Kerry Denounces House Vote for Jim Crow Era Poll Tax

[Island Blue]

Below is a statement from Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) regarding yesterday’s vote in the House of Representatives on the Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006. The bill would require voters in federal elections to prove their U.S. citizenship by showing picture government-issued photo ID.


“I am deeply troubled by the House of Representative’s decision yesterday to endorse a new Jim Crow era poll tax. If Republicans were serious about restoring electoral integrity, they would stop fabricating problems with the polls, and they’d take a crack at the real ones.


“There has been no flood of illegal immigrants trying to vote. There is no epidemic of individuals impersonating registered voters. What there is, however, is a shortage of accessible voting machines and polling places. There is a need for voter-verified paper ballots. There are problems with absentee and provisional ballots and purging voter lists.


“These are the real problems threatening our electoral system today. These are the real reasons people are being denied their fundamental right to vote. These are the reasons we need to pass the Count Every Vote Act and fully fund the Help America Vote Act. We have enough to do to restore integrity to our elections. Creating a 21st century poll tax is not the answer—it is just one more problem.”



###


I hope JK speaks out about this LOUDLY! I love this line. "If Republicans were serious about restoring electoral integrity, they would stop fabricating problems with the polls, and they’d take a crack at the real ones."

[sandnsea]

1. Paper BALLOTS!!!!!!

Oh yeah yeah yeah!

:applause: :applause:

This is a good strong statement and I oh so hope he said paper BALLOTS on purpose because that's what we need - not just an audit trail.

When oh when is the rest of the leadership going to get that he has been right on EVERYTHING and to just fall in behind him. Aaargh!!!

[kerrygoddess]

6. Brad Friedman is urging for Emergency Paper Ballot Legislation

I posted about in my post about the press release - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=4251

And also here - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=4229

Brad tells me that atleast a couple of Senators are interested. I think anyone who thinks this is a good idea should let their Senators know - particularly your favorite Senator. :)

[fedupinBushcountry]

2. I watched this happen yesterday

and I was shocked when 4 Democrats voted for it.

Read this:

Will The Next Election Be Hacked?
Fresh disasters at the polls -- and new evidence from an industry insider -- prove that electronic voting machines can't be trusted
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.




http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11717105/robert_f_kennedy_jr__wil

I truly believe that they stole the Congress and Senate in 2002 also. They will stop at nothing. I think they realize that they have been caught with the machines and that they will be highly susceptible in Nov., so they need a new degree of suppressing the votes. It's sick.

They swiftboated both Cleland and Kerry and stole there votes too. How many other surprise elections were there since 2000? We need to take the streets if there is foul play in November, we can not allow this to continue.

RFK's last paragraph in his article:

"You do not have to believe in conspiracy theories to fear for the integrity of our electoral system: The right to vote is simply too important - and too hard won - to be surrendered without a fight. It is time for Americans to reclaim our democracy from private interests."

I have to vote on these damn machines in Nov., and when I voted on them in the Dem. primary earlier this year, and I asked" where is the paper" the poll workers laughed at me.

[blm]

3. Just posted in GD.

really great statement.

[Island Blue]

5. Cool. Thanks.

Check your PM when you get a chance.

[ProSense]

4. Beautiful! n/t

[beachmom]

7. My hubby went to register to vote today

He was very troubled by the process, because he didn't have to offer ANYTHING to prove who he was. No ID, nothing. They said that they will send him a voter registration card in the mail, and he'll bring that to vote. My husband is not Republican and knows nothing of their talking points. And, he said the whole thing was ridiculous because ANYONE could register to vote, even if they were not U.S. citizens. He is an immigrant so he is not anti-immigrant.

I'm just saying, this is not going to make a whole lot of sense to most middle class people. What's the big deal, they will say. Just bring an ID.

I'm not telling you guys this to be a downer or that what I'm telling you is "right". I watched NOW a couple of weeks ago, and they showed a woman who had no car, and it would put hardship on her to get an ID. Others don't have a birth certificate, so I know the arguments. I'm just telling you I don't see opposition to this House bill getting broad support. The Republicans have this one in the bag. Even my husband thought the system was easily subject to fraud.

