Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/18/doj-supreme-court-ruling-mean.html
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It would be obvious what was going on if an African dictator did the same thing, but I assume Americans’ virtually unlimited trust of the government to restrict their rights* will win out and opposition to this will be in the 20% range.
* That is, their factual acceptance of restrictions on their rights, not their empty rhetoric about “freedom”
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Can we get UN inspectors in like Africa would be forced to… (by & with the U.S. no less)??
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the OSCE will do an election monitoring mission
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Here’s the list of countries they’re watching this year:
Belarus
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Estonia
Georgia
Lithuania
Moldova
Montenegro
Romania
Russia
United States of America
Good to know we’re in such good company! /s
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laws that re-implemented unconstitutional poll taxes, literacy tests,
Which state brought in a poll tax or literacy test since 2015? As far as I know, the ban on literacy tests was in the part of the Voting Rights Act that survives (and poll taxes are specifically banned by the 24th Amendment).
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I’m nearly sure this list should include Austria, I read they will monitor the second try of the presidential elections
Don’t worry, I’m sure patriotic citizens will step up and volunteer to ‘observe’ precincts in those states.
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After an informal survey of members at my country club, and again at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, I have determined that no one who matters has had a problem with voting.
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And we’ve got shit like the Kansas law that knocked about 17,000 people off voter rolls to prevent people from illegally voting - investigations indicated that over a ten year period, only 3 people did so. 17,000 mostly Democratic voters (a total coincidence, I’m sure!) prevented from voting to keep 3 people from voting. Republicans have to do something to keep from losing elected offices, I guess, and they certainly aren’t getting more votes…
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Republicans are such cowards. They fear voters more than anything else. We can stop them and they know it, so they’ve worked very hard to suppress the vote in so many clever ways and with so much legislation -and they seem to have done it without much howling from voters.
That fact that they fear us so much should motivate those who sit on their asses to get out and actually do something to keep these charlatans from getting elected. Now’s a pretty good time to do it too -before the next person who can’t vote is you.
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The cost and difficulty of obtaining an ID is generally considered a type of poll tax. It’s really the only reason they are being instituted in a number of states since actual voter fraud that would be caught using such ID’s is close to non-existent. In general this cost ranges from a few tens of dollars to several hundred and may involve many hours of leg work, paper work and red tape.
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Elections should be, operationally, the antithesis of quantum mechanics - meaning they only work when observed.
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Amen brother!
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I think it is settled law that if a state requires ID to vote, it must give out ID that meets the requirements free of charge to avoid its being an unconstitutional poll tax.
Of course, they don’t have to publicize the fact that such ID is available, and there is still the cost in time and travel to a DMV that make voter-ID laws function as voter suppression.
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And the fees for procurring the documents needed to get the ID.
I seem to remember reading that it sort of backfired in Georgia, at least for one election, in that once people got the ID, they were motivated to actually vote. But I have no source for that, and may be mis-remembering.
I fully expect there to be a gaggle of open-carrying Trumpeters standing outside election booths, “inspecting” every person of colour who dares to vote.
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