“A Blatant Attempt To Mislead”: Romney Falsely Accuses Obama Campaign Of Trying To Restrict Military Voting Rights
Mitt Romney attacked a lawsuit brought by President Obama’s campaign seeking the restoration of early voting rights for Ohio voters by falsely implying that Obama is trying to take away the early voting privileges for members of the military.
“President Obama’s lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during the state’s early voting period is an outrage,” Romney said in a statement Saturday.
Actually, the Obama campaign’s lawsuit, filed by the campaign in mid-July, explicitly asks a federal court to restore in-person early voting rights to all eligible Ohio voters on the three days preceding Election Day.
The suit does not seek to prevent members of the military from voting in person during that period, rather it seeks to force Ohio to give other voters (including, for instance, cops and firefighters) the same opportunity to vote.
Romney said in the statement that as president he would “work to protect the voting rights of our military, not undermine them.” He said that members of the military “make tremendous sacrifices to protect and defend our freedoms, and we should do everything we can to protect their fundamental right to vote.”
The Romney campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TPM on whether he believes cops and firefighters should also be allowed to vote in the three days before the election.
Obama’s campaign is fighting back, calling Romney’s statement a “blatant attempt to mislead” voters.
“This lawsuit seeks to treat all Ohio citizens equally under the law,” Obama for America attorney Bob Bauer said in a statement. “We want to restore the right of all to vote before Election Day.”
Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department has filed 10 lawsuits and reached nine settlements with various states to protect military voters under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).
Late update: Obama for America Veterans and Military Family Vote Director Rob Diamond issued this statement:
“Mitt Romney and his campaign have completely fabricated a claim that the Obama campaign is trying to restrict military voting in Ohio. In fact, the opposite is true: the Obama campaign filed a lawsuit to make sure every Ohioan, including military members and their families, has early voting rights over the last weekend prior to the election. The case filed with the court could not be clearer on this point. The real story of what is happening in the Buckeye State is that Mitt Romney supports the Republican effort to stop people from voting by restricting their access to the polls. In 2008, more than 93,000 Ohioans utilized early voting in the three days before the election. In complete disregard of the will of Ohio voters expressed last year through the referendum process, the Republican legislature is attempting to remove from the vast majority of voters — including veterans of our armed services — the early voting rights they enjoyed in 2008. This latest Republican attack on rights of voters is shameful — and so is Mitt Romney’s endorsement of it.”
By: Ryan J. Reilly, Talking Points Memo, August 4, 2012
“Voter Registration Drives”: Federal Court Blocks Most Of Texas Voter Suppression Law
A federal judge in Galveston on Thursday partially blocked new Texas registration laws that critics say amount to vote suppression because they prevent large voter registration drives.
U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa blocked the state from enforcing five provisions of the laws that its defenders say are aimed at preventing voter fraud.
“Today’s ruling means that community groups and organizations like Voting for America and Project Vote will be able to run community voter registration drives in Texas,” plaintiff’s attorney Chad Dunn said. “These drives are important to reaching the millions of Texans, including three-quarters of a million African-Americans and 2 million Latinos, who are eligible but still not registered to vote.”
Dunn represents two Galveston County residents and the nonprofit voter registration group Voting for America, an affiliate of the nonpartisan Project Vote based in Washington, D.C.
“They don’t care how you vote as long as you get registered and participate,” Dunn said.
The plaintiffs sued Galveston County Tax Assessor-Collector Cheryl Johnson and Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade
“It was a scholarly opinion, he obviously put a lot of thought into it, but I am very disappointed by the outcome,” Johnson said. State officials could not be reached for comment.
Costa granted a preliminary injunction on five sections of the law until a trial on whether the entire law violates the plaintiffs’ civil rights and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.
Key Points
Under the ruling, the state may no longer require that deputy voter registrars live in Texas, a law Voting for America said prevented it from organizing voter registration drives.
It also may not prevent deputy registrars from registering voters who live outside their county; prevent organizations from firing or promoting employees based on the number of voters registered; prevent organizations from making photocopies of completed voter registration forms for their records; or prevent deputy registrars from mailing completed applications.
Johnson said allowing groups to copy registration applications could violate privacy rights.
“I intend to start calling state representatives tomorrow to change the content of voter registration applications,” she said. Johnson wants social security numbers, dates of birth and driver’s license numbers removed.
