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Nothing new in that regard, only now, with the GOP American Taliban on the defensive after the blowback from voters over the calamities in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and elsewhere, they have to come up with some other ways to keep voters from putting those bums back out into the streets. As is usual for the Republican Party, the voter disenfranchisement option is always in hand. The plan is to make voting for minorities and the poor as difficult as humanly possible. Oh yes, let’s not forget that they are also targeting collage students, and those groups who go out and get citizens registered to vote, such as the League Of Women Voters. Republicans know that they cannot win a fair election if the people are allowed to exercise their voting rights without having to jump through many hoops to do it.
The Republican Way to win an election.
After examining the plethora of bills introduced in statehouses this year that, among other things, would reduce poll hours and require voters to show photo ID, it seems clear that Republicans are trying to make it harder for certain groups to vote. The Advancement Project, an advocacy group of civil rights attorneys, called the push “the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Republican legislators have introduced bills that would diminish access to the voting booth in over 40 states. All of these Republican proposals focus on one apparent goal: restrict ballot access and shrink the electorate—often in ways that would decrease Democratic votes.
Many of the proposals are in the form of voter ID legislation, which would require potential voters to present specified forms of identification in order to cast a ballot. Republicans supporting these measures claim they’re necessary to prevent “voter fraud.”
In case you have been in a coma over the past few decades, voter fraud is practically non-existent, and is nothing but another " cry wolf " episode of the GOP.
On the photo identification laws in many states.
Does it leave a substantial loophole (e.g. absentee ballots)? In 2005, the Georgia legislature passed a law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. A 1996 county vote-buying scheme was cited as justification, despite the fact that the 1996 scheme involved absentee ballot fraud, which the new photo-identification law would do nothing to prevent.[25] Indeed, by exempting absentee ballots entirely, the Georgia photo-ID law left open the most commonly cited vehicle for the occasional acts of voter fraud that have been proven.
Of the voters who do not have a government-issued photo ID:
• 25 percentof African American voting age citizens
• 15 percent of those earning less than $35,000 a year
• 18 percent of those age 65 and above
• 20 percent of young voters 18-29
In sum, GOP legislators may be using baseless allegations of fraud to make voting more difficult for constituencies not known for their reliable GOP vote.
See what else the GOP is doing, HERE.
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