Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The revolution will be supervised.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

He really is that stupid.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / In Wake of Voter ID Ruling, Pennsylvania Dumps Online Initiatives to Boost Voting

In Wake of Voter ID Ruling, Pennsylvania Dumps Online Initiatives to Boost Voting

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Gee whiz, it’s almost like they’re trying to make it really hard for “some people” to vote in Pennsylvania:

HARRISBURG – On the same day a judge cleared the way for the state’s new voter identification law to take effect, the Corbett administration abandoned plans to allow voters to apply online for absentee ballots for the November election and to register online to vote.

A spokesman for the Department of State said county elections officials told the agency that implementing the new online initiatives as well as voter ID requirements was too much to handle less than three months before the election.

~snip~

State election law allows absentee voting by any individuals who cannot physically get to polls, are sick or disabled or out of town, but they have to submit proof.

In his decision, Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. noted that the law already allows for absentee ballots for those facing difficulty in getting to the polls. In referring to two of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, he noted that “absentee balloting is probably available to them.”

Simpson on Wednesday denied that request on grounds that meeting the requirements of the ID law was not overly burdensome for voters.

[read full post including updates and link to my annotated copy of the ruling at ABLC]

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  1. 1.

    Little Boots

    they suck, so much.

    but I think this actually is going to motivate a lot of people.

    a whole lot of black people died for that vote. and a whole lot of them are still here, still fighting. we need to help, but honestly, I don’t think we need to motivate.

  2. 2.

    mk3872

    Motivate people to do what?? You can’t vote in PA without a state-approved photo ID with an expiration date on it.

    Just verifying that in itself will lead to enormously long lines in under-resourced areas as well as make voting impossible for those who don’t have IDs.

    I dare you to try to get one from a PA DMV office …

  5. 5.

    ? Martin

    @mk3872:

    Motivate people to do what?? You can’t vote in PA without a state-approved photo ID with an expiration date on it.

    There are a lot of people that have the ID but still don’t vote. Those people are predominantly young and/or minorities. We need to get all of those that can vote to vote.

    Remember – Texas. In 2008 if Latinos had voted at the same rate as whites (which wasn’t a very high rate itself), Obama would have won fucking Texas.

    There are a TON of votes sitting out there.

  10. 10.

    ? Martin

    Ooooh, I could really use a mojito ?. I have rum. I have mint growing in the yard (whether I like it or not). I should reach over the fence for some limes. I think I’m too tired to get up and make it though. Maybe I’ll just have a beer ?. Or two ?.

  11. 11.

    goblue72

    I’ve just taken to calling the GOP a-holes in PA bigots at every opportunity – regardless of how many of my relatives in PA I offend. I’m tired of being polite in the face of hate.

  12. 12.

    Ash Can

    @Richard: They refuse to discuss the details of their policies, they won’t be honest about the issues, and they assume they can’t win fair elections. This is a very disturbing trend for an organization that is one of this nation’s two major political parties.

  18. 18.

    ? Martin

    @Yutsano: But much of the problems with avatars are related to site performance. You have to have a means to upload/choose avatars. You have the cost of loading the images – which are quite large relative to the text. Ads are loaded from the ad servers, so that doesn’t affect running the site.

    But these are just single characters. The graphics exist on your local machine, so there’s no performance cost. And they’re tiny, and there aren’t that many of them to clutter the place up.

    Hmm. I haven’t tried changing the size of them.

    ?

    Just eats the size tags as I figured.

  21. 21.

    Little Boots

    is it omnes fault?

    Omnes, since you hate everything I post, would you care to post some music?

  23. 23.

    Alison

    Is there any sort of progressive organizing going on in PA and elsewhere to help those who may fall prey to this shit? I’m thinking not just getting the word out, but setting up like, field trips essentially, where folks can sign up as cabbies to take people to the DMV or wherever else, take them to get copies of whatever shit ton of paperwork they need, etc. Go doorknocking and make sure everyone knows the new law and offer assistance to help them meet the regs…

    If this shit was going on here and were I not half-invalid I’d be all about some voting caravans.

  25. 25.

    MikeJ

    @? Martin: The avatars also had the disadvantage of sending usage information to a third party. Even if you didn’t sign up to have an avatar yourself there are still usage patterns to be gleaned since they worked across sites.

    Have you had to have comments approved when you change nick to add the glyph?

    ✌

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    @? Martin:
    I think you’re having too much fun with those symbols. Might I suggest that you use the ☭ the next time you want to avoid a forbidden word instead of spelling it sockulism. And you can use ࿕ if you want to Godwin a thread.

  33. 33.

    jayjaybear

    See my face? This is it not being surprised in the least.

