We talked about this last week:
With court action over the state’s proof-of-citizenship voting law looming, Secretary of State Kris Kobach is laying groundwork for a system that would allow some voters to vote in all elections while others could only vote for Congress and presidential tickets.
Arizona joins Kansas in creating two classes of voters:
The states are using an opening left in June by the United States Supreme Court when it said that the power of Congress over federal elections was paramount but did not rule on proof of citizenship in state elections. Such proof was required under Arizona’s Proposition 200, which passed in 2004 and is one of the weapons in the border state’s arsenal of laws enacted in its battle against illegal immigration.
The two states are also jointly suing the federal Election Assistance Commission, arguing that it should change the federal voter registration form for their states to include state citizenship requirements. While the agency has previously denied such requests, the justices said the states could try again and seek judicial review of those decisions.
The two-tiered system — deemed costly, cumbersome and prone to confusion by many of its opponents, as well as election officials in both states — threatens to derail an effort by Democrats and their allies to increase voter registration and turnout among Latinos and the poor, part of a push by the party to pick up local offices and seats in the states’ legislatures, where policies have been largely dictated by Republicans in recent years.
Matt Roberts, spokesman for the Arizona secretary of state, Ken Bennett — who, like Mr. Horne, is a Republican — said the small numbers do nothing to lessen the challenge of adding another ballot to a system already full of them, each based on variants like party affiliation, voting precinct, and legislative and Congressional districts.
“We have a hard enough time already to get people to go to the right voting place,” Mr. Roberts said. “The last thing any poll worker wants is to have to tell someone who might be voting for the first time why they can’t vote for governor.” He said Mr. Bennett supports requiring proof of citizenship but wants it for all elections.
Sowing chaos and confusion is part of the playbook for any robust voter suppression effort. We can also expect actual incompetence in election administration to play a role, as we saw in Pennsylvania last cycle where the GOP effort to administer the new rules they rushed in was such an absolute mess a court stepped in and halted the whole thing.
This effort to suppress Latino votes is both a short-term and a long-term strategy for conservatives because ethnic and racial minorities gain political power by winning state and (especially) local elections and developing a “bench” of candidates and a loyal local base of voters. These efforts will stop them before they get started on the path to national office.
Also, I’d just like to reiterate that Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas and the person behind this, is not a fringe figure on the Right. He was Moderate Mitt Romney’s advisor (although Romney denied it) and he’s in the absolute mainstream of the modern GOP. He’s also a regular on the conservative media grifter circuit.
Kris Kobach, 46, is a Professor of Law and lawyer who has litigated in courts across the country. He is a regular guest on The O’Reilly Factor (FOX News Channel) and Lou Dobbs Tonight (CNN).
TheronWare
Voter suppression is treasonous.
c u n d gulag
I’m surprised to find that Kris Kobach’s middle initial is “W.”
I expected his middle name to be Karl, or Klaus, or something beginning with the letter “K,” to make his initials, KKK.
Maybe his parents were more subtle than he is.
MomSense
This is so infuriating. We have to fight back when they try to take away our right to vote. I’m heading out to canvass now and this fires me up.
We have to fight these jerks and win everything in 2014.
Kay
@TheronWare:
What’s interesting to me, and maybe something to watch, is Kobach wasn’t elected in Arizona. He was elected in Kansas. Yet he wrote Arizona’s “papers, please” law and he’s behind this.
It’s clever. An anti-Latino politician doesn’t even have to RUN in Arizona (where he might lose, given the demographics of that state) and still he has a huge influence on Arizona elections and laws.
It’s another end-run around Latino voters.
Woody
The same people (Kobach being one) are also fine with lying about making abortion safer. Their inspiration came from those Southern deputies who told the press that it was Northerners stirrin’ trouble who were responsible for the terrorism inflicted on local blacks who dared to vote or own property.
These people exist. The problem rests with those individuals who know they’re lying, are uncomfortable with it, but placidly go along.