“Is there going to be a huge increase in voter fraud? I hope not,” she said, adding that her office would redouble its scrutiny of completed registration forms.
The plaintiffs had asked Costa to block eight sections of the law enacted in 2011 so that they could register voters before the national election in November. Costa declined to block enforcement of laws that make it a criminal offense for a deputy registrar to submit a partially completed form, a restrictive training requirement, and a requirement that deputy registrars wear an identification badge. He left the legality of those laws to be decided at trial.
Appeal Possible
Dunn said the attorney general could appeal the injunction to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Dunn, who has represented Democrats in redistricting lawsuits, said the Legislature’s redistricting plan, photo identification bill and registration requirements are evidence of voter suppression.
“This Legislature will do anything to prevent Texans from voting,” Dunn said.
By: Harvey Rice, Chron.com, August 3, 2012
“Congratulations Republicans”: There Is Actual GOP Voter Fraud In Arizona
When Republican officials nationwide launched an aggressive voter-suppression campaign in advance of the 2012 elections, they did so under the dubious auspices of “voter fraud.” The tactics are necessary, the GOP said, not to rig elections, but to protect the integrity of the process.
The problem, of course, is that actual, real-world voter fraud is exceptionally rare, as even most proponents of voter-suppression efforts are willing to admit. But I’m curious: why is it that when legitimate examples come to light, they always seem to come from one party?
A Pinal County supervisor candidate has withdrawn from the race in the wake of voter-fraud allegations involving a former companion who, records show, has continued to vote by absentee ballot in the five years since her death.
John Enright, 66, had been seeking the Republican nomination for county supervisor of District 5, an area that includes Apache Junction and Gold Canyon.
Enright ended his candidacy last week, but his written statement failed to explain why he allegedly has been voting by absentee ballot for his former girlfriend.
It’s also worth noting that voter-ID laws — the preferred Republican method of cracking down on fraud — wouldn’t have prevented the kind of scheme Enright allegedly used in Arizona.
The news comes on the heels of Republican Charlie White, the former Indiana secretary of state, who was convicted earlier this year of several felonies, including voter fraud. (His crimes also wouldn’t have been prevented by voter-ID laws.)
So, congratulations Republicans, we now have some actual examples of genuine voter fraud. Whether the GOP tries to use these examples to justify voter-ID laws is up to them.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 1, 2012
“We Don’t Want You To Vote”: The Deep, Dark Mysteries Of Pennsylvania’s Voter ID Law
There is no clear plan to help Pennsylvanians get the ID now required for voting. Does the state want thousands to simply stay home on Election Day?
Sometimes fearing the unknown isn’t such a bad idea. Like, for instance, when they’re serving “mystery meat” in the cafeteria. Or, on a slightly bigger scale, when your state is considering a new law that could disfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters.
Pennsylvania legislators had no such healthy sense of fear when it came to passing the nation’s most restrictive voter ID law just a little over four months ago—practically yesterday, considering the ramifications of such a huge change to election procedures. But when the bill was being debated, lawmakers and state officials supporting the bill insisted it would be a breeze to ensure that no one was disenfranchised; everybody who wanted to vote would still be able to vote. “This is going to be an additional responsibility,” said Daryl Metcalf, the Republican state representative who sponsored the bill, but “one that is not burdensome in any way.” Besides, Republican Governor Tom Corbett’s office said that only 1 percent of Pennsylvanians lacked a valid ID. Even for that 1 percent, Corbett said, “This is no barrier to voting. You have to have a photo ID to go anywhere.” For the scant few presumed to be lacking IDs, the state would provide one free of charge. Easy peasy.
But now, with only three months until Election Day, it’s abundantly clear that things are going to be a lot more complicated. The number of voters lacking the required ID is considerably higher than state officials guessed. The plan for giving out free, new IDs is a complete mess. At best, it looks like the way Pennsylvania enforces the law, which deals with a central right of citizenship, will be a rushed affair. At worst, it will leave thousands, if not hundreds of thousands without a chance to cast a ballot.
While the state defends the law in court, officials are simultaneously scrambling to come up with a public education campaign and make new identification cards widely available. Court proceedings started last week in a lawsuit brought by voting rights groups. Testimony on Friday highlighted just how much is left to do to implement the law—and just how much remains unknown. The stakes are high, as Pennsylvania is a swing state in one of the most contentious presidential elections in recent memory.
