned away at the ballot box.
Also yesterday, Tennessee voted under that state's new law requiring voters to show a photo ID. Former Marine Tim Thompson showed up at the polls and refused to show his ID or to vote with a provisional ballot. Cameras rolled as he challenged a poll worker over the new law (h/t @icnorth). The Brad Blog rounds up the considerable local coverage of what happened, including this from the Tennessean:
"We just fought a war to bring democracy to Iraq," Thompson said. "Now, we’re passing laws that restrict and bring conditions to our right to vote. I sacrificed my right to vote in order to make this statement."
Or consider the story of the 86-year-old veteran in Ohio who couldn't vote yesterday because his new ID from the Veterans Administration didn't have a street address. Paul Carroll had lived in the same town for nearly 40 years. The poll worker told the Cleveland Plain Dealer she felt "so bad" about it.
You could look at these incidents and say they don't amount to much -- a frustrated voter here, a frustrated voter there. Or you could say that in the name of protecting the integrity of elections, we're protecting legitimate voters out of a fundamental right. And if it's real vote fraud you're looking for, the news suggests starting with the politicians.
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This breaks my heart.
I agree...this is shameful on so many levels.
However...voter suppression is typical of the Aristocracy that has taken refuge in the US under the guise of "big Business", and controls our political system.
The Aristocracy took the Indians land and left them on the reservation.
They used blacks as slaves and put them in the Ghetto.
They employ minorities at minimum wage.
Now, they will use every effort to turn us all into renters by foreclosing on our homes and being so generous as to rent them back to us.
The GOP sold it's soul to the Aristocracy...The Devil will get his due.
From your lips to God's ear....please!!!
Amen Mego...
Hats off to this Marine! He is what America stands for!
You have to be an American citizen to vote. That's the law. Breaking it is a felony punishable with imprisonment. You have to have proper documentation to even live in this country or you'll be deported. If we allow people to vote without checking their background and status, then all illegals, minors and tourist will be able to vote and that's ain't right. We're still a country of rules and laws and it should be respected.
Cindy, I have a funny feeling that the Marine "is" a US citizen...
Illegals or tourists probably wouldn't go into a public office and demand to vote like he did.
Just sayin...
He was presenting a State Issued Voter Registration Card that has existed for decades, but they do not have pictures so the new law makes them unacceptable as ID to vote.
"You have to be an American citizen to vote..."
He had a Voter Registration Card. When you go to vote you have to state your name and address, do you really think some random tourist is going to go to a polling place, wait in line then give the name and address of someone on the rolls in that polling station?
Elections are not stolen by Voter Fraud. It takes a concerted effort to steal an elected.
I love rethuglican logic on voter id, the immigrants, the tourists, the out of staters are gonna come in and steal OUR election. That just shows you how incredibly easy it is to mislead sheep. There hasn't been a measurable problem with voter id fraud in this country since the 1950's, almost all of the voting fraud that has occurred in this country since 1980 is related to counting and more often by republicans than democrats. But just like the rethugs got the ignorant American electorate to support a war of choice in Iraq, they are again convincing the ignorant American electorate of a problem where none exists. Now you know the rethug base is going to support voter suppression, and you know the MSM and the supposed independents are ill informed enough to follow the talking points. Never underestimate the ignorance of the American Main Stream Media, nor the laziness of the American people.
The same thing happened in December 2011 to a 93yo lady in Tennessee...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MJTJeZCoV0
It's called projection. Whatever the tealiban do that's wrong or illegal, they blame on the dimwit dems and their faithful sheep buy into it, hook, line and sinker. That's why after the 2000 elections they shoved voting machines that can be manipulated down our throats in every state. They can't depend on the SCOTUS always being in the bag for the tealiban to appoint their next liar in chief that is bought and paid for by the "corporations are people, too, my friend".
Cindy wrote, "You have to have proper documentation to even live in this country or you'll be deported." You're mistaken. I've lived in the United States for decades, I've never had any such documentation, and I've never been deported. What sort of documentation were you thinking of, and who do you suppose is periodically requesting that documentation from everyone who lives here, then deporting him or her if it is not presented?
