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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Unskewing the polling (place)

Unskewing the polling (place)

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Makes sense:

The Obama campaign won another victory in Ohio Friday, when a federal appeals court backed a trial judge’s decision to block a measure that restricted early voting in the swing state.
The Obama campaign and others who challenged the law argued that it disproportionately affected minority and working class residents. In August, U.S. District Judge Peter Economus blocked the measure, saying that all Ohioans have a constitutionally protected right to participate in the 2012 election on an equal basis. The judge’s order restored in-person early voting to all Ohio voters up to the day before the election.
“While we readily acknowledge the need to provide military voters more time to vote, we see no corresponding justification for giving others less time,” wrote Judge Eric Clay, a Clinton appointee, for the majority.

Remember: early voting for all was in place in Ohio until Republicans went to elaborate lengths to narrow it in 2010. All the Obama Administration sought here was a return to the early vote schedule.

This is Souls to the Polls:

During the 2008 presidential elections, many African-American churches took advantage of early voting to promote ‘take your souls to the polls’—programs that encouraged voting by taking church members directly from Sunday services to the polls.
After record voter turnouts in the 2008 election, 34 states have introduced legislation to limit voting. In Ohio, H.B. 194 seeks to cut the state’s early voting period by more than half, and to prohibit voting on the last Sunday before Election Day.

The GOP effort to narrow the existing early vote window directly targeted African-American voters.

Reader Interactions

33Comments

  1. 1.

    LD50

    The GOP effort to narrow the existing early vote window directly targeted African-American voters.

    But the REAL racists are the people who point this out!

  2. 2.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    Souls to the Polls

    And in just the next thread downstairs, everybody’s having fun trashing organized religion. Sigh. F’ing nuance, how does it work?

  3. 3.

    Chyron HR

    ‘take your souls to the polls’

    Don’t you know this is a atheistic country? Part of claiming your citizenship is denying a belief in God, even if you are Christian.

  4. 4.

    Bulworth

    After record voter turnouts in the 2008 election, 34 states have introduced legislation to limit voting. In Ohio, H.B. 194 seeks to cut the state’s early voting period by more than half, and to prohibit voting on the last Sunday before Election Day.

    Obviously we can’t have any more of that.

  5. 5.

    Spatula

    During the 2008 presidential elections, many African-American churches took advantage of early voting to promote ‘take your souls to the polls’—programs that encouraged voting by taking church members directly from Sunday services to the polls.
    After record voter turnouts in the 2008 election, 34 states have introduced legislation to limit voting. In Ohio, H.B. 194 seeks to cut the state’s early voting period by more than half, and to prohibit voting on the last Sunday before Election Day.

    Even for me and knowing how bogus the MSM is, it is SHOCKING beyond belief that this is not widely known and reported as a scandal.

    Anthony Weiner’s weiner, however, brought all of the nation to a standstill.

  6. 6.

    Mike Goetz

    OT, but this is some quality surrogateship from Rick Santorum on Romney’s anti-Big-Bird jihad (via WaPo):

    “I’ve voted to kill Big Bird in the past. I have a record there that I have to disclose. That doesn’t mean I don’t like Big Bird. You can kill things and still like them, maybe to eat them, I don’t know. That’s probably that. Can we — can we go back on that one?”

  7. 7.

    Punchy

    Can I make an educated guess that the remaining 16 states are those who tend to vote blue?

    Strange that there’s no problem of “voter fraud” in blue states, since Dems are alleged to engage in this practice and blue states have more of them…..

  10. 10.

    rlrr

    @Chyron HR:

    Don’t you know this is a atheistic country? Part of claiming your citizenship is denying a belief in God, even if you are Christian.

    That’s on Obama’s agenda for his second term…

  11. 11.

    Face

    “I’ve voted to kill Big Bird in the past. I have a record there that I have to disclose. That doesn’t mean I don’t like Big Bird. You can kill things and still like them, maybe to eat them, I don’t know. That’s probably that. Can we—can we go back on that one?”

    HOLY fucking christ on a moped this is funny shit.

    Eating Big Bird? Really? Imagine the chicken wings.

  13. 13.

    Kay

    @LD50

    :

    But the REAL racists are the people who point this out!

    Here, it was easy to find a motive, because they told us:

    One prominent Republican official recently conceded he opposes weekend voting because it would “accommodate the urban — read African American — voter-turnout machine.”

    They no longer bother being subtle, Republicans. I like that they’ve given up denying. It saves time.

  14. 14.

    JenJen

    Suck it, Kasich and Husted!

    Kay, what do you make of this, though?

    Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, whose office defended the measure, was “reviewing the ruling to determine further action,” a spokesman said.

    To determine further action? Hasn’t that been determined by the Court?

  15. 15.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Mike Goetz:

    You can kill things and still like them, maybe to eat them

    He’s obviously dogwhistling (birdwhistling?) to the Wall St. MOTU, the ones who kill what they eat.

  16. 16.

    danimal

    @Kay: It’s just amazing how the dog whistle has become a train whistle has become an air raid siren. I think that the conservative closed information loop has really done them a disservice, because they seem to have forgotten that outright racism is a bad thing.

