Voting rights groups sue Georgia & Brian Kemp to reinstate 53,000 blocked registrations, 70% are Black

As someone who lives here still, me too. She’s just what we need and would give us something to be proud of, electing the first black woman as governor in American history.

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From TPM:

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I mean, it’s almost that bad. Gun licenses are acceptable ID, for example, but not student IDs…

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I heard Greg Palast speaking about this yesterday, saying this story needs to hit big media outlets. His website is tracking voter purges across the country. https://www.gregpalast.com/

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That’s something for the courts to decide.

and… we’re fucked.

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Not like there is a bias in the judiciary, now is there?

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Aha, here’s where they tip the scales:

Technically, Kemp removed voters after they had skipped voting — and failed to return a postcard that, according to Morgan County Elections Board member Helen Butler, “Looks like junk mail. You’d throw it away.” Butler, who also serves as executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, is wary of Kemp’s purge methods. Just last year, her group settled a suit against Kemp that forced him to return over 40,000 voters to the rolls.

The National Voter Registration Act specifically prohibits cancelling voter registrations for not voting. But the failure to vote, in combination with not returning a postcard or other information, can be used to justify a cancellation if there is legitimate belief this is evidence the voter has moved.

“But they have not moved,” notes Swedlund, who says not returning a postcard is an “absurd, dangerous” way to determine if voters have moved — especially if their rights are at stake. And basing cancellations on non-responses to postcards is, Swedlund notes, endemically biased against voters who move often, including the poor, students, and Black and Latino voters — in other words, Democrats.

And if Democrats skip the mid-terms relative to Republicans, another bias.

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This whole voter registration thing, why even bother with it? All it seems to do is exclude people for no obvious reason. Just register everyone automatically, many countries do it, why not the self proclaimed greatest democracy on earth?

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Pssssst:

My country has been deceiving itself since time out of mind.

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If you expand the percentage to include more than just African-Americans, it gets even worse. White people make up less than 10% of the number of registrations put on hold.

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I mean… that’s the goal.

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Holy fudge! That is some crazy mixed up shit.

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So why hasn’t it been, I don’t know, been made illegal? This seems blatantly unconstitutional.

Well, we did have a law against racial discrimination in Southern states with a history of that kind of bullshittery. But the Roberts court struck down the whole enforcement arm of the Voting Rights Act a few years ago, and the Republican-controlled Congress has inexplicably not bothered to get around to fixing that problem. I can’t imagine why.

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Because the Constitution is not really that great. There are readings of the Constitution that get you to universal suffrage, but the states have enumerated powers (Art. 1 Sec. IV) that are not explicitly cancelled by the later amendments. People think that SCOTUS’s job is to make things fair… but that’s not their job. Their job is apply law consistently, and where there is conflict, SCOTUS will try, as best as possible to apply both sets of law simultaneously. The only way to guarantee just law, is to legislate justly. This is why even though I’m happy to see rulings like Gideon v. Wainwright, I’m painfully aware that too many Americans see such rulings and think that the courts can and will pull their ass out of every fire. So why show up for midterms? Why bother figuring out who your secretary of state is? Or your state senator? RBG will save you… she’s immortal, right?

The only way to guarantee of justice is the power to enforce it.

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I mean, again, how well do you know the history of voter suppression in America? The voting rights act was meant to act as a check on former segregation states that had a history of suppressing black voters (through poll taxes, literacy tests, and out right violence), but that’s been gutted now thanks to the supreme court (prior to Kennedy’s retirement). This is going to happen again, and the supreme court is LESS likely to intervene, and the justice department won’t intervene. We’re going back to white majorities only being able to vote in the south, because the federal government will not intervene on behalf of voters whose rights are once again being taken away. The unconstitutionality will only matter if the Feds are willing to step in, and given the current administration, do you really think that’s going to happen?

Also, jinx both @alahmnat and @reactionabe!

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I would love to NOT like this because it is nauseating, but it is also accurate. We are fucked.

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It’s okay not to like my comments… lots of folks don’t! They find me too angry… :wink:

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I’ve received some of that anger. It’s no biggie. If you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention.

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frankie-grace-a-toast|nullxnull

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