    God, I can’t wait until Tommy Boy isn’t my boss anymore…

  38. 38.

    Roger Moore

    @Yutsano:
    I’m a bit surprised that my Linux computer at home seems to have better font support than the Windows machine at work. I wasn’t able to see any of Martin’s weird symbols at work, but they all work fine at home. Maybe this is a subtle hint about reading blogs on company time…

  39. 39.

    Yutsano

    @Roger Moore: My computer at work is ancient, and a lot of Internet access is blocked. I don’t even bother to try bringing up BJ on my work computer. The Crackberry does just fine in that department.

  44. 44.

    ? Martin

    @Roger Moore: Well, I have some flags:

    ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??

    I could use China for socialism, though that’s safe to say now that we convinced Cole it was literally 2 clicks and the delete key to fix. What a dork.

    There’s no good Godwin symbol in that set, though. I’ve got a little devil ? and a little man that is Hitleresque, but not really ? (and these will depend on the fonts on your machine anyway) But originating in Japan, I think we can appreciate them not having anything naziesque in there. There’s ? ? ?, though.

    I do like the tsunami one, though ? but I wish I could make it bigger.

    This isn’t nearly tunchlike enough ? nor does this pass for Lily or Rosie ?. But there’s a nice Rafalca ?

    But Hindu ?? I think we’re good there.

  47. 47.

    ? Martin

    @Roger Moore: That’s not surprising to me. Linux is generally pretty good at the depth of the font support, just not the breadth. That is, it’ll support almost all of unicode, but the fonts will often look like ass (it’s getting a lot better).

    Are you aware that there’s even domain name support? Yep: http://?.la

  53. 53.

    ? Martin

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oh. Yeah, that sucks. I’ve been there too. Even when it’s necessary, you lose a bit of your soul in the process.

    Have a drink. Trust you did the right thing for all involved.

  61. 61.

    Hill Dweller

    @? Martin: Millions of seniors’ lives literally depend on Medicare and Medicaid. If there was ever a time for the Village to stop the false balance, it’s with this subject matter.

    I’ve seen some signs that journalists seem to understand the importance of the debate, and are actually doing their jobs for once. At some point before the election, I’m hoping that not only is Romney/Ryan’s bullshit exposed, but they pay a price for even attempting it.

  65. 65.

    Yutsano

    @MikeJ: BG never got back to me. But we might just have to organize our own since gwangung has stuff he wants to show off to us.

    @Hill Dweller: And of course the wingnuts conveniently forget the whole reason Medicare was created to begin with. Even in the 60s insurers didn’t want to touch elders with a ten foot pole. With the expansions and expenses ofmodern medicine no way could any senior get health care coverage in this day and age.

  69. 69.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @piratedan: The girl is weird. I will give you that, but she is the best thing to ever come out of Merrill, Wisconsin. Wausau, at least, has Jim Otto, Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch, Lori Wallach, and me.

  71. 71.

    ? Martin

    @Hill Dweller: My stepfather got the 2×4 cluestick earlier this year. He lost his job last year – C-level at a health insurer. Forced out, basically. Needed to get health insurance – and couldn’t. At all. He’s got COBRA, but just for a while. Pre-existing condition – and a nasty one – a degenerative muscular disease (genetic) that will kill him fairly soon – but that can be delayed with surgeries here and there. He’s paid for health insurance his whole life and suddenly he can’t get it at any price – even from the people he used to work for.

    He voted for McCain, but I’m pretty sure he’s an Obama vote now. 2014 can’t get here fast enough for him. Funny how the world looks so much different from the other side.

  72. 72.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    They aren’t even trying to hide what they are doing. Republicans are doing everything they can to fuck this country up so the few can profit from the misery of the many. One good thing that may happen as a result of this is that this will embolden others into overreach, finally prompting some serious repercussions for these criminals.

    If they don’t steal it all and burn down the rest before that happens.

    OT: Speaking of those who enjoy the misery of others, this is from a FP post at Redstate:

    If this were not Barack Obama’s Wall Street money guy, the only thing Corzine would be hedging against would be repeated anal penetration in a Federal Prison.

    Yup, the go to web site for Conservatism!

  73. 73.

    dance around in your bones

    @piratedan:

    I love Dick Dale but nowadays when I hear this song it just brings up Pulp Fiction…

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that ;)

  74. 74.

    Hill Dweller

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: The Republican party is cartoonishly evil at this point. You have to be willfully blind and ignorant not to see it.

    Unfortunately, willfully blind and ignorant accurately describes the Village.

  79. 79.

    dance around in your bones

    @Origuy:

    Wow – that I REALLY liked……are those two guys at the control panel playing iPads/tablets?