Voter I.D. laws are proposed amendments to currently existing laws regarding voter fraud. Voter I.D. does nothing more than simply amend current law to ask that someone provide a photo I.D. to verify that their registration is valid. Your comment here makes it sound as though you believe there were no currently existing laws regarding voter fraud and that is simply not true. Voter I.D. does not accomplish anything in regards to background checks, their legal status, their residency, or their age. All voter I.D. laws do- and all they have ever been proposed to do- is attempt to verify that the person is who they claim to be. No evidence exists that proves that voter I.D. laws actually accomplish this goal. So what this means is that those who advocate in favor of these laws are advocating in favor of more government spending and intrusion. And, of course, it's the Republican Party who is doing as much.
Official Statement:
Move along, folks, nothing to see here- just a bunch of left leaning liberals, trying to stir up trouble.
Besides, we will have all the bugs worked out, come November.
Trust me. . .
Move along just a dumb-ass McCarthyist that stupidly will give away his rights because he feel he is defending his party rather then the citizens of his country.
I sure hope that's sarcasm
To whom are you referring, Aiizaku?
"just a bunch of left leaning liberals" who keep you safe in your bed at night by fighting for your country! Trust me all WILL be well in November.
Official...That's your attempt at damage control for the GOP?
Man...Don't quit your day job.
Gotta love people who don't get sarcasm. Here's a hint, click on DAY's name, look at his/her other posts . . . they're all left wing. Now, after that minor bit of "research", feel free to comment without looking like an ignorant fool.
That's it? That's how you "weigh in " on a topic?
Soooo your big complaint is that we didn't "get" sarcasm? Wow
Thanks for your input Poindexter...
Joe, there's no topic to "weigh in" on regarding this post . . . except the stupidity of people who took the aforementioned post as non-sarcastic and responded to it as such, instead of taking a few seconds to realize what was going on. Instead, the responders all look like fools, which reflects poorly on the rest of us left wingers.
But, go ahead, get offended. *shrug*
Now, regarding the topic of the article, sure, there's plenty to say. But, that's for other threads of posts--ones that haven't been hijacked the way this one has.
(BTW: Love the outdated slang there, Joe.)
So the topic of this forum "Trying to Vote", has nothing to do with anything?
Your main concern is who does or doesn't recognize sarcasm. Once again Wow...
The majority of your posts seemed to be at correcting grammar, or misspellings, and typically don't touch on the nature of the "topic".
Outdated or not...I think "Poindexter" fits you to a tee.
Official Statement - As the Republican Party continues to show its hatred of women, veterans, the elderly, the disabled and anyone who has the temerity to disagree with them, elderly American Veterans of both sexes are fighting again to protect the rights of ALL Americans to vote. You cannot profess to LOVE AMERICA while hating most Americans. You cannot profess to be a patriot while trying to take away your fellow citizens rights.. You cannot profess to believe in the democratic process by suppressing the vote. The republicans are changing these laws because they KNOW they cannot win on a level playing field.
That's exactly the response we would expect from your type DAY-3905329 - "move along....there's nothing to see here". Because you don't want people to see how screwed up the government YOU support is. The government YOU support that takes away rights. You should be ashamed to pretend you're an American.
WOW! "Bravo-Zulu", my fellow Veteran!
Standing up and fighting for our "Rights" is what we as Americans learned since "Grade School."
"A person's a person, No matter how small"~ Dr. Seuss,.. we will be heard!
“I know up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down at
the bottom we, too, should have rights!" ~Dr. Seuss
Name that Seuss!
First one: Horton Hears a Who
Second one: Yertle the Turtle (a thinly veiled story of Adolf Hitler)
Julio...Being a vet, how do you feel this will be taken by other vets across the country?
Thanks.
