[Politics_Observer]

Glad to see the U.S. Department of Justice getting into the fight to protect the people's right to vote and stop republican efforts to take away that right.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the Justice Department will aggressively fight efforts to restrict voting rights nationwide following a blitz of new voting restrictions in Republican-led states that stem from former President Donald Trump's lies that widespread fraud helped Joe Biden win the presidential election.

In a speech Friday, Garland outlined a number of steps the Justice Department will take to protect every citizen's right to vote, and within the next 30 days said the department will double the number of employees in the Civil Rights Division's "enforcement staff for protecting the right to vote."

"There are many things that are open to debate in America. But the right of all eligible citizens to vote is not one of them. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, the right from which all other rights ultimately flow," Garland said to a room of prosecutors inside the Justice Department's Great Hall.

The Justice Department, he said, will examine new restrictive voting laws across the country and take action against any "violations."

As Arizona's problem-ridden audit has inspired Republicans elsewhere to push for reviews in their own states, Garland said DOJ will analyze post-election audits, "to ensure they abide by federal statutory requirements to protect election records and avoid the intimidation of voters."

Garland said that since 2013 when the Supreme Court decided that portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were no longer valid, "there has been a dramatic rise in legislative efforts that will make it harder for millions of citizens to cast a ballot that counts."

This year alone, 14 states have passed controversial voting right laws "and some jurisdictions, based on disinformation, have utilized abnormal post-election audit methodologies that may put the integrity of the voting process at risk and undermine public confidence in our democracy," Garland said.

By increasing the Civil Rights Division's staff, Garland said "we will use all existing provisions of the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to ensure that we protect every qualified American seeking to participate in our democracy."

Garland emphasized a commitment to protecting Black voters and other voters of color, and said the department will "scrutinize current laws and practices" to discern whether Black voters and other voters of color have been discriminated against, including when it comes to the amount of time Black voters and other voters of color wait in polling lines compared to white voters.

The department will put out "guidance with respect to early voting and voting by mail," Garland said, and, "the voting protections that apply to all jurisdictions as they redraw their legislative maps," as states begin the redistricting process ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Garland said.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/politics ... index.html

[Igor Antunov]

When the ID regime is so lax you can just pop to the back of the line and vote again multiple times or bus hundreds of people from polling station to station of course lines are going to be longer.

American demofarcy is a laughing stock, and this looks to make it even more ineffective. Very good indeed. Whichever subversive forces have infiltrated the US state department are doing an efficient job. I support this ongoing exercise in rapid dissolution and polarization of an unpleasant polity.

[wat0n]

Why don't the feds give free IDs to every citizens or fund State efforts to do so as long as they don't charge for it? This would allow to demand carrying and showing an ID to vote and does away with accusations of racism.

The Federal government can coerce states to do so just like it did during the Reagan administration to have them raise the drinking age to 21 in 1986. The costs of this measure would be dwarfed by the benefits of doing away with attempts to question electoral results and more generally having people use IDs in general.

[Unthinking Majority]

Why don't the feds give free IDs to every citizens or fund State efforts to do so as long as they don't charge for it? This would allow to demand carrying and showing an ID to vote and does away with accusations of racism.

The Federal government can coerce states to do so just like it did during the Reagan administration to have them raise the drinking age to 21 in 1986. The costs of this measure would be dwarfed by the benefits of doing away with attempts to question electoral results and more generally having people use IDs in general.

The feds could issue a federal photo ID card for free if they wanted.

Voting restrictions aren't necessarily some nefarious attempt trying to disenfranchise black/POC voters. Some people actually do want to make the voting process a bit more secure.

For example, famously some state put forward banning people giving food/water to people in line. Some may say "hey that's cruel". Fair enough view. But the other argument is that people from political parties can show up to polls in areas they know vote strongly in their favor and give people water/food, which could be argued to be interfering in the electoral process. Should that be allowed? If you think you might be in line shouldn't you bring a bottle of water and a snack?

Maybe some of these restriction attempts are nefarious but I think there's also a lot of Republicans and supporters who straight up don't trust the system as it currently stands and want to see more security. If you don't need photo ID how in the world do they verify who is voting?

[wat0n]

It all depends on why they don't vote. If these restrictions restrict their participation, you could make the case.

But for IDs at least the argument is that BIPOC would be less likely to get one, partly based on the fact that they are less likely to get a driver's license. Or that poor people may have trouble affording the ID, even more so if it requires traveling (in reality you could get it by mail).

[late]

Voting restrictions aren't necessarily some nefarious attempt trying to disenfranchise black/POC voters.

Back in the real world, that's exactly what they are.

"Before walking through Posner’s opinion, a few words about why he’s important. Posner, 75, is no wooly-headed liberal, but a card-carrying conservative who was appointed to the circuit bench by Ronald Reagan in 1981. He’s widely regarded as the smartest jurist in the federal judiciary, and was identified in 2000 by Fred Shapiro of Yale Law School as the most-cited legal scholar of all time. (Shapiro’s full list is here.)