Despite the implications, there’s a whole lot we don’t really know about Pennsylvania’s plans for implementing its voter ID regulations. Let’s start with what we do know; it’s scary enough.
First of all, the law is way more complicated than its proponents would allow during the debate. “Photo ID” sounds simple enough, but the state’s law has a slew of specific requirements. For starters, acceptable identification must have an expiration date. That requirement knocks out a variety of IDs that you might expect would be accepted, like veteran’s cards issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It also disallows a lot of college ID cards; while the law allows IDs issued from any state university or community college, most of those IDs don’t currently carry an expiration date. Many colleges are trying to issue new ID cards or put stickers on the old cards with expiration dates, but time is short.
The law has a slew of other caveats and wrinkles. For instance, while identification cards must have an expiration date, those issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation can still be used even if they’re expired—so long as they’ve expired less than one year before November 6. All other forms must still be valid, including passports and military IDs. Employee IDs issued by counties and municipalities are allowed (so long as they have an expiration date), but any other form of photo ID issued by counties or municipalities won’t be accepted. (That means if you were planning on using your gun license, you’d better come up with a new plan.)
We also know that a ton of people will need new or alternative identification with a photo. The Secretary of the Commonwealth’s own study—released long after legislators passed the law—shows that as many as 9 percent of registered voters currently lack an ID issued by the state’s Department of Transportation, the most common form of identification. Subsequent studies have found even more alarming numbers. Matt Barreto, a professor at the University of Washington, found that 12.6 percent of Pennsylvanians who voted in 2008 currently lack a valid ID. An analysis by the AFL-CIO showed that, when you factor in those whose IDs will have expired longer than a year by Election Day, as many as 20 percent of Pennsylvania voters—or 1.6 million Pennsylvanians—could be disenfranchised.
The greatest unknown is how the state plans to ensure these massive numbers of voters can get their identification in time. When the law was passed, state officials said it would be no problem to educate voters and distribute IDs. Already, though, the offices that issue IDs are making mistakes. Friday’s testimony showed that voters were being charged for IDs that are supposed to be free. There’s also a serious concern that poll workers won’t know the rules around the new law; they will not be required to attend training sessions on voter ID, and the state has sent out conflicting information to local election officials.
A plan to offer a new photo ID specifically for voters was supposedly concocted in June, after the lawsuit was filed. Several of the plaintiffs in the suit are senior citizens who do not have birth certificates, or other necessary documents they would need to get a standard state-issued ID. The new voter ID cards, according to state officials, would offer such people an option. But as court testimony made clear Friday, the state has already struggled with delays; the IDs were supposed to be ready last week. Now, one state official testified, they will be ready to go by August 26. But as the plaintiffs’ attorney pointed out, there’s no mention of that date in the contract with the vendor that’s supposed to produce these cards. And there is no penalty if the vendor fails to have the cards ready by then.
State officials say that won’t be a problem. But the legislature only provided funding for 85,000 new IDs. That doesn’t even cover the number needed in Philadelphia alone. But Kurt Myers, the deputy secretary for safety administration, told the court that he expected to issue fewer than 10,000 of the new voter ID cards.
Ten thousand IDs? When hundreds of thousands don’t have them? Were we all absent for math class the day they taught “voter ID counting”?
As it happens, this is not a math problem. It’s a problem of cynical politics. As Barreto found, a third of Pennsylvanians don’t even know about the law. Many will show up at the polls and be turned away. The inevitable delays and arguments will almost surely leave others in line longer—and make it more likely that they’ll leave without voting. The number of Pennsylvanians who vote will almost surely decline. There’s no clear state plan for dealing with voters lacking identification, because, it’s clear, the plan is that many of them simply won’t show up.
Which brings us to the last thing we know: This law is about suppressing the votes of poor and nonwhite voters.
Voter fraud, the ostensible reason for all this, is not a problem in Pennsylvania or in anywhere else in the U.S. This law is about partisan advantage for the GOP, pure and simple. The state has already admitted in court documents that there are no known cases of in-person voter fraud, in which one person pretends to be another. (That’s the only kind of fraud this law guards against.) As Talking Points Memo first reported, Pennsylvania has already signed an agreement with the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, acknowledging that there have been no investigations of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and that there’s not likely to be any such fraud this November. The state isn’t even going to pretend that voter fraud is a problem—though that was the sole justification for passing this law.