Joe Blogger, I feel that all of our Veterans should stand side by side with our "Women", Especially now that women are being "Degraded" on National T.V., ...We will be voting with our wives, mothers and daughters and together we will be heard in November.
Julio, it is a great message you carry with you and share with others.
Keep up the fight!
Some of us veterans are women.
I applaud the former Marine in TN for once again stepping into the fray.
Becky, this old vet (Vietnam 66-67) appreciates the fact that a log of vets are women and the country is better off because of that. You and I both know that service to country does not end when you take off the uniform.
And if it's real vote fraud you're looking for, the news suggests starting with the politicians.
Might even start in the state of Indiana where the first of these waves of voter suppression started. Where the former Secretary of State was convicted of multiple voter fraud felonies!
Let's not forget Texas where legislators publicly cast multiple votes and justify it on the basis of they are too busy to show up to vote.
Tennessee is a beautiful state nature-wise. But it could should sure use some improvement government-wise. And I live in TN! They've had legislation about not being able to say the word "gay" in schools, and tried to pass not allowing transgendered people to use public restrooms! We have so many other issues in our state and our country, and it seems the only things that so many politicians have on their minds is sex. Goodness!
Don't forget, the Scopes trial was in TN.
God bless the left leaning liberals for calling out this nonsense. How about speak the needs of the voter instead of suppressing his or her right? I'd bet if this was a Democratic legislature instituting this rule, our friends on the right would be using every slur they can think of to condemn these actions. And if this wasn't a Republican move to prevent folks from voting on technicalities, it wouldn't be happening in so many states. Let's call it what it is.
The Republicans let the Democrats get away with voter suppression in the South from 1876 to 1964. Political turds understand that party affiliation is merely a handy marketing tool for the real business which is gaming the system to obtain long term control in order to loot the public treasury and reward your buddies. It us poor vets who actually believed the democracy crap they taught us in the public schools who went and got their asses shot off because of that fallacious teaching who now are seeing how much their sacrifices have been appreciated by their fellow citizens....Voter Suppression is just the Republican way of say "Thanks for your service"
In how many of these primaries so far has it seemed that the votes were either intentionally or negligently mis counted?
I haven't been counting but there are new reports almost daily--sometimes it seems to have taken a week or more to sort things out. They don't seem to have been prepared for these events in many places. It's all a little mushy.
The reports of voter fraud all seem to involve highly placed republican individuals, and the list includes Meh Romney, who claims to live in his son's basement in order to continue voting in MA! Anne Coulter has also been slapped for it in Florida. The list includes names we all know, and they're all republican!
Way to go Marine! Thank you for your service and bless you for standing up for your rights.
Everybody in the country needs to see this video of Mr. Thompson. All my life I've heard that more Americans need to get out and vote. I guess now the feeling is that too many Americans vote. It makes me cry, and it makes me mad.
WOW really in America, arnt we overseas fighting nations to get them to be demecratic? I am not sure they have or are required to purchase ID?
Do as we say, not as we do!
We just want to tell everyone else what to do, but refuse to hold ourselves to the same standard.
Where else is this behavior common? Oh, yeah, christianity!
We need to get our noses out of everyone else's business and get our own stuff straightened out!
Hell, I got my photo in the paper for voting in a Primary, then they go and put me down as being from a different town. Now if that isn't a flag for voter fraud I don't know what is, BTW I wasn't asked for any ID, just my address.
Some of the vast treasure trove of super pac money should be dedicated to designing and implementing a nation-wide effort to assist those that will be disenfranchised to get the ID's they need and to help them get to the farther-away, fewer polls, and to make sure they know when they can submit absentee ballots and the like. The get-out-the-vote effort has to surpass any we have had for decades.
Nice to see the repubs convince another sheep that photo ids will stop vote fraud, particularly since most vote fraud occurs in the counting of votes in places where republicans control the election administration functions. I always keep in mind Lincolns admonition that "You can fool some of the voters all of the time, and all of the voters some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the voters all of the time" Republicans might want to pay attention to that statement, since Lincoln is 1 of only 3 Republican Presidents who could be classified as more than mediocre.