While still unquestionably conservative, Posner has been moving away from Republican orthodoxy on many issues, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that today’s Republicans and conservatives have moved away from his principles.

In a 2013 book, he accepted the view that such laws are properly regarded as “a means of voter suppression rather than fraud prevention.” That’s the view that informs his latest opinion.

“There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud,” he writes, “and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.”
https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-why-voter-id-laws-are-evil-20141013-column.html

Kinda obvious, if ya think about it for, oh I don't know, 2 seconds...

[Unthinking Majority]

Back in the real world, that's exactly what they are.

"Before walking through Posner’s opinion, a few words about why he’s important. Posner, 75, is no wooly-headed liberal, but a card-carrying conservative who was appointed to the circuit bench by Ronald Reagan in 1981. He’s widely regarded as the smartest jurist in the federal judiciary, and was identified in 2000 by Fred Shapiro of Yale Law School as the most-cited legal scholar of all time. (Shapiro’s full list is here.)

While still unquestionably conservative, Posner has been moving away from Republican orthodoxy on many issues, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that today’s Republicans and conservatives have moved away from his principles.

In a 2013 book, he accepted the view that such laws are properly regarded as “a means of voter suppression rather than fraud prevention.” That’s the view that informs his latest opinion.

“There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud,” he writes, “and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.”
https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-why-voter-id-laws-are-evil-20141013-column.html

Kinda obvious, if ya think about it for, oh I don't know, 2 seconds...

So you think 100% of attempts to secure voter fraud is "voter suppression"? That's illogical.

I'm sure some are, and some are genuine concerns about fraud. How to tell which ones is anyone's guess.

If the only reason the GOP is for voter ID laws is because it is to their benefit then by logic the only reason the Democrats are against them is because that's to their benefit.

[libertasbella]

Why don't the feds give free IDs to every citizens or fund State efforts to do so as long as they don't charge for it? This would allow to demand carrying and showing an ID to vote and does away with accusations of racism.

The Federal government can coerce states to do so just like it did during the Reagan administration to have them raise the drinking age to 21 in 1986. The costs of this measure would be dwarfed by the benefits of doing away with attempts to question electoral results and more generally having people use IDs in general.

Because voter fraud doesn't exist (and the Democrats can't win elections without it).

[late]

So you think 100% of attempts to secure voter fraud is "voter suppression"? That's illogical.

I'm sure some are, and some are genuine concerns about fraud. How to tell which ones is anyone's guess.

If the only reason the GOP is for voter ID laws is because it is to their benefit then by logic the only reason the Democrats are against them is because that's to their benefit.

We don't have a problem with voter fraud...

It's not hard at all, if you're trying to fix imaginary problems, you've get a f***ing hidden agenda.

It also benefits democracy from those trying to kill it...

[Unthinking Majority]

We don't have a problem with voter fraud...

It's not hard at all, if you're trying to fix imaginary problems, you've get a f***ing hidden agenda.

I agree there isn't a problem with voter fraud. But a hidden agenda is not the only logical conclusion of motive for trying to fix voter fraud. Some people are just paranoid or stupid, which is different than having an evil hidden agenda. Don't underestimate the stupidity of Trump supporters. Mind you, I don't underestimate the nefariousness of GOP politicians either.

If Trump supporters were so convinced and angry that voter fraud occurred that they would storm the freaking capital building then it's logical to conclude that many of these people actually believed the lies that were fed to them by Trump and FOX etc. In their mind many of the capitol rioters were doing their patriotic duty because they thought the election was stolen through fraud. If Antifa thought that Trump stole the election through voter fraud they might storm the capital building too.

[late]

I agree there isn't a problem with voter fraud. But a hidden agenda is not the only logical conclusion of motive for trying to fix voter fraud.

You don't need to speculate when you have over a century of history on the subject staring you in the face...

[Politics_Observer]

@late

That's true, voter suppression and white rule is nothing new to the United States. The only difference this time is that the republican party seeks to establish minority white rule in modern times today while keeping others out of power. This is similar to apartheid South Africa what the republican party is seeking to do with their new voter suppression laws. This could also lead to a dictatorship too where the dictatorship ignores the will of the people and only represents minority white rule instead of the American people as a whole. In the past whites were not the minority and other people of color were terrorized out of power with terror tactics by the KKK after these representatives of color were duly elected by the will of the people. Right now as it stands, the goals of the republican party is to turn the United States into an apartheid South Africa type government with minority white rule that keeps everybody else out of power and again this could also possibly lead to a dictatorship.

[wat0n]

Because voter fraud doesn't exist (and the Democrats can't win elections without it).

Why don't Republicans and even libertarians propose this too?

[Politics_Observer]

I got a kick out of this article though it appears there are some mis-statements of facts in it.

Not exactly the same as South African Apartheid, but the force behind it is the same. It was the rich and white against the poor and Black there, which made it easier to keep score. It is more complicated here. Rich White America (the one-percenters) and poorly educated rural underclass America versus educated middle income America and all racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities. With the racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities getting the shortest end of the stick.