[fedupinBushcountry]

8. Its UNCONSTITUTIONAL

I guess thats OK. I guess only those who drive should vote. My mother never had a driver's license because of her diabetes, if she were alive today after voting for 60 years, she would have to prove her citizenship, and pay to prove it. Thats a poll tax. Also in the bill they say the government will pay for this so called Citizen ID, but they don't mandate the money.

This is the 21st century not the 19th. I'm sorry but I totally disagree. This is another republican trick, blame it all on the voters, like they are doing something about the problems in voting. Read my post above.

[TayTay]

9. It is a fairness and access issue

The courts have thus far ruled that it is an undeu hardship on proving residency.

This is just part of the GOP plan to depress the Democratic vote. They know it won't bother people in the suburbs. We are talking about a party that, in Ohio, sent letters out to African-American service people stationed in Iraq and then used the fact that they didn't answer the registrered mail to purge them from the voting rolls. They will do whatever works for them, period.

[ProSense]

11. How about this:

Report: SoCal voters switched to GOP without their knowledge
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/09/21/state/n140112D74.DTL&type=politics

[beachmom]

13. Oh, I know they're doing this just to depress the Democratic vote

And I told my husband that. But, he still said -- hey, this is stupid. ANYONE can just show up and get the right to vote without proof that they're even American. He found that troubling, and he has no agenda of depressing the Dem vote.

[TayTay]

16. BTW, we still have to register to vote

and when people show up at the polls they are still marked off against a residency list. By law, those lists are matched against tax filings, excise tax records and so forth. We 'prove' our citizenship and residency at registration. The argument here is what forms of identification should be required and how little money the federal government will provide to assist in proving standards of residency that have been in effect for decades.

Do you have to register to vote in your area?

[beachmom]

22. Yes. I did so when I got my driver's license when I first moved here

My husband, however, only became a U.S. citizen last year. So he had to go to the Registrar's office today (btw, please congratulate me on my one man GOTV effort -- 6 months of nagging finally paid off!). I printed the form off of the internet. It was all very easy. It said on the form that an ID or utility statement was required but then the lady told him she needed nothing. They would mail him the card. However, when you go to the polls, an ID OR the voter registration card is required.

As Fedup mentioned above, we vote on Diebold machines with no paper trail. That's a whole other story . . .

[beachmom]

12. I'm not talking right or wrong or constitutional or unconstitutional

I'm saying your average Joe on the street is going to side with the Republicans. They'll tell folks like your Mom to get the photo ID for non-drivers. Obviously, it should be free -- you will have a good argument if one has to pay for it. I gave my hubby lots of arguments, but he remained convinced that the process was ripe for abuse.

What I'm saying is the Republicans at this time have a better marketing strategy. Jim Crow poll tax sounds good, but people will want to know how fraud is prevented. It's on the honor system at this time in Virginia. An illegal immigrant who has a residence could simply show up and register to vote. My husband learned that today.

Basically, what I'm saying is come up with a sentence that people paranoid about illegal immigrants will find reasonable on why no photo id is required.

[TayTay]

14. There is no phrase that will work for that

and that is a mug's game anyway. It's playing by their rules. The greater argument is an argument on poverty and on access.

There is something to be said for all those Katrina victims who have no access to their records and will have no way to prove they were born in this country. If restrictions are put in place, how do we know that we aren't preventing legal citizens from voting. (Remember, the law is pre-disposed to making voting easier. The Repubs are twisting this to pretend that the law on voting is predisposed to prevention of fraud. That is completely not true.)

So, should the victims of Katrina continue to be victimized because their records were lost?

[beachmom]

17. Actually, I thought of a way of looking at this that might work

The risk of depriving good law abiding Americans of their right to vote FAR outweighs the risk of voter fraud occurring.

Voter fraud is a felony and anyone caught will be prosecuted with the full extent of the law. No new laws need to be passed.

