Like Clockwork NYT Very Worried About Ineligible People Not Being Allowed To Vote

Technically, the Times is worried about voters being intimidated by mean Republicans. Of course, if you are eligible to vote, you aren't stopped by anyone from doing it.

How do they explain that small problem in their theory?

Shut up. that's how.

Tea Party members have started challenging voter registration applications and have announced plans to question any individual voters at the polls whom they suspect of being ineligible.

In response, liberal groups and voting rights advocates are sounding the alarm, claiming that such strategies are scare tactics intended to suppress minority and poor voters.

...Voting rights advocates say they are worried.

“Private efforts to police the polls create a real risk of vote suppression, regardless of their intent,” said Wendy R. Weiser, director of the Voting Rights and Elections Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “People need to know that any form of discrimination, intimidation, or challenge to voters without adequate basis is illegal or improper.”

...Still, independent voter registration groups say they still play an important role, and that scare tactics are making their work harder.

“There is an intentional effort here to suppress participation,” said Jim George, a lawyer for Texans Together Education Fund, the parent organization of Houston Votes.

Houston Votes, whose registration drive has mostly focused on Latino neighborhoods, did find at least one paid canvasser submitting fraudulent applications, Mr. George said, and that person was immediately fired.

He added that the groups’ financing for voter registration work has dried up because of the accusations by the King Street Patriots that Houston Votes is tied to the New Black Panther Party.

“Houston Votes has nothing whatsoever to do with the Black Panthers,” Mr. George said. “But you make a claim like that, and funding dries up even if the claim isn’t true.”

A request for comment from the King Street Patriots was not returned.

Leo Vasquez, the tax assessor-collector and voter registrar in Harris County, said that of about 25,640 registration applications submitted by Houston Votes, about 5,500 had problems.

So much stupidity, so little time.

To start at the end of that quote, 20% of the people registered by one group 'had problems' (they were mostly fictional people) and that's not a big deal? Sure, these groups will say, 'no one voted, the system worked!'. But what they are doing is clogging up the system with false applications. In addition to wasting limited resources, how many got through because voter registration officials were overwhelmed? How many ineligible voters never got purged from the rolls because officials were dealing with this crap?

As for the idea that private groups shouldn't be involved in monitoring voter eligibility, here's my proposal....ok but private groups can't be involved in registering voters. I'm guessing they'll pass on that.

The article is pretty contemptuous of the idea that voter fraud is a problem. Of course this being the NY Times they don't tell you why, they just assert it. Well, this is the internets and even though we don't have layers of editors, we have to link to actual, real world, examples of the problems we talk about.

If those aren't enough, just scroll down today's posts. There are at least 2 or 3 cases that came up today alone.

There's obviously a simple solution to all of this...require ID when you vote. You can't get on a plane, cash a check or enter most office buildings without ID. What's so onerous about having to show some when you vote?

Obviously it's racist to require ID and Shut UP that's why but mostly Shut Up.

Added bonus: Democrats are a lot more committed to letting the Fraud Based-American Community vote than they are to making sure the men and women of the armed forces can.

The Union Army figured out a way to let the troops vote during the Civil War, the inability to make it happen in the 21st Century can only be attributed to malice.

posted by DrewM. at 01:54 PM

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