Shakezula
Because nothing says we’re really, really, really concerned about voter fraud like saying we just want to stop local voter fraud.
I’m just glad the TEAOP is such a clusterfuck it has put optics over strategy.
Part what’s driving these “strategies” is a need to keep its rabid base’s attention. “Lookit us, we’re going to stop the Obominations from voting. And we’re really pissing off the libs!” If it works, they get states run by the GOP (and access to state treasuries). If a judge tells them to quit it they can whine about Activist Judges. If Congress passes a law (long shot), they can scream about Washington. Any of the above results will be financially lucrative.
Win-Win-Win.
PopeRatzo
Somebody please tell me that the Supreme Court, even Tony “Googootz” Scalia, will say that having a two tiers of voters is about as unconstitutional as it gets. They gotta, right?
the Conster
The relentlessness of these assholes is exhausting. Stupid and mean is an inexhaustible source of energy that never sleeps from the bowels of the earth. What a bunch of fucking assholes.
c u n d gulag
@PopeRatzo: You know Alito and Thomas will go along with Fat Tony, and say separate AND unequal, is just fine with them!
The questions are, will Kennedy and/or Roberts?
Lee
I’ve converted several of my conservative friends on FB back to supporting voting rights when I point out that if the tactics used to slowly take people’s right to vote away work will then be used to take their guns away.
That usually converts them pretty quick.
Bill E Pilgrim
Psst. Hot tip for “moderate” Republicans. What do you use to stop crazy? Krazy glue.
Omnes Omnibus
@PopeRatzo: Don’t hold your breath. There is a very real possibility that the Court could say that that states have a right to run nonfederal elections under their own rules. To be clear, I think it is unconstitutional, but I am not on the Court.
Botsplainer
Kobach is dangerous – as in Adolf Hitler level dangerous, because he’s more subtle about his message delivery in a way that appeals to the sorts of suburban/exurban pasty white middle to upper middle class residents from metro areas surrounding Atlanta, Orlando, Dallas, Jacksonville, Nashville, Charlotte, Houston, etc. These are the folks who giggle nervously when somebody tells a joke with a punch line about African Americans, while never deigning to tell such a joke themselves (not in public, anyway).
dogwood
@Kay:
These draconian voter Id laws are proof that the Republican base needs to be constantly fed, and their fears and insecurities religiously stoked. Some of it is actually counterproductive. They spend a lot of time and money trying to make it hard for people who don’t vote or vote irregularly from doing what they already aren’t doing. It simply intensifies Democratic efforts to reach these voters. Republicans realize that the numbers are generally against them, so they must constantly come up with schemes that increase the only advantage they have – the intensity of their shrinking voter base.
Derelict
Given the Supremes’ hostility toward voting rights in general, and toward the rights of women and minorities in particular, I’d be surprised to see two-tier voting struck down. I know that Roberts’s response would be something along the lines of, “Well, you can always sue after the election if you feel you were wrongly deprived of your opportunity to vote.” Scalia would be more likely to offer something like, “Well, the Constitution does not explicitly state there is a right to vote. Therefore, the right to vote does not exist and the states are free to prevent anyone they chose from exercising the privilege of voting.”
Kay
@PopeRatzo:
It’s been tried twice before. Illinois put a system in, and a state court struck it down. Mississippi tried, but it was halted under the VRA.
As you know we no longer have pre-clearance under the VRA, because conservatives feel it is unfair to white people that we even suggest there might be voter suppression. The hurt feelings of white people must be paramount in all “legal” analysis. Plus, looking at facts is often very divisive. We’re just going with feelings.
dmsilev
Meanwhile, Clown Central proceeds to the ritualistic passing the hot potato and assigning the blame:
Scott S.
I’m honestly mystified that Kobach isn’t in jail yet. He strikes me as the kind of guy who’s got a basement filled with dead hookers.
xian
Kobach is a scumbag.
