I wanted to front-page commentor Kay, because I agree this is the root of a lot of the current conservative strategy:
[T]here really is a basic split between liberals and conservatives on voting.
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Conservatives focus on voter fraud. Liberals focus on voter access. One presumes denial of the franchise, the other presumes exercising the franchise.
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There’s no middle ground, either.
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I would fully expect the Bush DOJ to try to exclude, and I would fully expect the Obama DOJ to try to include.
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It goes back to (IMO, but I think the state laws conservatives pass make this abundantly clear) that conservatives don’t really believe that voting is a fundamental right. They treat it as a privilege, legally, like driving is.
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They can’t say that, it’s not mainstream, so they flip the liberal argument (disenfranchisement) on access, and claim that their votes are being diluted by access, and therefore they are disenfranchised.
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In any event, I think it’s a fundamental liberal-conservative battle, and there’s not going to be a compromise. I’ve read on it for years, and I’m not budging. I don’t imagine Holder is either. We are not persuaded. Not a bit.
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The fraud contingent gained a lot of ground in the years after 2000, which was the opposite of what I expected, after the Bush v Gore debacle. They passed a LOT of state law that went to fraud.
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The fact is, the more barriers to voting you put up, the better conservatives do. They can’t expand their vote, so they work hard to limit the opposition’s vote.
Conservatives don’t want poor people voting, non-white people voting, women or urban renters or young people voting. An ‘Originalist’ society where only white property-owning men of a certain age were allowed to weigh in would be a happy happy world for the John Robertses, John McCains, Karl Roves, Rupert Murdochs, and Glen Becks among us. The rest of us forget that bedrock at our peril.
Corner Stone
Sky’s blue, water’s wet, dog bites man.
Warren Terra
This is all true, of course, but it’s not relevant to the “New Black Panthers” Nontroversy; after all, there it’s Fox news et al claiming that they’re standing up for the intimidated voter. They’re talking utter rot, of course, and with a lot of racist bile to boot, but it’s not their usual tune.
Cacti
I’m at ground zero for this shit and kay’s observations are dead on.
All of the bash-a-spicking that’s been going on in AZ is done with the aim of intimidating/suppressing the Hispanic vote.
Kryptik
But didn’t you hear that some Black Panther guys were scaring people into voting for Maobama X? How can you say libs ain’t disenfranchising or stealing votes, you anti-white racist!
….ok, I’m done now, no more of that for me, it’s starting to hurt my soul.
Mike in NC
Only plutocrats are entitled to vote. This is America! It’s in the frickin’ Constitution, doncha know?
beltane
Ensuring that all power remains in the hands of a small patrician class has always been conservatism’s primary focus. The old distinction between gentlemen and commoners is very real to them, although they now use different language to describe their views.
The French, and then the Russian revolutions struck absolute terror into the hearts of conservatives, prodding them to make concessions regarding the franchise. With the memory of these events long faded, and with no real leftist threat on the horizon, you will see the wealthy and powerful attempt to claw back some of their ancient privileges.
In retrospect, the fall of the Soviet Union was the worst thing to ever happen to the American middle class.
General Stuck
yay for Kay. You blog lords out to give her full time front page status, if you had any sense. I’m looking at you John Cole.
@Warren Terra:
Oh that’s nothin”. You wanna see something really scary.
Ain’t this is great country. Any turd can float to the top of the septic tank.
Bostondreams
Another mark from the conservatives against Charlie Crist in Florida, then, as one of the things he did as governor was to make it easier to allow felons to regain their voting rights.
sukabi
The one thing I like to say about conservatives and “voter fraud”… they like to scream about it, and say they want to pass laws to “prevent it”, but they haven’t been able to actually, demonstrably PROVE voter fraud… a person here or there (Ann Coulter’s been the biggest case of actual, provable voter fraud over the last 10 years and she’s done been caught twice, and charged once)…. the laws they put on the books are designed to do only one thing, and that is to make it difficult for the poor to vote.
what no one wants to talk about is election fraud, which is an entirely different thing.
JAHILL10
This post is spot-on. And everyone who pushed Obama over the line and is now whining about abstaining from the next election out of pique would do well to remember it, Exercising your right to vote is like exercising, period. Use it or lose it.
BeccaM
I would agree, but extend the point: Conservatives also believe that ‘rights’ are in fact privileges. As in, ‘You have the privilege to a speedy trial, and to be charged with crimes in a court of law…’ A privilege extended only to American citizens. And sometimes not even then. Be accused of terrorism — hell, these days it’s enough to be accused of “providing material support”, and suddenly every single right you ever had goes poof.
