I’m going to this Monday, so if you’re in or around Cleveland, it’d be good if we had a supportive crowd of democracy enthusiasts outside the courthouse:
DURBIN ANNOUNCES FIELD HEARING ON OHIO VOTING LAW
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – US Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, today announced a field hearing examining the impact of Ohio’s new voting law, HB 194, which restricts early voting, eliminates the requirement that poll workers direct voters to the proper precinct, and makes it harder to vote absentee. The hearing will be held on Monday, May 7th, at the Carl B. Stokes United States Court House in Cleveland, Ohio. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will join Durbin at the hearing.
Field Hearing Will Be Subcommittee’s Second Examining State Voting LawsOhio’s new law reduces the number of early voting days from 35 to 17, eliminates voting on the weekend before an election, removes the requirement that poll workers direct voters to their proper precinct and prohibits county boards of elections from mailing unsolicited absentee ballots. HB 194 will be subject to a ballot repeal measure in November. Witnesses will be announced at a later date.
“For more than half of the life of our Republic, a majority of Americans were not allowed to vote. Fortunately, we learned from these mistakes and expanded the franchise and reach of our democracy though six constitutional amendments,” Durbin said. “Worryingly, a spate of recently passed state voting laws seem designed to restrict voting by making it harder for millions of disabled, young, minority, rural, elderly, homeless, and low income Americans to vote. Protecting the right of every citizen to vote and ensuring that our elections are fair and transparent are not Democratic or Republican values, they are American values.”
“We should encourage seniors, students, minorities, and working Americans to vote, rather than making it harder for them to do so,” said Brown, who served as Ohio’s Secretary of State for two terms. “But rather than protecting the right to vote – we have seen brazen attempts to undermine it. The march toward free and fair elections continues to be burdened with voter suppression and denial. Voting is a right enshrined in our Constitution – not a privilege bestowed by the few. By helping eligible voters access the ballot, we uphold the integrity of our electoral system.”
Over thirty states have new or pending changes to current voting laws. States seeking to change their laws have passed or proposed provisions that significantly reduce the number of early voting days, require voters to show restrictive forms of photo identification before voting and make it harder for volunteer organizations to register new voters. Supporters of these laws argue that they will reduce the risk of voter fraud. The overwhelming evidence, however, indicates that voter fraud is virtually non-existent and that these new laws will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of elderly, disabled, minority, young, rural, and low-income Americans to exercise their right to vote.
The Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held a hearing on these new state voting laws in September of last year. In January, the Subcommittee held their first-ever field hearing in Tampa, which examined Florida’s restrictive new voting law. More information on those hearings can be found here and here.
Who: US Senator Dick Durbin
US Senator Sherrod BrownWhat: Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights
Field Hearing: “New State Voting Laws III: Protecting the Right to Vote in America’s Heartland”When: Monday, May 7, 2012
9:30am ETWhere: Carl B. Stokes United States Court House
801 West Superior Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio
The voter impersonation fraud scam is basically a cottage industry at this point and so may never die, but the claim by conservatives that certain groups of voters are breaking the law really shouldn’t be allowed to go completely unchallenged, because it isn’t true. It was never true. They invented it. There is not not now and was never a problem with people who are not legal voters impersonating other legal voters in order to cast ballots in US elections.
At base, this is and always was an attack on the character of certain targeted voters, because that’s what it means when conservative leaders and lawyers and elected officials say “voter fraud!” They mean certain targeted voters are breaking the law. That’s a direct accusation, it’s a lie, and it shouldn’t go unchallenged.
It’s rare in US politics to go after voters, but somehow conservatives have gotten away with it. Ordinarily political operatives and marketing people target “leaders” or “politicians”, but they steer clear of attacking individual voters. I can’t help but wonder why conservatives have gotten away with attacking these particular targeted voters.
Valdivia
Just to say thanks Kay for keeping us updated and all you do.
c u n d gulag
VWNW: Voting While Non-White.
That’s what they want to criminalize.
Oh, and how secure are the electronic voting machines for THIS election?
2000 and 2004 were close enough for the Conservatives to do their usual tricks with them, to help them win.
In 2008, Obama had too big a lead for them to try – tampering with them would have been apparent.
I don’t much confidence in them this coming November.
Do you?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
“They haven’t taken away my vote. It’s those others.”
@c u n d gulag:
It’s actually VWD: Voting While Democrat.
General Stuck
Few human fears and flaws can match race and culture as motivators to action. Most white people in a vacuum don’t approve of suppressing the vote of the poor and minorities. But they also feel little need to actively oppose it.