TAPX486
But there is good news. The national nightmare has ended and doom and gloom has been averted. Mitt and Ann have permission to build their dream car elevator, I mean house. All 12 million dollars of it. The FSM is truly benevolent
Kay
@dogwood:
The 2012 efforts at suppression WERE counter-productive. As you know (because I talk about it all the time) I do voter protection in an overwhelmingly white county, so I have little or no contact with AA voters.
BUT, two things happened in 2012. I could FEEL the energy at voting rights events in Cleveland and Toledo (where there are AA voters) and WHITE voters here got engaged and energized on the issue. Ohio Democratic voters know Democrats don’t win in this state if AA Democrats can’t vote. It was that simple. White voters were energized because suppressing the AA vote means Democrats can’t win.
It was fun to watch, because I’ve never seen it come together like that, and I’ve been ranting about voting rights for ten years.
AA’s ALWAYS cared about voting rights. Now white Democrats and liberals do, too. Ordinary voters. I had 75 year old white Democrats here asking me questions about voter suppression in urban areas in Ohio. . These are people who have NEVER experienced any attempts at suppression directed at them.
Kay
@dogwood:
BTW, I’m glad you’re back. I missed your comments :)
Botsplainer
OT, but this was fun. Local cops doing security let the crowd way too close in during high school game in Louisiana, an effect to homer the game. Refs realize it, try to toss cops from game and get arrested during the third quarter.
And yes, I’m reading between lots of lines.
http://deadspin.com/referees-arrested-in-middle-of-football-game-1444319106
Shakezula
A thought occurs. Isn’t Arizona one of the states where the RNC is launching its much ballyhooed (by the RNC) on the ground “Lying Operatives Aggravating & Tyrannizing over Hispanics Everywhere” program? It is going to take some massive eggs to knock on doors. “Hi there, we’re here to encourage you to vote for us, even though we’re trying to stop you from voting.”
themann1086
Ding ding ding! Most of the poll workers I know (in a town with 1 elected Democrat on town council) don’t want any sort of unnecessary work that make it harder for us or for the voters. It’s why we’ve ignored the not-actually-implemented voter id law (in PA) over the past few elections, even though we were theoretically suppose to ask for it. They didn’t need to show it, so why should we hold up the lines and waste our time asking?
WereBear
@Lee: Brilliant!
Tokyokie
@Derelict: Yeah, Tony the Chin found a constitutional right to equal protection for candidates but doesn’t think there’s such for voters.
jibeaux
I’ve read some of these things, and so far I haven’t heard anyone address the issue of proving citizenship. A driver’s license isn’t proof of citizenship. A social security card isn’t proof of citizenship. A birth certificate can show that you’re a citizen, but there are other types of citizenship besides by birth on American soil, and many people do not have easy access to their birth certificate. How many American voters do you think have a passport? How many perfectly legitimate American voters, with ID, with utility bills, with credit cards — none of which prove citizenship — are going to want to restart the voter registration process all over again by requesting a copy of their birth certificate??
rikyrah
thanks for being on top of this Kay.
evil never sleeps.
and, of course, this is mainstream GOP, and save for a few in the Media, nobody in the MSM can be bothered to point this out.
Bloix
It’s crucial to suppress voting in state elections because state legislatures draw congressional districts. As long as Republicans can control the state legislatures, they can gerrymander the House of Representatives to assure their majority there.
CaseyL
IANAL, much less a SCOTUS justice, but it seems to me that having a two-tier voting policy is discriminatory on its very face.
Those scumbags are betting that the shut-down and default cripples DoJ enough that it can’t file suit against them.
pseudonymous in nc
@jibeaux:
A substantial number of Americans — sufficiently large for it not to be exceptional — don’t have birth certificates: they either weren’t issued when they were born, or went up in smoke with a county courthouse before vital records were consolidated.
The Kobach rationale is that second-class voters might be able to vote in federal elections, but state elections determine how gerrymandered their House districts are (and how wingnutty their state is) so fuck them. And it creates enough smoke that people may not show up at all.
