Posted on 07/24/2013 6:08:47 AM PDT by cotton1706
This week, the North Carolina legislature will almost certainly pass a strict new voter ID law that could disenfranchise 318,000 registered voters who don’t have the narrow forms of accepted state-issued ID. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the bill has since been amended by Republicans to include a slew of appalling voter suppression measures. They include cutting a week of early voting, ending same-day registration during the early voting period and making it easier for vigilante poll-watchers to challenge eligible voters. The bill is being debated this afternoon in the Senate Rules Committee. Here are the details, via North Carolina State Senator Josh Stein (D-Wake County):
If anyone had any doubt about the bill’s intent to suppress voters, all he/she has to do is read it. The bill now does the following:
*shortens early voting by 1 week, *eliminates same day registration and provisional voting if at wrong precinct, *prevents counties from offering voting on last Saturday before the election beyond 1 pm, *prevents counties from extending poll hours by one hour on election day in extraordinary circumstances (like lengthy lines), *eliminates state supported voter registration drives and preregistration for 16/17 year olds, *repeals voter owned judicial elections and straight party voting, *increases number of people who can challenge voters inside the precinct, and *purges voter rolls more often.
Meanwhile, it floods the democratic process with more money. The bill makes it easier for outside groups to spend on electioneering and reduces disclosure of the sources. It also raises the contribution limits to $5k per person per election from $4k and indexes to amount to rise with inflation.
The bill even eliminates Citizens Awareness Month to encourage voter registration, notes Brent Laurenz, executive director of the nonpartisan North Carolina Center for Voter Education. Because God forbid we encourage people to vote! The proposed bill eliminates nearly all of the democratic advances that made North Carolina one of the most progressive Southern states when it comes to voting rights and one of the top fifteen states in voter turnout nationally, guaranteeing that there will be longer lines at the polls, less voter participation and much more voter confusion.
The legislation is likely to be deeply unpopular. For example, 56 percent of North Carolinians voted early during the 2012 election. Blacks used early voting at a higher rate than whites, comprising a majority of those who voted absentee or early. According to Public Policy Polling, 78 percent of North Carolinians support the current early voting system and 75 percent have used it in the past.
In addition, over 155,000 voters registered to vote and voted on the same day during the early voting period in 2012. “Voters expressed their satisfaction and gratitude that North Carolina had a process that afforded citizens with more opportunities to register and vote,” said a 2009 report from the state board of elections.
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Republicans in North Carolina have taken abuse of democratic process to a whole new extreme: they’ve won elections with the help of huge corporate money, they’ve gerrymandered the legislative maps to resegregate the state and drastically limit the representation of their political opponents, they’ve passed a slew of extreme right-wing bills in the past few months to benefit the top 1 percent and harm everyone else—and now they’re going all out to prevent those opposed to that political agenda from exercising their democratic rights. “There’s a certain evil symmetry to the proposal,” writes Rob Schofield, director of research for NC Policy Watch. “After having spent months passing scores of regressive and destructive proposals into law, state leaders are now, like thieves covering their tracks, doing everything in their power to make sure they’re not caught or punished for their actions.”
*shortens early voting by 1 week (everybody should vote on the same day) *eliminates same day registration and provisional voting if at wrong precinct, (we vote in general twice every year. And general elections have been on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November since the 1840's, so if you can't register in time, you're an idiot; and how about going to the correct precinct??) *prevents counties from offering voting on last Saturday before the election beyond 1 pm, (everybody should vote on the same day) *prevents counties from extending poll hours by one hour on election day in extraordinary circumstances (like lengthy lines), (anybody in line when the polls close should be able to vote, put a cop at the end of the line at poll close time. Anybody that comes after that, is out of luck. Tough.) *eliminates state supported voter registration drives and preregistration for 16/17 year olds, (regristration drives just inflate the names on the polling lists so the polling workers in the inner cities can submit votes for all the peope that didn't show up or died. This is how precincts in Philadelphia had 100% voting. And 16 or 17 year olds can wait till they're 18 and then go to their town hall to register like everybody else. They don't need to be spoon-fed registration forms by the government.) *repeals voter owned judicial elections and straight party voting, (straigt party voteing SHOULD be illegal. You'll have to actually vote for each individual office. Golly gee, what a burden once a year) *increases number of people who can challenge voters inside the precinct, (more checks and balances is not a bad thing) *purges voter rolls more often (voter rolls should be purged after every election, or at least once a year, to remove, at least, those who have died)
These changes are not onerous burdens, they serve to eliminate fraud.