It’s like that with a lot of the offensive crap the GOP braintrust does, and somehow gets away with. We may be a stable democracy, but are still partly motivated by primal compulsions to resist, or not embrace the different. Especially when it comes to governance.
Kay
@General Stuck:
I still think it’s unusual. Language is important. Conservatives never, ever attack union members. They attack “union bosses”. Why is it okay to attack these voters? It really isn’t “done” in politics, except with THESE voters. Hmmm. I wonder why that is.
General Stuck
@Kay:
If I had to guess, when it comes to unions, it is mostly due to direct electoral competition for votes. That and fundamental ideology of the party that protects business and profit. It wouldn’t be smart to attack union members because a lot of them enjoy union benefits, but still vote wingnut. Union bosses are the persons with their hands on the union levers of power that run negative ads against wingnuts and ad a lot of other material support for dems, such as GOTV. Just a natural reflex for the other side to attack that. But for whatever reasons, in all sorts of ways, the GOP has cast aside thoughtful measured strategy and decided to go for the union throat instead. I suspect they will pay a price for that, when gooper voting union members decide between their paychecks and bennies, versus ideological concerns in general.
rlrr
I heard on the radio this morning that the Romney-tron 2000 is claiming to have created 100,000 jobs during his career. Are there any actual numbers to back up this claim?
Kay
@General Stuck:
I’m not talking about conservatives themselves, though.
It is unusual in politics to accuse ordinary people, voters, of illegal or malicious acts. You will never, ever hear Obama attack a conservative voter, he’ll go after LEADERS, but voters are OFF LIMITS. It’s understandable, too, because it’s absolutely punching down, and politicians have almost a knee-jerk tendency to speak of voters as blameless and pure.
Yet, conservatives have gone after THESE voters. The’re not attacking officials or elected leaders with the voter fraud accusation. They’re attacking individual voters.
I would think that alone would be questioned. Yet it hasn’t been.
rikyrah
thanks Kay,
I’m gonna try and spread the word
lamh35
Kay,
Thx for the updates you do. My mom lives in Cincinnatti so I’m always interested in what’s going on in Ohio. She’s not very social these days (bipolar disorder) so she goes to work and home and that’s it. She’s never really aware of what going on politics. Thx to ur updates I’m always sharing info with her that she doesn’t know about or doesn’t pay much attention too.
Thx again.
Oh,since this is election year, is there any new voting laws I need to tell her to be aware of in time for Nov? Ya know, new IDrequirements and such
Kay
@General Stuck:
Imagine this.
Imagine if Democratic electeds, leaders, lawyers, started a national campaign that was based on the accusation that white rural voters were breaking the law.
“They’re doing it because they want farm subsidies so they have to elect ag state conservatives!”
Because that’s the claim here. That certain voters are committing felonies.
Can you fucking IMAGINE the media screeching that would ensue?
gluon1
I watched a 1965 debate between James Baldwin and William Buckley yesterday, for reasons not entirely clear. Interesting and depressing that, in response to the suggestion that Blacks in Mississippi be allowed to vote, Buckley explained: “If I were a constituent of a community of Mississippi at this moment, what I would do is vote to lift the standards so as to disqualify 65% of the White people who are presently voting.” (That portion here.)
It’s not just that Buckley was always a horrible human being who was never half as smart as most credit him with being. It’s not just that I could imagine those words coming out of the mouths of so many Republicans today. It’s that that 65% of White people still vote for these sociopathic, un-American assholes that’s most depressing to me.
artem1s
I’m in Cleveland, on Brown’s email list and a registered dem. This is the first I am hearing about this.
was it a last minute thing, I wonder? Of course its working hours so I don’t see how there can be much of a turn out without some party organizing.
Kay
@lamh35:
There aren’t right now because OFA and Democrats and liberals got signatures and put the (latest) voter suppression law on the ballot for an up or down vote, which in Ohio acts to “stay” or stop the law going in.
The Ohio legislature doesn’t want it on the ballot, so they plan to repeal the law they passed and replace it with another law, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Tell her to vote early (it’s called ‘in person absentee’ in Ohio) because then if she runs into problems and is denied a ballot (or given a provisional ballot) she has a chance to fix whatever the objection is and get her vote in and counted prior to election day. She does that at the Board of Elections in her county. It’s called “banking votes” and if you’re detail-obsessive on voting (as I am) it’s a guarantee, and worth the extra trouble.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
What’s the source of your long blockquote? I presume it’s a press release. At first I thought it was a news story and found it suprising that it called out the myth of widespread voter fraud.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
It’s a press release and I got it in an email. They’ve already held one of these in FL.