    I had a friend who played accordion in a band; I sent him that New Yorker cartoon of the accordion player on the sidewalk with a sign saying “Will stop playing for money” haha.

    I actually really like Norteño music – the techno blend was interesting.

  81. 81.

    Origuy

    @dance around in your bones: I don’t know much about them; I saw them on Antony Bourdain’s Baja show. I think they were using the iPods to control some of the electronics.
    They call themselves a collective because they are a group of musicians who play in groups of one or two.

    Here’s Sensacional by the Hiperboreal project. (NSFW)

  83. 83.

    kay

    I hate to say it, but this what happens when a judge relies on a press release as fact.

    Corbett put out two press releases in July, one on on-line registration for absentee ballots and one about a voter ID that was to be made available.

    They were just annnouncements. They didn’t change any administrative rules and he didn’t issue orders.

    I don’t think he’s going to do either of the things he promised.

    The judge took them at their word. I don’t know why he would do that, given that this is an election law case and timing is so important. He should have asked if these claims the state were making had any basis in reality. It’s fine to say they’ll do such and such, but relying on that? Seems crazy to me.

    The voter ID was promised “the last week in August”, and the judge relied on that, too.

    The NYTimes called these assurances by the state “hollow promises” and that’s what they are.

  84. 84.

    kay

    If the promised voter ID isn’t available the first day of the last week in August ( first working day) can the plaintiffs go back to the judge and tell him “respectfully, sir, you got played by Governor Corbett and his political hacks”?

    Who relies on press releases? I mean, come on. I understand giving people the benefit of the doubt but this is ridiculous. Why didn’t he insist on some showing that they intended to follow thru, like a rule change or a directive?

  85. 85.

    Triassic Sands

    Simpson on Wednesday denied that request on grounds that meeting the requirements of the ID law was not overly burdensome for voters.

    This reminds me of Sandra Day O’Connor’s inability to understand Florida voters’s difficulty in understanding the butterfly ballot. After all, all the college graduates at the country club could figure it out.

    Was she just naive, or was her cluelessness just a way to hide her outcome-based legal reasoning?

    Simpson, who obviously already has adequate ID to allow him to vote, either has no clue of the realities that confront the lives of many “real Americans” or, in what’s getting to be a really tiresome story, it simply gives him cover to rule in favor of those he wants to win.

  86. 86.

    kay

    If I’m a political hack in one of these voter suppression states I now know I can issue a flurry of press releases prior to hearing and introduce those at at the trial to get my voter suppression law past a judge.
    Great. Just fabulous. We now operate in imaginary world in courts, too.
    I’m surprised they didn’t just go in there and deny the law existed. Why not? It’s worth a shot.
    Make it he said/she said. Have Glenn Tressler rule on how many Pinocchios the state of PA gets and call it a day.

  87. 87.

    jayjaybear

    @kay:

    Have Glenn Tressler rule on how many Pinocchios the state of PA gets and call it a day.

    There ain’t enough wood in the world…

  88. 88.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @Alison: I

    s there any sort of progressive organizing going on in PA and elsewhere to help those who may fall prey to this shit?

    Simple answer: No. No emails from County Democrats or OFA to organize this at all.

  89. 89.

    ABL

    @kay: The attorneys are trying to get an expedited Supreme Court briefing schedule and want to set oral arguments for early September. What you suggest is exactly what they should do. Also, some organization needs to start busing people to PennDOT and overwhelm them in order to make a showing of the inevitability of disenfranchisement.

    The court opinion is ridiculous. The judge wanted to rule the way he did and found a way.

  90. 90.

    The Crafty Trilobite

    @89 — agreed! Folks, give $$ to PA voter-reg groups, they’re going to be vastly overworked the next couple of months.

    @84 — actually, yes. IAAL. If you can show a judge the other side was lying, most judges will listen. But you need really solid proof that he blew it. Judges, like anyone else, hate to admit they were wrong. The new evidence, if PA appellate procedure allows, might be better saved for the appeal.

    BTW, note how much this judge relied on the 2009 Grange case and cases following it. That case was the ultimate, devastating right-wing answer to the imaginary problem of “judicial activism.” It comes very close to saying that a court can never strike a law altogether, it can only prevent it being applied to the particular plaintiff in front of the court. Deadly to civil rights.

    The judge himself actually sounds like a good guy trying his best to be fair. But the key is in his repeated comments that he was sure the state would do its best, wouldn’t infer that all the legislators were purely partisan, and would be “shocked” if plaintiffs couldn’t get absentee ballots. Judges are civil servants, they’re mostly ex-prosecutors, they see a LOT of crank civil rights cases, and the result is that they reflexively trust the government. Most of the time they’re even right. Not this time.

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