*shortens early voting by 1 week (everybody should vote on the same day)
*eliminates same day registration and provisional voting if at wrong precinct, (we vote in general twice every year. And general elections have been on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November since the 1840’s, so if you can’t register in time, you’re an idiot; and how about going to the correct precinct??)
*prevents counties from offering voting on last Saturday before the election beyond 1 pm, (everybody should vote on the same day) *prevents counties from extending poll hours by one hour on election day in extraordinary circumstances (like lengthy lines), (anybody in line when the polls close should be able to vote, put a cop at the end of the line at poll close time. Anybody that comes after that, is out of luck. Tough.)
*eliminates state supported voter registration drives and preregistration for 16/17 year olds, (regristration drives just inflate the names on the polling lists so the polling workers in the inner cities can submit votes for all the peope that didn’t show up or died. This is how precincts in Philadelphia had 100% voting. And 16 or 17 year olds can wait till they’re 18 and then go to their town hall to register like everybody else. They don’t need to be spoon-fed registration forms by the government.)
*repeals voter owned judicial elections and straight party voting, (straigt party voteing SHOULD be illegal. You’ll have to actually vote for each individual office. Golly gee, what a burden once a year)
*increases number of people who can challenge voters inside the precinct, (more checks and balances is not a bad thing)
*purges voter rolls more often (voter rolls should be purged after every election, or at least once a year, to remove, at least, those who have died)
Change “voter suppression” to “voter honesty” and it’ll all be fixed.
OH NO, AN ID TO VOTE? HOW DARE THEY!
No, the liberals in NC have to date pushed extreme measures to insure fraudelent votes in the state....
Hyperbolic first paragraph = Article full of bullsh!t.
And they have only 3 months to get one!! The horror!!!!
Oh, the irony. There is one party with a history of "abuse of the democratic process" in North Carolina, and it ain't the Republicans. Republicans didn't institute a literacy test and then give blacks a German newspaper to read to prove they could read. Republicans didn't make you pay a poll tax to vote. Republicans didn't form a terrorist group -- the KKK -- to kill blacks who voted.
They can’t get welfare or cash that welfare check at the store without ID. So why can’t they cough up ID when they vote....unless they are voting multiple times for a Democrat candidate?
I see nothing wrong with any of these changes. The only “suppression” that will occur is suppression of voter fraud. And of course, libs don’t like that.
isn’t North Carolina the same state where they saw a woman (obama supporter) wearing a pink dress or pink hat evidently vote six different times??
If that's not racist I don't know what is.
The only thing “extreme” about these measures, is how extremely happy they make me!
Voter suppression is what happens when the IRS makes sure you can’t organize.
Or releases your tax records to your opponent.
Let me guess...the law is about ID’ing the voter before he votes.
...
Dang, I was right. :-)
The rat Commie bastard who wrote this steaming pile of bovine excrement is a rat Connie bastard. Just sayin...
Early voting should never have been allowed and should be ended in every state, especially in Federal elections. Voter ID is great and if there is anyone who doesn’t have an ID card in this day and age, I wonder how they get along at all?
This article was evidently written by a vote stealing Democrat.
“This article was evidently written by a vote stealing Democrat.”
Oh, it’s either an editorial or an article from The Nation (they amount to the same thing) so we know the ideology of the writer, a person with clearly no rational thought.
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