General Stuck
@Kay:
It is both sad and infuriating that the GOP can behave in such ways and get away with it. Look at the current effort to swiftboat Obama on getting Bin Laden. It is why democrats need to rally around their candidate at least till the election is over, to fight this bullshit. So far, it looks like Obama is doing his part, but the rest of us need to do ours. We can go back to the usual circular firing squads after winning the election. It’s going to get very ugly, and all hands need to be on deck. imo.
Kay
@General Stuck:
As long as Mitt Romney is following Obama, Obama is doing okay. Romney’s entire campaign so far has been a series of rebuttals. Taxes, women’s issues, college loans, now Bin Laden. I think he’ll start his campaign eventually, so I’m not complacent, but this isn’t “Romney’s campaign” yet. It’s Romney’s response to Obama’s campaign. I don’t think he can win doing that.
I think comparing Obama to Kerry (swift boating) is a fundamentally flawed analysis, because Obama’s an incumbent. Kerry was an unknown quantity, nationally. He was more vulnerable to it.
Kay
@General Stuck:
I do think you’re right on one thing, though. I’m not frightened of paid advertising as a result of Citizens. I’m frightened of items that conservatives will (successfully) plant as “news”. That will happen, and it’s harder to combat than paid advertising.
I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet. It will get much worse.
General Stuck
@Kay:
Yup, this is true. But they will try nonetheless.
General Stuck
@Kay:
LOL, Whew, better to be right on one thing, than nothing at all. :-)
Chris
@General Stuck:
The SEALs in that article are frankly disgusting, especially the one “serving SEAL team member” whining that Obama wasn’t in the field with them, that he’s not grateful enough to them and that when he is it’s only because of his speechwriters.
I’d be less disgusted if I’d ever seen this kind of principled “ZOMG that mean politician is using us!” public outcry the millions of times Republicans have done it with far less justification. Though I’m sure it helps to have the entire media and Republican machines digging through the military looking for such comments.
Kay
@General Stuck:
I don’t know. I saw Romney and his wife went on Charlie Rose and were whining that Obama “used” bin laden politically. Does anyone really care about this sort of insidery campaign process stuff outside of political junkies? Is it too “political”? Who gives a shit?
If it’s a character attack it seems pretty weak. “Too political!” My stars! That’s brutal :)
General Stuck
@Chris:
I suspect we will see a retort of ‘SEALS for Obama’ at some point. It is usually how these things go.
wenchacha
A question about voting in Ohio, and elsewhere: in NYS, when we vote, we have to sign a ledger, next to the X. A sheet of paper covers our previous signatures. Once signed, the poll worker lists the sheet in order to compare the signatures. Is this a practice in most/all states?
Signatures may not be the absolute best way to determine a person’s ID, but it would be pretty hard to fake just a random signature if you were trying to commit voter fraud. My sig isn’t exactly the same each time, but it’s similar each time. Over years of voting, compare the sigs, and it’s a good bet that I was the one who voted under my name each time.
Obviously, this wouldn’t work everywhere. Some people can’t sign their name. Also, I don’t know what kind of set-up other voting districts have. Most often, we have plenty of polling places and workers where I vote; other places may not be so well-staffed. That can be a feature, instead of a bug.
It is galling that so much has been accomplished in making people suspicious of election outcomes. I’m just curious if other states where screws are being tightened re eligibility have used the signature as reliable ID in the past, and what helped voters doubt its reliability.
swbarnes2
@wenchacha:
I work polls in California, and poll workers don’t have access to signatures from previous elections or forms in front of them. Really, we aren’t supposed to be gatekeepers like that. If the person’s name is on the roster (and they handed over their mail ballot, or the records don’t indicate that they received one), they vote normally, and their ballot gets mixed in with all the others. If not, they fill out an envelope with their name and info, and put the ballot in that, and a person at the Registrar of Voters figures out which elements on the ballot they filled out they are eligable to vote for. Voters do sign the roster, so in theory an ROV employee could compare signatures, but poll workers shouldn’t worry about that.
cosima
Does anyone have any experience with this organization:
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4860183
As I go about Denver registering voters (or at least attempting to), I’d like to be able to point them in the direction of quality non-partisan organizations that can assist potential voters who have questions beyond my ken (am I eligible, non-english speaking, etc), and I found this outfit via a search of “voter+assistance+colorado.”
On the surface they seem kind of awesome — and to have a presence in many, if not all, states — but does anyone savvier about election issues (Kay) know anything about them?
I really do not want to recommend that someone go somewhere that turns out to be full of wingnuts.