The Republican House Majority Leader in the state already bragged that voter ID would result in a win for Mitt Romney. Left unsaid was that the law would make it disproportionately harder for poor and minority voters who tend to vote Democratic.
This is about politics at the cost of civil rights. That’s one thing we know for sure.
By: Abby Rapoport, The American Prospect, July 30, 2012
“Where’s The Outrage”: This Election Might Not Just Be Won Or Lost, It Could Be Bought Or Stolen
Are too many Democratic voters sleepwalking away from our democracy this election cycle, not nearly outraged enough about Big Money’s undue influence and Republican state legislatures changing the voting rules?
It seems so.
A Gallup poll released this week found that: “Democrats are significantly less likely now (39 percent) than they were in the summers of 2004 and 2008 to say they are ‘more enthusiastic about voting than usual’ in the coming presidential election.” Republicans are more enthusiastic than they were before the last election.
Some of that may be the effect of having a Democratic president in office; it’s sometimes easier to marshal anger against an incumbent than excitement for him. Whatever the reason, this lack of enthusiasm at this critical juncture in the election is disturbing for Democrats.
First, there’s the specter of the oligarchy lingering over this election, which disproportionately benefits Republicans. According to a report by Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont, “So far this year, 26 billionaires have donated more than $61 million to super PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And that’s only what has been publicly disclosed.” That didn’t include “about $100 million that Sheldon Adelson has said that he is willing to spend to defeat President Obama; or the $400 million that the Koch brothers have pledged to spend during the 2012 election season.”
During a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Sanders put it this way: “What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires and the corporations they control: ‘You own and control the economy; you own Wall Street; you own the coal companies; you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage of your wealth, we’re going to give you the opportunity to own the United States government.’ ”
Then, of course, there’s the widespread voter suppression mostly enacted by Republican-led legislatures.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, at least 180 restrictive voting bills were introduced since the beginning of 2011 in 41 states, and “16 states have passed restrictive voting laws that have the potential to impact the 2012 election” because they “account for 214 electoral votes, or nearly 79 percent of the total needed to win the presidency.”
A provision most likely to disenfranchise voters is a requirement that people show photo identification to vote. Millions of Americans don’t have these forms of ID, and many can’t easily obtain them, even when states say they’ll offer them free, because getting the documentation to obtain the “free” ID takes time and money.
This is a solution in search of a problem. The in-person voter ID requirements only prevent someone from impersonating another voter at the polls, an occurrence that the Brennan Center points out is “more rare than being struck by lightning.”
The voting rights advocates I’ve talked to don’t resist all ID requirements (though they don’t say they are all necessary, either). They simply say that multiple forms of identification like student ID and Social Security cards should also be accepted, and that alternate ways for people without IDs to vote should be included. Many of these laws don’t allow for such flexibility.
Make no mistake about it, these requirements are not about the integrity of the vote but rather the disenfranchisement of voters. This is about tilting the table so that more of the marbles roll to the Republican corner.
Look at it this way: We have been moving toward wider voter participation for a century. States began to issue driver’s licenses more than a century ago and began to include photos on those licenses decades ago. Yet, as the Brennan Center points out, “prior to the 2006 election, no state required its voters to show government-issued photo ID at the polls (or elsewhere) in order to vote.”
Furthermore, most voter laws have emerged in the last two years. What is the difference between previous decades and today? The election of Barack Obama. It is no coincidence that some of the people least likely to have proper IDs to vote are the ones that generally vote Democratic and were strong supporters of Obama last election: young people, the poor and minorities.
Republicans are leveraging the deep pockets of anti-Obama billionaires and sinister voter suppression tactics that harken back to Jim Crow to wrest power from the hands of docile Democrats.
There is little likely to be done about the Big Money before the election, and, although some of the voter suppression laws are being challenged in court, the outcome of those cases is uncertain.
These elements are not within voters’ control, but two things are: energy and alertness.
If Democrats don’t wake up soon, this election might not just be won or lost, it could be bought or stolen.
By: Charles M. Blow, )p-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, July 27, 2012
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