Once again, here’s the challenge to GOP vote suppressors: if you’re serious about proof of citizenship, what’s your objection to a federal ID, because the principle and the complete implementation is surely more important than the reaction of some of your supporters who fear black helicopters. That’s how you take on devious and dangerous fuckers like Kobach.
Amir Khalid
@jibeaux:
Further to your question: since in the US citizenship is a Federal matter, shouldn’t it be up to the US Department of State (and not a state agency) to say what document(s) shall constitute proof of citizenship? And doesn’t the State Department already do this in some relevant regulation?
Kay
@rikyrah:
Don’t you think it’s gotten much better, though, media attention? From 2004 to 2012 it was a huge change.
I give a lot of credit to Talking Points Memo. They were the first I saw present this in a non-legalese way. It’s accurate, their coverage, but it’s not daunting for people who have neither the time nor desire to read legal opinions. They also keep hitting it, over and over and over. Voting rights activists are great, but that’s a narrow club. It has to be bigger, has to be a part of the general political landscape.
IowaOldLady
@TAPX486: I was just thinking the other day how much I still want to see Mitt’s tax returns. Too bad for me, I guess.
rikyrah
TPM was good.
So was that dude over at the Nation – sorry, his name escapes me.
On tv, it was all MSNBC, but the following were consistent about it: Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Rev. Al, Larry O.
Tweety did a lot of segments on the law in Pennsylvania.
Outside of MSNBC – nothing on the rest of the cable channels.
Black media was on it, of course, because this was personal.
I don’t know about Spanish media.
And, blogs were on it.
I still stand by my statement that it was a handful in the MSM that dragged the rest of them along. They weren’t gonna say shyt about it, and if Willard/GOP had won, it would have been ‘ oh, you Black people are just whining’.
debbie
How quickly can this be sent to the Supreme Court?
Botsplainer
@jibeaux:
For decades, you know who squealed loudest about the issuance of a uniform national standard ID? Conservatives, particularly of the Bircher variety. White people (especially those of the shit-mouth drawling variety) are supposed to be taken at their word as to who and what they are.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Although, this is a bullshit paragraph:
Democrats are seeking a partisan advantage while Republicans are fighting fraud.
Democrats have always been “access” people and Republicans have always been “security” people. The writer gives Republicans the legit objective, while relegating Democrats to simply looking for a partisan advantage.
The problem with that is access people want EVERYONE who is eligible to vote to do so, including Republicans. The piece is written to legitimize Republicans while discrediting Democrats.
Woodrowfan
I work as an election officer in my county. And in 2012 I noticed it was the republican officers who went out of their way to question voters’ IDs, especially if they were AA or Hispanic. “You said your name was John Smith, but your ID says John Q Smith!” Needless to say, my line went twice as fast as their lines did. And a few righties complained that were were not “strict” enough in asking for IDs, although we were using the list approved in Richmond.
Davis X. Machina
@CaseyL: We’ve seen this court pull new states’ rights arguments out of thin air, like in Shelby Co., where the sovereign state dignity doctrine materialized in a puff of smoke.
(ET fix the case.. Been fixated on NFIB v. Shelby lately due to Obamacare-killing budget compromise talk.)
cmorenc
@Kay:
Unfortunately, it didn’t come in time to prevent Ted Cruz from getting started.
Kay
@Woodrowfan:
They change their tune pretty fast when they want to win, though.
I’m helping (mostly) Republicans pass a school bond issue. They’re canvassing in lower-income areas.
They all came back last week with all these voter problem-stories (the kind Democrats hear all the time). All of a sudden they were very concerned about voting rights.
They were also telling felons they can’t vote, which isn’t true in this state.
I was wondering why they were coming back with all this “felon” information. I know there are a LOT of felons, because everything is a felony now, but usually you don’t have 15 conversations about felon voting over 60 doors. I was suspicious: “you’re not asking people if they’re felons when they answer the door, are you?”
