Qtec
11-05-2011, 05:01 AM
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> 196 House Democrats Sign Letter To State Election Officals<span style='font-size: 14pt'> Opposing War On Voting</span>
By Ian Millhiser on Nov 4, 2011 at 12:30 pm
A massive 196 House Democrats — nearly their entire caucus — signed a letter to state election officials asking them to “put partisan considerations aside and serve as advocates for enfranchisement” during this unfortunate era of voter disenfranchising state laws:
Beginning with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Congress and election officials across the country have worked on a bipartisan basis to open our democracy to all our citizens. Removing unnecessary barriers to voting was a cause shared across party lines. Sometimes, these efforts were directed at laws and practices that were intentionally created to deny citizens their right to vote. Other times, the laws or practices were relics of a prior era and served no continuing purpose. [...]
<span style='font-size: 14pt'>But a disturbing trend is emerging. Election legislation and administration appear to be increasingly the product of partisan plays. Election officials are seen as partisan combatants, rather than stewards of our democracy. It is critical for our democracy that this does not continue. Voting hours, voting sites, identification requirements, voter registration regulation and access to mail ballots should not be used as weapons to achieve a preferred electoral outcome.</span>
<span style='font-size: 17pt'>It’s tough to imagine a starker contrast between the vision this letter offers and the antics we are currently seeing in many GOP-controlled states</span>. The House Democratic letter does not call upon state officials to rig their election procedures to bring more Democrats to the polls, <span style='font-size: 14pt'>it simply says that everyone has a basic right to vote.</span> Under this vision, the American people have every right to choose a Republican government, but this choice must be made freely and with the input of every single eligible voter.
<span style='font-size: 14pt'>Yet, in state after state, governors and state lawmakers are asserting a drastically different vision.</span> In the last few years, numerous states have enacted so-called “voter ID” laws <u>which do nothing more than disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of student, minority and low-income voters.</u> Republicans typically justify these voter disenfranchisement laws by claiming that they are necessary to combat voter fraud at the polls, <span style='font-size: 17pt'>but in-person voter fraud is only slightly more common than unicorns. A recent Supreme Court opinion allowing a voter ID law to take effect was only able to cite one example of in-person voter fraud in the last 143 years.</span></div></div>
link (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/04/361435/196-house-democrats-sign-letter-to-state-election-officals-opposing-war-on-voting/)
One party is for democracy, the other <u>isn't.</u>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Paul Weyrich, "father" of the right-wing movement and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and various other groups tells his flock that he doesn't want people to vote. He complains that fellow Christians have "Goo-Goo Syndrome": Good Government. Classic clip from 1980. This guy still gives weekly strategy sessions to Republicans nowadays. The entire dialog from the clip:
<span style='font-size: 17pt'>"Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. <u>I don't want everybody to vote.</u> Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. <u>As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."</u> </span></div></div>
proof (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw)
Q
By Ian Millhiser on Nov 4, 2011 at 12:30 pm
A massive 196 House Democrats — nearly their entire caucus — signed a letter to state election officials asking them to “put partisan considerations aside and serve as advocates for enfranchisement” during this unfortunate era of voter disenfranchising state laws:
Beginning with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Congress and election officials across the country have worked on a bipartisan basis to open our democracy to all our citizens. Removing unnecessary barriers to voting was a cause shared across party lines. Sometimes, these efforts were directed at laws and practices that were intentionally created to deny citizens their right to vote. Other times, the laws or practices were relics of a prior era and served no continuing purpose. [...]
<span style='font-size: 14pt'>But a disturbing trend is emerging. Election legislation and administration appear to be increasingly the product of partisan plays. Election officials are seen as partisan combatants, rather than stewards of our democracy. It is critical for our democracy that this does not continue. Voting hours, voting sites, identification requirements, voter registration regulation and access to mail ballots should not be used as weapons to achieve a preferred electoral outcome.</span>
<span style='font-size: 17pt'>It’s tough to imagine a starker contrast between the vision this letter offers and the antics we are currently seeing in many GOP-controlled states</span>. The House Democratic letter does not call upon state officials to rig their election procedures to bring more Democrats to the polls, <span style='font-size: 14pt'>it simply says that everyone has a basic right to vote.</span> Under this vision, the American people have every right to choose a Republican government, but this choice must be made freely and with the input of every single eligible voter.
<span style='font-size: 14pt'>Yet, in state after state, governors and state lawmakers are asserting a drastically different vision.</span> In the last few years, numerous states have enacted so-called “voter ID” laws <u>which do nothing more than disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of student, minority and low-income voters.</u> Republicans typically justify these voter disenfranchisement laws by claiming that they are necessary to combat voter fraud at the polls, <span style='font-size: 17pt'>but in-person voter fraud is only slightly more common than unicorns. A recent Supreme Court opinion allowing a voter ID law to take effect was only able to cite one example of in-person voter fraud in the last 143 years.</span></div></div>
link (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/04/361435/196-house-democrats-sign-letter-to-state-election-officals-opposing-war-on-voting/)
One party is for democracy, the other <u>isn't.</u>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Paul Weyrich, "father" of the right-wing movement and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and various other groups tells his flock that he doesn't want people to vote. He complains that fellow Christians have "Goo-Goo Syndrome": Good Government. Classic clip from 1980. This guy still gives weekly strategy sessions to Republicans nowadays. The entire dialog from the clip:
<span style='font-size: 17pt'>"Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. <u>I don't want everybody to vote.</u> Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. <u>As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."</u> </span></div></div>
proof (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw)
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