HOO-RHA! Count on a Marine to get the job done!
This is just SO SO WRONG! These laws are absolutely rediculous!
So fantastic, bad laws only get changed when they are challenged! Amen Brother, and thank you for your service to our country and you immediate service to your fellow citizens!
The idea that so many states are implementing laws that make voting in the USA more difficult is utterly reprehensible. I have lived in my town most of my life and the majority of the poll workers know me either personally or by face...if the day comes that I cannot vote without showing a picture ID I will be furious.
Seems that day is coming, Ms Cheryl---just don't get too furious, just get busy fighting for your basic human & civil rights that so many Americans on these shores and in foreign lands gave their lives for. This helps you realize that the powers that be (bigtime $$$ to support voter disenfranchisement) aren't fighting against voter fraud, they're fighting against voters! The struggle continues, don't wait till it lands in your back yard, join us!
Take a read of James Loewen's book "Sundown Towns" if you want to get a historical perspective of the damage done since 1968, 1930, 1890 to the US and its ability to draw together as a people. Well documented, and shows how much was lost in assets, pride, and love because of these actions by a few malcontents.
I'm curious about the cameras following this man. I also think it seemed staged. The voter law was patently wrong and this man was obnoxious about it. The poll worker had zero to do with the law and kept calm.
bigland, I'm gonna stage my protest also, and I'm gonna have the cameras follow me, and I will be obnoxious about it because the poll workers are enforcing an unjust law and are as culpable for that injustice as the legislators who passed it and governor who signed it. Sorry if that offends you, but these laws offend me and they disrespect my service to my country as well as the service of a lot of dead buddies. So I could care less about whether you think I'm obnoxious, those who enforce these laws are going beyond obnoxious to facilitating evil.
So what if the cameras were there because they planned this. Making sure they were there was the right thing.
What a moron, picking on this poor guy that's just trying to do his job and probably doesn't agree with it either. Jug head, I mean jar head was wasting his breath on the wrong person and was just trying to make a scene, go tell it to the guy that put the law into place, don't belittle the poor person who's just trying to follow the law in order to do his job geez!
What a moron GovHater is disrespecting and marginalizing a veteran simply because GovHater seems think that enforcing an unjust law is acceptable while passing it isn't. Sorry GovHater, but you don't know what the "poor guy" thinks about the law other than the FACT that the "poor guy" is willing to enforce it. When you enforce an unjust law, you are going to get resistance, and if you want to term that as picking on someone, so be it. But GovHater you showed your true colors with the Jug head/jar head insult. You have identified yourself as a follower of the Rush Limbaugh school of marginalize the messenger, dehumanize the messenger, but for heaven's sake do not let the message be heard.
Watch the movie, Judgment at Nuremberg, last scene between the German Judge (Burt Lancaster) and the American Prosecutor (Spenser Tracy) in the Judge's jail cell: Judge - "Do you really believe we thought it would come to this (the Nazi persecutions)? Prosecutor -- "You should have known it would come to this the first time you condemned a man you knew was innocent."
Those who enforce unjust laws are responsible for the consequences of the injustice. The poll workers should refuse to enforce the law if they do not want to be exposed as part of the problem.
Yeah what ever, keep talking outta your crap shooter! We/you live in a world of unjust laws... and yet I bet you still follow them to a T everyday for fear of jail or imprisonment, or being unemployed and homeless dontcha? So much for your "argument"! Oh, and I AM ex-military so there, this guy was just using the other poor defenseless ol guy as easy prey to victimize for sensationalism, and for that HE is dishonoring the Marines and deserves the moniker of a jug-head, not a true jar-heard! Open mouth, insert foot!
I am totaly ashamed of what this voting system has come to. I applauded the US.Marine who stood up for the man who was refused to vote because his veterans ID did not have his address on the card. the man lived in the same house for over 30 years and they could not put an address on his card? I cried when the Marine said he was sent to Iraq to free the people so they could vote;and he comes home to find certain people cannot vote because of an error on their card. I think he walked out so sad about what this country has come to. Why did I go to Iraq and fight for those people when I am home and seeing what is going on here. Hugs to the US, Marine!