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were conducting a preliminary inquisition while canvassing, I really wouldn’t. It’s a different way of thinking about voting on the Right. We have nothing in common.
PsiFighter37
This is clearly unconstitutional. Why not go back to the good old days of white property-owning men being the only ones with the full franchise?
Assholes.
ericblair
@jibeaux:
Birth certificate doesn’t do it either. You could have renounced your US citizenship (which is now hip among the billionaire asshole set), or been born to foreign officials with diplomatic status in the US. Of course, this isn’t a problem, because this kind of vote fraud DOESN’T FUCKING EXIST, but there you go. You want to know for sure without taking a voter’s word for it at some level, and it’s US State Department National ID Card Mark O The Beast baby.
mai naem
@Bill E Pilgrim: He also says in one of his tweets that Ted Cruz had a really bad body odor problem.
How long can the GOP continue with the voter suppression crap and succeed? Don’t the demographics catch up with them at some point. Do they not realize that the hispanic “anchor babies” are going to be motivated to come and vote against them? There’s a lot of these anchor babies who are either eligible now or will be eligible in the next few years, in the border states. How are you going to stop those people? They have birth certificates and picture IDs.
? Martin
@rikyrah: This is why I really like Maddow. She grabs onto important issues like these and keeps coming back to them. I thought it was fantastic that she went to NC and showed the issue up close. It stops being abstract and statistical when you watch a student walking along the edge of a busy road with no shoulder trying to get to a polling place because the commission moved it to the most inconvenient place they could find.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
That is horribly, horribly funny.
GregB
Perhaps we should create one of those e-mails that Aunt Millie forwards to her friends down at the Villages in Florida stating something to the effect that these voter ID laws are being created by RINO’s in concert with the Democrats and the UN in order to force a national ID card onto all Americans so that those ID’s can then be used to round them up for the FEMA camps.
That might cause some second thoughts.
Roger Moore
@jibeaux:
One irony here is that naturalized citizens are very likely to have naturalization papers that show they’re citizens, so they’ll probably have the easier time proving their citizenship than many native born whites.
Roger Moore
@Bloix:
They also write election laws, including ones that disenfranchise voters. If the Democrats can win in spite of the disenfranchisement, they can write voter-friendly laws and swing things even further their way.
El Cid
I am so fucking tired of these assholes and they refuse to go away.
mdblanche
@Shakezula:
Veo lo que usted lo hizo allí.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Voter Fraud is bullshyt.
Pure-D-unadulterated BULLSHYT.
It simply, statistically speaking…DOES NOT EXIST.
PERIOD
West of the Cascades
@jibeaux: I don’t have any objection to a state validating citizenship IF (and it’s a big if) the burden is on the state in the first instance and not the voter. First, something like a three-year phase in before the first election where it’s mandated. Second, a re-registration that requires the voter to write down their place of birth, and a space for indicating (if their birthplace was outside the U.S.) their basis of citizenship. If they were born in the U.S., their writing down where they were born should be presumptive evidence of citizenship – if a state double-checked that and found a discrepancy (e.g. with a motor vehicle registration), it could ask the voter for more proof.
For citizens not born in the U.S., there is a fairly high likelihood that they have ready access to some document that proves citizenship, because such a document would have been critical at some point in their lives other than voting. I was born in Santiago, Chile with two U.S. citizen parents, and have had a passport since I was 3 years old. For people like me, there could be a space to write in “passport number or naturalization certificate number (I’m assuming there are naturalization certificate numbers). No need to photocopy anything – just write in the number. Then it’s up to the state to ask for more information if some discrepancy shows up.
I think that maintaining clean voter rolls and ensuring that only eligible voters vote is an important part of good government – but if, and only if, that is not turned into a fetish or a pretext for suppressing votes (as it clearly is in Arizona and Kansas). Many states had reasonably good systems for doing this before the Voter ID and voter suppression campaigns of the last few years — and those efforts, perversely, make it harder to take good-faith steps to improve elections and voter registration.
