Thursday, October 30, 2014

Can't do that but I can do this

That thing yesterday I was going to do.  Can't yet.  While we wait for me to finish...

-- Georgia on my mind.

Voting rights advocates are considering legal options after a Georgia judge denied their lawsuit that would have compelled the state to add 40,000 newly registered voters to the rolls.

Judge Christopher Brasher said voters whose registration applications were lost may cast provisional ballots in next week's election. But he declined to force Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp and counties to ensure voting for the thousands of new voters. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the New Georgia Project, and the Georgia branch of the NAACP are weighing whether to appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.

"You've got a situation that was designed to wreak havoc on the elections office if a large number of provisional ballots are cast," Julie Houk, a senior special counsel with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights' voting rights project, told The Huffington Post Wednesday. She said provisional ballots are "not an adequate remedy" because "registered voters are entitled to cast a regular ballot."

Voting rights advocates said the judge's decision could potentially disenfranchise thousands of people, a disproportionate number of whom are minorities, and disrupt Georgia's high-profile races for U.S. Senate and governor.

The voters in question were registered during a six-month drive by the nonpartisan New Georgia Project, led by state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D). The group submitted more than 86,000 applications, a majority from young voters of color registering to vote for the first time, along with another 20,000 or so from other groups. Abrams' group alleges that 40,000 of those applications are mysteriously missing from the state's official voter rolls, and that the state has not provided an explanation. 

Oh well.  At least it's not five hundred thousand Americans across ten states (which is nearly as many as the number of Texans, all by itself).  Try to keep this in mind: showing your ID when you vote protects your rights, but showing your ID when you want to buy a gun second-hand is a violation of your rights.

Count on seeing a lot more logic like this, and not too long after the election returns start rolling in next Tuesday evening.  I think my favorite one is going to be, "use it or lose it", with respect to your right to vote.  I don't think Texas Republicans are going to make that a bumper sticker or a campaign slogan, but nevertheless it's an accurate description of how they intend to "govern".  Stand by ladies, your rights to reproductive choice are next.  Use them, don't use them... you're losing them anyway.

Democrats just don't use fear as a motivator as well as the Republicans, as we know.  (Can't believe I wrote that in January.)

-- You know how conservatives always say "I don't understand why people can't get an ID to vote"?  Almost as often as they say "I'm not a scientist" when they deny climate change is happening, or "I'm not a gynocologist" when they pass laws forcing poor women to give birth?  Next time they do that, show them this.

Real people.  Real stories.  Pretty sure Republicans still won't understand.  Or care.

Four more years!

1 comment:

Gadfly said...

Like "Abraham Lincoln" said in the Star Trek episode "The Savage Curtain," sometimes you have to fight fire with fire., or

"There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except its ending."

Until it ends, or the next battle starts, you fight. Period.