Liberals on the other hand believe that everybody, even those accused of heinous crimes, has inalienable human rights, that the rights and privileges enumerated in the Constitution were never meant to apply just to wealthy white male landowning American citizens, but to every single human being on this planet. Our ideals — which included those civil rights — were supposed to apply to everyone.
Again, look at the arguments and positions: Conservatives are trying to find reasons and excuses to make one’s rights as a human being completely alienable and subject to withdrawal for any reason asserted by an autocratic government. Liberals want to find ways to extend and expand civil rights to more people and in more ways.
Liberals stand for liberty. Conservatives don’t.
beltane
@JAHILL10: If progressive throw a tantrum it will be the Republicans who give them a spanking.
snoey
Don’t overlook the obvious – voting on Tuesday and closing the polls at 6pm work better than fancy suppression schemes.
JGFitzgerald
See Byrd, Harry F. See also Byrd Machine, poll tax, Virginia Electoral Board system.
DougJ
Yes, this is completely true.
Davis X. Machina
@beltane: Some people are into spanking — don’t be so judgmental….
kay
Thanks, Ann Laurie. I feel strongly about voting. I had to resign as a poll worker because the split in, well, ideology was causing me to rant at my fellow poll workers, and we all have to sit at a table together for 14 hours. I was once banished to the table where you pass out the “I Voted Today” stickers, and I knew then it was over for me.
Impasse.
They think one fraudulent vote is one too many, and we can’t risk it. I feel just as strongly that one wrongfully disenfranchised person is one too many, and we can’t risk it.
Bubblegum Tate
I read a terrific article years ago (on Salon, I think) in which the writer basically became a College Republican for a day and went to some of their sessions and whatnot. One thing that stuck out was how keen the CRs were on limiting the scope of voting–when it came to elections (student or otherwise), they were instructed to put the polling stations somewhere off the main strip and out of the way, hold polling during hours when most people are in class/work, and basically do everything they could to minimize voter turnout. They kept explaining that this was totally not a shady thing to do because you can’t just expect to vote, you’ve gotta WANT it.
Scamp Dog
Let’s not forget that there’s little to no evidence of the kind of fraud the Republicans worry about. Well, should be worrying about: there’s some registration fraud, but no evidence of those fraudulent registrations leading to fraudulent votes.
Bubblegum Tate
@Bubblegum Tate:
Found the article I was talking about: it’s right here. Paul Gourley is pretty up-front about teaching these young d-bags vote suppression:
“The act of voting becomes less a basic right than a tactical maneuver.” There it is.
kay
@Scamp Dog:
That’s really important, and it was such a big lie. ACORN (for example) cannot discard voter registration cards that they have collected. You can see why. ACORN can’t be determining which card gets turned in, because that would lead to all kinds of mischief. Anyone could run around having voters fill out cards, thinking they’re then registered, and then just pitch them. The voter wouldn’t discover the deceit until they went to vote. I could travel to, oh, a very conservative precinct, register voters and say “on reflection, these all look dicey. Rejected!”
They have to bundle them and turn them in, and the county official has to verify or discard. It’s a process.
I don’t understand why FOX News was permitted to spread the lie that ACORN was deliberately trying to register Mickey Mouse.
hamletta
I once worked on a doomed-from-the-start Republican campaign, and at one get-together, the Nice, Polite Republicans were talking about how “those” people always voted for the Wrong People, and voting should be limited to property owners.
I was a renter at the time, and I couldn’t say anything, because my jaw was stuck to the floor.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay #16:
This strikes me as a useful model, with application in other classic Liberal-Conservative divisions.
For instance:
They think one prisoner released for insufficient evidence is one too many, and we can’t risk it. I feel just as strongly that one wrongfully convicted criminal is one too many, and we can’t risk it.
For another instance:
They think one strapping young buck buying T-bone steaks with food stamps is one too many, and we can’t risk it. I feel just as strongly that one starving child is one too many, and we can’t risk it.
Thank you, Kay. This is handy.
Don_in_Cda
@Bostondreams: Considering what the discounting of ‘provisional’ ballots cast by those ‘erroneously’ labelled felons allowed to happen in 2000, I can understand why. Read Palast for Republican vote suppression tactics… ugly doesn’t begin to describe it.