    As a white guy, I’ve been in those uncomfortable situations where another white guy says vile, racist things because Those People aren’t around to represent. These days, it’s like Crazy Uncle Joey isn’t just in the living room spouting this crap, instead he’s got a microphone and a legion of supporters, too. I blame Obama. /snark

  17. 17.

    burnspbesq

    The GOP effort to narrow the existing early vote window directly targeted African-American voters.

    Imagine my surprise.

  19. 19.

    Punchy

    Yahoo (cant link) pimping polls showing Romney up a bunch in VA, up 1 in OH, up 3 or so in FL…. something called We Ask America polling. Are they legit?

  20. 20.

    Yutsano

    @Punchy: Hmmm…polling outfit never heard of before that I bet won’t release their methodology. I smell troll ffood.

  21. 21.

    Cassandra

    I live in Southeastern Pa. Someone just left a flyer at my door (10/05/12) with the heading “Photo ID required for November 2012 Election.” It contains the wrong information and says if you don’t have a photo ID you will have to vote a provisional ballot and then you will have 6 days to prove your identity at your county elections office or your ballot won’t count. This is not true and yet they are still spreading it. Rethuglicans, indeed! So I called the county voting office and they said there was nothing they could do. I told the woman to have her boss call me back and tell me who I should contact. So far, no call. I was steaming. I then called the county Democratic office and got a much warmer response. The woman there said they had been getting calls and they thought it was being distributed county-wide. By now I’m practically crying and I asked her if there was anything they could do. Yes! They are getting a Cease-and-Desist Order. Lower than pond scum they are. Good thing I didn’t see the person who left it or there might have been an ugly confrontation.

  22. 22.

    Calouste

    @Punchy:

    We Ask America, for example, were the only poll in 3 months (mid-May to mid August) that had Romney leading in Virginia. By 5. Let’s say if they are not outright in the bag for the GOP, they are getting more than their fair share of outliers.

  24. 24.

    JenJen

    @Punchy: We Ask America is a GOP-leaning outlet similar to Rasmussen. Was reading about them earlier; apparently they were widely off the mark in Wisconsin for the Scott Walker recall and had him winning by 12 points or something to that effect. As far as I know, they’ve never polled Ohio before, yet their Twitter feed says Romney bounced back there following the debate. Back from what?

    I guess we’ll have to take it with a grain of salt. This is an interesting GOS post that says We Ask America delayed the release of their new Ohio poll because “the client retracted their permission.” That’s interesting.

  27. 27.

    Jay C

    @JenJen:

    Like I said in the following thread, I think these GOP-leaning “polls” aren’t really meant to be a realistic assessment of voters’ opinion, but are a sort of media-spin operations designed to get more GOP-friendly numbers in front of the media and potential viewers. Their “numbers” are probably total fabrications, but since when did that ever affect the “MSM”?

  28. 28.

    Publius39

    @JenJen: Seeing as how SCOTUS probably wouldn’t touch this case with a ten-foot pole with it being so close to election day, he might try to ask for an en banc hearing in the sixth circuit. It’s a far-shot for DeWine, but we all know that conservatives love them some litigation when it comes to suppressing the rights of urban-read anyone by old, bigoted, white men-people’s rights.

  29. 29.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @LD50:

    But the REAL racists are the people who point this out!

    I think I quoted this a few days ago, but here’s a wingnut doing an impressive “you’re racist for opposing our racism!” contortion:

    Liberals have a true disdain for blacks and a lot of the astute black people are starting to get it. Take the voter ID laws for example, which are very broad and allow for student, library, military, drivers licenses, and many other state issued ID’ that contain and photo, expiration date and are free! Yet, liberals have no problem saying out loud that their base of voters, and other Americans are either too lazy, too stupid, or too irresponsible to take the time and acquire such an ID. This bizarre admission by many liberals somehow makes them feel protective of that “underclass”, not realizing that the Democratic agenda relies on an underclass for power. Or maybe they do realize that.
    __
    Unfortunately, the democratic party has zeroed in on people of color as that underclass they will prey on, and Obama spoke to that very issue when he said earlier that a dependent class can become a voting majority. It’s a disgusting admission.

    Got it? If you oppose GOP efforts to suppress the black vote, then you are racist!

  30. 30.

    RaflW

    @Punchy:

    Can I make an educated guess that the remaining 16 states are those who tend to vote blue?

    Sadly, even the only state to vote for Walter Mondale is facing a voter restriction amendment. The polling has tightened dramatically in recent weeks, but we may wake up Nov 7th with Minnesota having a constitutional requirement for Photo ID to vote. Minnesota.

    If you don’t like that idea, there’s this campaign that could use some help.

  32. 32.

    JenJen

    @Jay C: I think you’re right. In 2008, wasn’t Rasmussen wildly off the mark until maybe a week before the election, when they brought their predictions in line with the other major polling firms so they wouldn’t look as though they were completely phony? Am I remembering that correctly?

    @Publius39: Oh dear gawd. Given this clown show at the statehouse in Ohio, I don’t doubt that they might give voter suppression one more push.

  33. 33.

    Triassic Sands

    The Obama campaign Free and honest elections won another victory in Ohio Friday,

    I’m sorry, but the GOP has launched an assault on elections themselves, the Obama Campaign is just a bystander in this despicable process.

    If the courts thwart the Republican efforts to steal elections, I think it’s fair to say that all Americans “win.” It is in no one’s true long term interests to turn American elections into a process designed to guarantee an outcome regardless of the will of the people.

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