You liberals are so gullible. This guy is not, never has been, a Marine. He is a fraud. He has a real problem.
FACTS?
Just how in the hell do you know he is not a Marines FYI you stupid ignorant piece of crap not all Marines are neo-cons, for you to insult a fellow Marine is telling of your sorry character! I say HOO-RAH devil dog, funny because i run into a lot of people like you where i get my coffee in the morning and they know better than to even talk this crazy nonsense to me.
Semper Fi Mac!!
drgaines - You seem to be making statements of fact here. So how do you know this man was not a Marine? Where's your proof?
And frankly, many of us do have a real problem - with those who try to change a system to their advantage by reducing the number of people who vote. It's been well documented that voter fraud is almost nonexistent, and where it does exist it isn't nearly enough to change the outcome of an election.
It seems to me the GOP can't seem to win with the current rules, so they think they can win by changing the rules. Good luck with that.
Way to go drgaines...
You did one heck of a job slamming the US marines in the name of your GOP hatred.
What's next? You gonna go off on the Girl Scouts?
Do a little soul searching...in your case you will be disappointed when you find yours.
drgaines, it must be wonderful to volunteer subject for public declarations of stupidity. I've often wondered what it is about republicans that make them able to see things no one else does, and that wonderful talent the republicans have for mind reading and fortune telling. But most of all I love it when republicans show how much they have learned from their Dear Leader Rush Limbaugh, "that when facts, truth or reality are inconvenient to the radical right wing movement, attack, insult, marginalize and dehumanize the opposition" drgaines, you learned well from Rush, the problem is that just as you spouted your lies, I could go on some right wing blog and post "drgaines never was a republican, he is a fraud, he has infiltrated the republican party order to make it look bad" and have as much influence as you have on this blog.
Totally unconstitutional. Where is the Supreme Court? Where is the ACLU? Where is the President?
How's this for a proposal? Take my right to vote, I take your right to bear arms. If you are going to ignore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights you might as well do it big time.
Why would you assume that this Supreme Court would uphold the constitution, and the ACLU is a bit overstretched between the Republican War on Women, the Republican War on Voters, the Republican War on Homosexuals. the Republican War on Occupy, the Obama Administration War on Protesters, the Obama Administration War on Leakers and the Obama Administration's asserting that murdering American Citizens is giving them due process of law. This is America where every day, of every year of every generation, each American has to fight to protect his own Constitutional Rights.
Thanks, Mr Marine, for standing up for our right to vote. And shame on the politicians to have tried to deny us that right.
This struck me as staged, do voters generally have cameras following them into voting stations? The law is patently wrong, no doubt. But this scene was uncomfortable for me because of the built in assumption that this is a heroic protest...standing up to the calm poll worker. I found it kind of obnoxious.
People who are trying to stop injustice cannot afford to be afraid of being "obnoxious". A real push for justice requires that we upset the applecart. If women fighting for voting rights had worried about keeping everyone comfortable, that fight could still be going on today.
Along these lines-- I remember a story about Jesus upsetting [here meaning knocking over] the money changer's tables. Enough said.
bigland, you'd find anyone asserting their rights in the face of chicken hawk suppression obnoxious, so why not stay with Rush and go after the defenseless, Marines fight back.
This sharply harkens back to the days when the South came up w/every scam they could to prevent blacks from voting. The GOP is "terrified" that minorities (current focus on Latino's) will stand up and demand equal rights. I find it so amusing that no one is worried about Canada.....BTW I've been living near the Mexican border (Tucson, AZ), for 27 yrs and find all the uproar and "fear factor" spin some have been spewing about our border w/Mexico laughable...Every place has it's problems and crime. There are some that make it out to be a virtual battle zone. If you believe that crap, don't go to any major city! It's much worse elsewhere.