… and if anyone’s feeling the reflexive urge to flame away over the idea that 2000 was stolen, resist the urge and think for a moment: with all the underhanded batshit antics we’ve seen from the Republican party in the last 20 years, and especially since 2000, is it really that crazy to think that they’d’ve gamed the system to steal an election? Or that they would again? Those who forget history…
El Cid
The right believes that voting is a currently necessary burden to endure, that only those of their in-group deserve to vote, and only when they vote in their particular right wing fundamentalist authoritarian way.
It’s pretty much a version of Leninist centralism — sure, there’s democratic decisionmaking, among the anointed few, and only within the bounds of the framework set by the command leadership.
Catsy
Yes. This is the basic dichotomy between liberals and conservatives that I’ve been describing for some time.
Liberals generally err on the side of liberty when balancing competing interests.
With conservatives, liberty takes a backseat to authority and punishment, religious dogma, and the preservation of the existing social order.
This is a thread that runs through nearly every liberal/conservative divide there is. Conservatives default to narrowing and denying rights. Liberals default to expanding them.
I think part of what’s going on right now is that many in the Republican party see the writing on the wall. The Internet, demographics and social progress are slowly grinding away at their ability to win elections based on bigotry, fear, hate and ignorance. When Americans are informed and given the facts about Republican and Democratic policies, they overwhelmingly favor the Democratic policies. They’re toast in the long run, and they know it, and they’re going bugfuck–and every day that Barack Obama is president just rubs their face in it more.
bubba
The constitution mentions several ways that you cannot deny someone voting and makes some statements as to who can vote. (Over age 18, no denial because of race and gender, etc) but since is is not specifically called out in the Constitution and left up to the states, it will always be a battle.
Just one of those rights we like to think of as basic, but we have to keep fighting for.
Lolis
I trained election workers in Austin, TX during the 2008 election. I can’t tell you how many people brought up ACORN or making sure dead people won’t voting, etc. Of course, by people I mean Republicans. Never once did a Democrat ask anything about trying to make voting harder or make sure the “right” kind of people were voting. Many Republicans also made it clear when they disagreed with our policies and sometimes implied they would not follow the regulations as laid out to them, especially in regards to provisional voters.
I knew their political affiliation because the political parties recruit these people since there is supposed to be a Republican and Democratic representative at each polling location.
Lee
Just did a research paper on this topic for my summer writing class.
BeccaM
@Catsy: Beautifully put.
Ailuridae
@snoey:
I’ve wondered for years why the Democratic Party hasn’t pushed hard for November elections to be federal holidays. It forces the GOP to admit a fundamental uncomfortable truth.
This isn’t a rhetorical question but an earnest one: does anyone know why this isn’t an issue the Democratic Party hammers on?
kay
@Lolis:
I ran into a version of that, but it wasn’t malicious. It was just an inability to see why setting up an obstacle course might be a problem.
There’s something called “address mismatch” that happens with voter ID laws. The voter presents the driver’s license, and the address in the poll book doesn’t match the address on their license, because people don’t update their driver’s license until it expires, but they update voter registration.
It was anticipated in the law, and there’s actually a line in the poll book where the poll worker is supposed to fill in their social security number, and give them a regular ballot.
I couldn’t get Republican poll workers to do that. They’d reject the driver’s license and ask for something with a current address, and if the voter didn’t have it, they’d hand them a provisional ballot. People hate provisional ballots. They know it’s second class.
It was like belt and suspenders, or something. If one form of ID is good, two is better! Safety first!
I don’t know why they wouldn’t accept that specific provision in the law ( a new law that they insisted on passing) that was designed for that specific situation. They just decided that applying the rules in a way that was more restrictive was probably okay, because we were erring on the side of “caution”.
To me, they were excluding people and shunting them to a second class ballot just because they tend to think “fraud!” , and violating the rules.
So, we ended up with lots of new rules and no consistency in how they’re applied, which introduces potential for bias, and a subjective element that didn’t have to be there.
Short Bus Bully
This is such a legit point, I hope I see more posts around here on this topic.
hamletta
@Ailuridae: Because it’s a shitty idea. Early voting is much better.
There are always people who have to work on federal holidays: emergency personnel, restaurant workers, retail employees.
An early voting period with evening and weekend hours allows a lot more people access to the voting booth.
Problem is, some state constitutions, like Maryland’s, rule it out. It explicity says elections are to be held on one day, and one day only. And the liquor stores are to be closed (or were when I was a kid).
ETA: Tennessee instituted early voting a few years ago, and it’s been wildly successful. As many as 30 percent of our voters take advantage of it. I’ve stood in line at the Madison Library for 40 minutes on a Saturday afternoon with other eager voters.