I personally am in love with our system here in Oregon – on-line voter registration, with two questions (are you a US citizen, are you over 17), a warning “Attention: It is a felony to provide false information when registering to vote (ORS 260.715),” and a request for identification (Oregon driver’s license #, social security #, or some “acceptable identification” with name and current address, such as a photo ID, paycheck stub, utility bill, bank statement, or some government document) — and then all of the voting by mail. I’m much more engaged in voting because I can do research on candidates and ballot measures on the internet while drinking coffee and filling out my ballot without feeling that I’m holding up other folks waiting in line.
As noted above, I don’t think it’s particularly burdensome to also ask for place of birth or documentation of citizenship (if born outside the US), as long as the statement by the voter is sufficient to then allow registration (i.e. the state should not force people to provide a birth certificate if they say they were born in the U.S. and thus automatically a citizen). And I agree that some sort of standardized federal ID card would be a nice solution to the whole problem — the rest of the world seems to function quite well with similar methods of identifying its citizens.
e.a.f.
The voter i.d. issue is simply a method to supress voting. Not a thing one would want in a democracy. At some point this will come back to bite the teabaggers in the ass.
Gretchen
Kris Kobach ran for Congress in my district, KS-03, several years ago. He lost to Democrat Dennis Moore, who served this district for 10 years until retiring in 2010. Everybody I know in this suburban Kansas City district is a Democrat, if not a flaming liberal, but we are represented by Red Sea-skinny-dipping Tea Partier Kevin Yoder. He beat Moore’s wife Stefane in 2010, and ran absolutely unopposed in 2012, which made me sick. The Wichita-based Koch brothers dumped a ton of money into local elections here,, and Yoder got a much friendlier map. We used to include much of the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, but now part of that is thrown in with rural areas to the west. So this suburban district that cares about schools and public services has to deal with a Koch-selected legislature that only cares about cutting taxes and gerrymandering districts so Kevin can skinny-dip to his heart’s content and still run unopposed.
JGabriel
Kay:
Kris Kobach: Playing Jesus to Mitt Romney’s Peter.
.
JGabriel
@Gretchen:
I still maintain that that guy probably pee’d in the Sea if Galilee.
.
JoyfulA
@IowaOldLady: I talked about that in my orthopedic surgeon’s office last week and started an argument when another patient said, “Well, Obama didn’t release his, either!” I said, “Yes, he did. I was perturbed that he hadn’t given more to charity, now that their college loans are paid off. But then from the one set of Romney tax returns we did see, he gave nothing at all to charity except to his church.”
My husband says I pick fights in waiting rooms. He’s right, but that’s the only place I can find people who might not agree with me. Family, church, and friends are all on my side, so doctors’ offices it is!
Nancy Irving
@TheronWare:
Damn you, Theron Ware! :)
Nancy Irving
I wonder if the GOP has actually thought this through, or maybe they’ve really drunk their own Kool-Aid.
Because this kind of law is not going to prevent many Latinos from voting, but it may prevent many lower-income whites from voting.
That’s because we know that illegal voting by non-citizens (never mind by undocumenteds) is virtually nil. So such a law will not prevent non-citizen Latinos from voting, because they’re already not voting.
And Latinos who are citizens–especially in GOP states with vicious “papers please” law enforcement)–are MUCH more likely to have either their birth certificate (if born here) or naturalization papers at hand.
Whereas many lower-income, native-born whites may not. (Blacks too, but they’re under 4% in Arizona.)
Has the Arizona GOP considered that its base of lower-income rural whites may include many, many people who lack the documents necessary to prove their citizenship? And that this will mean many of their voters will either not vote, or will be OUTRAGED at the GOP’s forcing them to go to the trouble and expense of obtaining their birth certificate?
I see the possibility of unintended consequences for the GOP here.
And schadenfreude for us.