Not too much different than the Jim Crow South, but with a greater diversity of victims these days. A wider group of losers, but the same narrow base of winners. The same unholy alliance of wealthy white masters and poor white trash dupes and suckers that yielded up the Confederacy. And Donald Trump is the bellowing pitchman maestro who has brought all those suckers on board the Party of Trump bandwagon.

He’s got them fired up now. Ready to grab their guns and take to the streets, and state Capitol buildings, when he sounds the alarm. And if he and his loyal Republican minions can’t manage to steal the 2020 election the way they did in 2016, he’ll be sounding. They’re prepared to destroy democracy and overthrow the government of the United States to keep themselves in power.

They know how urgent it is for them to remain in control. Demography is not going their way. Has not been going their way for quite some time. White Christian America is under attack! As was White Christian South Africa (the ten percenters) in the days when Nelson Mandela’s address was Robin Island. Their finely-tuned brutally enforced system was incapable of surviving in a changing world. They needed to circle their wagons and turn back the clock to survive. Neither is the Republican Party’s reactionary system able to survive based on popular support, so they must do away with functioning democracy and replace it with sham democracy. And sham justice. And an obedient rubber-stamp Congress.

Make no mistake America! The Republican Party is the party of Rich White “Christian” America! Not the party of Jesus Christ. They wouldn’t be caught dead leading lives like the one He led. Their spiritual leader is the Antichrist Donald Trump. The charlatan False Messiah who spends his days on the golf course and only visits a church to do photo ops. The kind of man who wouldn’t know, or care, about the Word of God if it snuck up and bit him in the ass in a sand trap. And America’s pampered rich are, for the most part, no better than he is, just slicker.

They’ll make a few kindly statements about the need for equality and economic uplift here and there. Will showcase a few tame token minorities. But try to get into their Gated Private Country Club and see if you make it without the proper pedigree and the requisite amount of cash. The funny thing is the Republicans used to be the party of abolition, and the party of moderation…but that’s history now, long-dead history. Trump has put his name on them now. As he does on everything he owns, and much of what he doesn’t own. They can’t escape the undertow of the man who GOP strategist Rick Wilson wrote “Everything Trump Touches Dies”. And neither can the white trash no-mask suckers who have swum so eagerly into his net. Trump and the Republicans and all their deluded hardcore supporters must prevail in 2020 or be swept away by the tide of demography. This is White Rich “Christian” America’s last chance, and they are already doing every illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, underhanded thing they can think of to prevail.

And how racist is the Republican Party and the rich elite who bankroll it? I have believed for years that racism was a part of the Party’s makeup, but it is only within the last few days that I have come to see that it is at the very core of the Party’s appeal. You might say that Trump’s crude hand has ripped the carefully crafted mask off the Party’s inherent and systemic racism and ethnocentrism. The Party’s hysterical ongoing campaign against Barrack Obama is never-ending. He is blamed for everything that the Party hates, is the central figure in half of its vicious conspiracy theories.

https://intpolicydigest.org/apartheid-i ... an-racism/

[Rugoz]

I agree there isn't a problem with voter fraud. But a hidden agenda is not the only logical conclusion of motive for trying to fix voter fraud. Some people are just paranoid or stupid, which is different than having an evil hidden agenda. Don't underestimate the stupidity of Trump supporters. Mind you, I don't underestimate the nefariousness of GOP politicians either.

Would ID laws actually change anything though? I mean the GOP would just come up with some other nonexistent reason for fraud.

[Doug64]

The Justice Department, he said, will examine new restrictive voting laws across the country and take action against any "violations."

He has to limit himself to the new laws, because otherwise he'd end up "examining" the already existing as if not more restrictive laws of states such as Colorado and New York. And that would be just plain embarrassing. But he's a member of the Biden administration*, so what can you expect?

And yes, "Trump's crude hand has ripped the carefully crafted mask off" so thoroughly that in the last election his percentage of the minority vote actually rose. I suppose those minority voters were just voting their wallets, like Democrats have been encouraging White working class voters to do for so long. And with the continuing meltdown at the border and the signs of economic instability, if Republicans play their cards right those minorities will probably do so again.

[Torus34]

Invoking Sergeant Joe Friday, we might all start with "Just the facts."

In this case, the facts would include the documented number of instances of people voting under a false ID or voting more than once. As far as I can determine, there were very few of these. I look forward to anyone providing a complete list for the 2020 presidential election.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

[Politics_Observer]

@Doug64

Well you know the world doesn't have to change, but you have to change your thinking if you want to adapt and survive in it. So, you can complain all you want but the fact it isn't going to do you any good trying to keep the world (or America) the way you want it to be instead of the way it is. If you want to have an easier more enjoyable time in politics and the world, change your current thinking and adapt and overcome because the world doesn't have to change at all but you do if you want to do well in it.