Ailuridae
@hamletta:
I don’t really see it as an either/or proposition. I would prefer more early voting, and the Oregon vote-by-mail system and the federal holiday.
Zuzu's Petals
Saw that in Florida 2000. All those ugly comments saying if you can’t punch a chad/mark a box the right way, you don’t deserve to have your vote counted. As if one had to do with the other.
Zuzu's Petals
@hamletta:
Early voting also wildly successful in Ohio 2008. Contrast with eight hours in line in the rain on election day 2004.
limniade
I’d like to see online voting. If we can pay taxes online, why can’t we vote online? Taxes require identity verification too. Of course, I’m deliberately ignoring Diebold-owner fantasies of rigging the vote via a backdoor in the software, but then maybe one could resolve that issue by creating competing voting software packages, much like there are competing tax preparation and e-file programs. But seriously, why *should* we be relegated to getting up at 6am and going to stand in line at a poll to pull a lever, when we could just walk down to the computer and log on and do it from home before we leave for work? Most people have a computer in the house anyway, and even if they didn’t, the traffic reduction at the polls would allow those to get in and vote much more efficiently.
Professor
@beltane: A little bit of history for you. Go read something about the Peterloo massacre 1819. The kiiling of poor folks has been going on since antiquity.
Kirk Spencer
Kay’s right, but stop and consider why. It is because Judis and Teixeira are right about the demographics.
The ratio of non-white to whites is increasing, and the non-whites vote heavily Democratic.
The under-30 voters trend Democratic. The over-50 voters trend Republican. The years passing ensure the latter will decrease whether the former increase or not — and historically as the current 18-21 year olds age, they’ll vote more.
The people who go to church more than once a week tend to be Republican. The people who go to church once a month or less tend to be Democratic. Formal religious participation is decreasing.
Being little pricks at the polls works against the first two of the above. We know about the race issue, but it’s also worth noting that the older you are the less likely you are to have moved or just started voting or any of the other things that give the chance for the rejection.
shortstop
But exactly — with an emphasis on authority and punishment and especially on the Republican obsession with the “undeserving.” To add to SiubhanDuinne’s examples, I was conscious of this divide throughout the whole healthcare legislation debacle. I kept hearing from people who were in imminent danger of losing their health insurance — or didn’t have it at all — that they were not going to pay for other undeserving people to have it.
No statistics about the uninsured working poor (or decidedly middle class), rescission practices, denial of coverage practices or the number of medical bankruptcies filed by people with insurance could move them. They were convinced that only the shiftless could be walking around uninsured.
Wilson Heath
What, no Brick Oven Bill with his neo-poll tax idiocy about putting a property or economic wealth requirement on voting and/or citizenship? The babble goes on about economic participation, which in reality is everyone who isn’t living entirely off the land without selling their yield. The real juice about the idea is described in Kay’s front-paged comment.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
This topic would seem a lot more interesting to me if somebody could point a few examples of actual voter fraud, with actual fraudulent votes affecting an actual outcome of an actual election.
Where is the voter fraud? Where are the arrests, the convictions, the outrageous injury to democracy?
Are the fraudsters just scooped up at night and then renditioned to East Fuckistan in the middle of the night?
What are we missing?
ciotog
Maybe we should push for an “All American citizens have the right to vote” amendment to the Constitution now, because Republican attempts to suppress voting are only going to get worse as the demographics get worse for them.
Little Dreamer
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:
Umm, honey, I think this topic is quite interesting in that it examines the motivations for why Republicans try to supress votes and why Democrats try to open the vote to more people. Republicans have to shut down the availability of the voting booth to get what they want, because people really don’t want what they’re selling and they realize it. Due to this difference, Republicans will always be the real minority who have to obfuscate and lie to get their way.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@beltane:
I’ve been thinking similar thoughts since about 2005 or so.
Something broke in US politics when the S.U. imploded. The establishment class lost any incentive they’d formerly possessed to behave in a mild responsible manner when it comes to their stewardship of the US and of the global economy, and all of the people who by native personality type tend to end up as authoritarian nutjobs went over to the right instead of being split evenly between the left and the right because after all, what was the fun of being a Marxist blowhard any more if you could never have the hope of someday gaining power and being able to crush helpless victims beneath your bootheel.
As a result we got deranged people at the controls up in the wheelhouse of the Titanic and a wild party going on in the 1st class dining room, and nobody looking out for icebergs.
Little Dreamer
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Dick Cheney was a passenger on that trip.