This might work as an argument for these people worried about illegal immigrants voting. Depriving even ONE AMERICAN the right to vote for the POSSIBILITY that one day someone will commit voter fraud is fundamentally wrong.

[fedupinBushcountry]

18. That argument was made yesterday

on the House floor. But Repubs would rather blame the voters so they can continue to suppress votes.

[beachmom]

19. Well, the Republicans are currently the majority in the House

If you say this law is unconstitutional, do you think the courts will strike it down?

[fedupinBushcountry]

24. They already have

3 times in Georgia. I think it just went before the court in Missouri too.

[ProSense]

15. I don't believe that!

The average Joe is frustrated. They have switched so many rules, even those for getting a driver's license. People are jumping through hoops trying to comply. Take someone who has been driving for years and now needs a birth certificate to renew a license they've been renewing for four decades. Problem: the state can't find the birth certificate. People are frustrated! There are all sorts of problems with throwing up barriers to voting.

[wisteria]

10. As I see it, it costs money to get the ID whether you drive a car or

you don't. Many poor people don't drive because they don't have the money to do so. Now, they will have to come up with money and transportation in order to obtain an ID. In a way,in other words, they have to pay to vote. My one daughter is handicapped and can not drive a car, I had to get her a photo ID just for identification purposes so that she could vote. It was time consuming, I had to take off work to obtain it and the first time I applied for her I was told I didn't have three acceptable proofs of who she was so I had to go home and come back again. Then it cost about 25.00 or 35.00 for the ID. Also, it has to be renewed at additional costs every four years, just like a license. I think requiring this type of identification with a cost attached, is extremely ufa ir to the poor among us and will discourage them from voting.

[MH1]

20. There's more to it! Please read the bill, and then the CBO cost estimate

Bill text (click on the "as passed in House" version, H.R.4844.EH):

H.R.4844.EH

CBO estimate:

http://www.cbo.gov/cedirect.cfm?bill=hr4844&cong=109 (click the link there)


I think this is a media snow job that they are saying that this bill is about requiring proof of citizenship to register. Read the whole bill! It's for PHOTO ID at the polls. It is also an UNFUNDED MANDATE - didn't NCLB teach us anything?

The cost really pisses me off, because I am not convinced that there is any problem that warrants the expenditure and hassle involved. While people who are not citizens could, in theory, register to vote if no proof of citizenship is required, the question is does it happen? Certainly illegal immigrants would have no reason to do it, and a major reason not to. If it's simply illegal for a legal immigrant to register to vote, then they would also be deterred because they don't want to lose their job or their chance at citizenship.

Nah, I want to see some real evidence that the problem actually exists before we incur the costs of this bill - both in dollars and suppressed votes.

(Edited to fix the link. $^@#$^&^ DU can't handle thomas links because of a colon on the end...)

[ProSense]

21. What this is doing is shifting the focus from the real

problems: voting machines, suppression, election fraud and other Republican dirty tricks.

[beachmom]

23. I show my ID at the polls now. I think you need that or a voter

registration card.

You know, the Carter/Baker study had a lot of proposals -- so are there any Carter ideas in that bill or only Baker's?

[MH1]

25. It may depend on the mechanics of your precinct.

I work at the polls myself as an inspector (elected position on the precinct election board that does all the official work on election day). In PA, the precincts are mandated to a certain size (something like no more than 1600 voters although I don't know the exact number for sure). In practice, our roll is around 1000 and as you know, turnout for most elections will be between 25 - 50% (250 - 500 voters). Each party and each candidate are allowed two poll watchers inside the poll. The voter comes to the table and must state their name aloud, and then the pollworker will find their name and confirm the address, either by reading it or asking the voter to state it. At almost any time of day there will be some random other voters in the poll while this is happening, who will be able to hear the name and address being announced.

With that many potential neighbors hanging around, would you walk in there and declare yourself to be someone you're not?

I'm still waiting for someone to prove to me that there is actually a problem here that needs to be solved. Until I see a problem, I'd rather see my tax dollars going for civic education than id cards.

:shrug: