The timing of the AZ "papers please" law is to allow state-wide voter intimidation.

[HopeHoops]

You know they'll have state police standing guard at every polling place and they'll be armed with the words "papers please".

[LiberalLoner]

1. Just wonder when the right-wingers will move to their ultimate goal, which is

"the final solution" - kill all black, brown, yellow, red people and of course all gays and liberals and feminists.

[Ian David]

2. American Conservatives are trying it in Uganda first. n/t

[formercia]

20. 3rd World countries are a living laboratory for right-wing reactionaries.

Except for cultural differences, human nature is human nature wherever you go. They can fine-tune their plans on hapless victims in countries where there are little or no human rights. It's just a matter of time before their plans are implemented here.

There's always a boogie man they can pull out of their asses when the need arises.

[Blue Meany]

3. They can't do that: somebody's got to do the work for them n/t

[greencharlie]

19. don't forget puppies and kittens, lol... nt

[WinkyDink]

21. Katrina was the start.

[tabbycat31]

4. then absentee voting should be pushed

[EFerrari]

15. Absentee ballots have been known to go missing just like

registrations in minority Dem precincts.

[onenote]

5. don't AZ voters already need to show ID to register and to vote?

The AZ law is a POS that hopefully will be struck down as unconstitutional, but I don't get the argument that its intended to intimidate folks from voting.

To vote you need to be registered, which requires proof of citizenship. And you need to have proof of identity with you when you go to vote. Since you needed to prove your citizenship to register and need to bring proof of identity with you to vote, why wouldn't you just bring that proof with you rather than stay home?

[Bluebear]

6. You don't need ID to vote in New Hampshire, dunno about AZ

'A properly registered voter need not present any identification when obtaining a ballot at the polls. If challenged, the voter need only sign an affidavit stating that he or she is who he or she declares himself or herself to be'

[onenote]

7. Arizona requirements

To register:
http://www.azsos.gov/election/How_to_register.htm

To vote:
http://www.azsos.gov/election/Prop_200/poll_identification.htm

[Bluebear]

8. interesting, no?

[HopeHoops]

10. I showed my drivers license when I originally registered in NH - same in PA.

That's all it took - no freakin' birth certificate. When I moved in PA (same township, different polling station), I got a new voter registration card in the mail (simply by updating my address with PennDOT) and had to show that the first time I voted at the new station. That's it.

Whether AZ requires you to show ID every time or not doesn't matter - all they have to do is make an example of a couple of people without birth certificates outside of each polling station (using the new law) and the voter intimidation is established and functional.

[EFerrari]

16. Exactly. n/t

[onenote]

40. the AZ law doesn't require a birth certificatte. AZ drivers license is enough

Again,I'm not defending the law. It sucks and should be struck down as unconstitutional. But it doesn't help to fashion strawmen arguments against it that can easily be knocked down. If you are an Arizonan who has produced proof of citizenship in order to register to vote and you need proof of your identity to vote, its something of a stretch to think that this law is going to inhibit you from going to vote.

[kiva]

9. Shhhh, you'll upset the conspiracy theorists,

and you know what happens when you do that... :nuke:

[EFerrari]

17. Why do you think we have a voting rights act?

Because people of color have been targeted for intimidation probably ever since they got the vote.

But, shh! Don't tell anybody.

[kiva]

24. No probably about it, people of color have

faced threat of (and actual) violence, literacy laws, poll taxes, and other things that don't come to mind as ways to keep them from voting. No one here disputes that fact. The problem I have is with the woo-woo 'this law is aimed at preventing people from voting' - there's no proof that this is anything more than a knee-jerk reaction by the Arizona legislature about border issues.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. It is ONE element

given that Brewer as Secretary of State was involved in it...

But hey. We all know things are simple things and cannot be aimed at several goals...

[HopeHoops]

29. Okay, given that it was a GOP law, the "simple things" argument has merit.

So I'll go with the voter suppression as the real intent. They know Hispanics are a major force, and one capable of putting them out of power.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Laws like this have many intentions

1.- Voter Suppression.
2.- Mollify a crazy base that actually drinks the nativist hysteria... like they have always done
3.- Scare the living daylights out of your cheap labor, legal or not, how many of them will call the ... people in charge of making sure minimum wage laws are followed? I mean, you do, your papers please.

I could go on.

They did not expect the reaction they got though.

[onenote]

41. again. How does it suppress voting if you have to be a citizen to register

proof of your identity to vote?

If I wanted this law to fail, the first thing I'd do is have law enforcement stand outside polling places asking for ID -- any lawyer worth their salt could get the law enjoined in about ten seconds; among other things, its facially impossible to establish a "reasonable suspicion" that someone who is entering a polling place is an illegal alien since the reaonable assumption under the law is that if you are showing up to vote you are registered which means you are a citizen.

I'm not arguing that voter suppression and intimidation hasn't taken place in AZ in the past or that it won't occur in the future. Just that if this is supposed to be a vehicle for that objective its a particularly lame one since anyone who wants to vote has to be a citizen and has to have "papers" (i.e. drivers license or some other form or forms of identification) when they go to vote.

[EFerrari]

35. Brewer's record is context enough. She dumped 100k Latinos

off the rolls for no reason and Bobby Kennedy and Greg Palast caught her.

I don't know if you remember that period but in the run up to 2004 and through 2006, the Republicans were doing everything possible to shave minority votes and all over the country. The easiest way to do it is by dumping voter registrations. That's a major reason why BushCo captured the Justice Department -- because then they could move with impunity. Remember that US Attorney that was fired for not bringing fake charges against ACORN in New Mexico? What Brewer did in AZ was part of the same program.

We don't need to invent conspiracies -- the Republicans have already taken care of that. lol

[EFerrari]

36. Similar law proposed in Ohio:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4358420&mesg_id=4358420

Let's see how many swing states jump on the bandwagon.

[Raschel]

26. Why didn't they pass this b.c. law when B#$h was president? No doubt they are trying to stop

the demise of White majority power.

[EFerrari]

12. Because there's no birth certificate that can make you white?

And if you know you will be harassed and embarassed in front of your neighbors, maybe you decide it's not worth it?

Even if those scumbags can slow down the voting in a Latino precinct by creating a hassle, they win.

[bridgit]

13. Its more about questioning the legitimacy of candidates seeking entry onto the ballot

The back & forth over who is legitimate who is not is a dance guaranteed to go round & round till someone does shoot the horses

[havocmom]

23. Wanna bet Joe Arpio & goons harass people trying to register Hispanics?

Not hard to understand the GOP is out to stop groups that go into areas that are not white upper middle class and over to register people so they can vote. (Think about the lynching ACORN got. And now we know the video was ANYTHING but conclusive.)

Some of us are old enough to remember men on horses, dogs, and a politician handing out axe handles to be used against people of color who dared to march for equal rights. This law is just the latest approach to beating a people out of their civil rights.

I see hard times for people in AZ who work in communities that are not Scottsdale or WASP farming towns. This law is definitely an attempt to bully minorities from exercising their rights.

[bridgit]

11. That's only part of it, the rest is candidate Obama intimidation cause they know he will run...

And intend as is clear, to shit on the parade before the marching band gets here - ultimately they are abusing legislation as a way to codify the supremacy of white power but there's nothing new about that

[Dappleganger]

14. This. nt

[Gold Metal Flake]

18. Palast on Hartmann and Miller shows: AZ law is about election fraud

From Palast's report:

"What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote -- and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Or, if you like, tortillas.

In 2008, working for Rolling Stone with civil rights attorney Bobby Kennedy, our team flew to Arizona to investigate what smelled like an electoral pogrom against Chicano voters ... directed by one Jan Brewer.

Brewer, then Secretary of State, had organized a racially loaded purge of the voter rolls that would have made Katherine Harris blush. Beginning after the 2004 election, under Brewer's command, no less than 100,000 voters, overwhelming Hispanics, were blocked from registering to vote. In 2005, the first year of the Great Brown-Out, one in three Phoenix residents found their registration applications rejected."

[WinkyDink]

22. "Soviet-style"? No, that would be "Nazi-style."

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Authoritarian style

that's better?

[WinkyDink]

30. I admit to nit-picking, but yes, better!

[bridgit]

31. Well this is why I recommend distance from such images - its as though...

Unless or until someone sees a Stalin-esque mustache marching round in Nazi jack boots it can't be happening - this latest AZ episode looks like the same ole time tested Love American Style Bullshit to me since the pilgrims started kicking the shit out the Iroquois

[HopeHoops]

32. I'd say more "Nazi-style", but the USSR did the same thing.

[Ignis]

39. "number of legal Hispanics...daring to vote"

That about sums it up. :thumbsup:

We can always count on Mr. Palast to tell the truth, uncomfortable though it might be.

[ljm2002]

27. You bet, that's exactly what this is...

...the funny thing is, as per usual these days, the rabid right wing is shooting themselves in the foot.

If ever there was a law that will motivate Hispanics to get out the vote, I would think this is it.

We'll see.

[HopeHoops]

33. OOH! I've got it - they can go in reverse Al Jolson makeup - white shoe polish!!!

Dang, I hope some group does that just to make a mockery of this law.

[RobertPlant]

37. state wide voter intimidation in AZ is nothing new

wasn't Billy Rehnquist who was on the Supreme Court from 71-05, notorious for harassing black and Hispanic voters in AZ during the 50s and 60s?

[EFerrari]

38. Yep. That's right. n/t