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Janis Costello Browning
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Js121
Post Number: 1
Registered: 7-2012
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2012 - 5:18 am: | 
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Is the 2008 tool kit going to be updated to show 2012 or can we just get it, use it, and ignore all references to 2012. So much has happened in Michigan that affects voters rights...redistricting (snakelike) designs, voter ID laws, Election Fraud with McCotter this year, a totally New Right controlled state in which Snyder claims we don't have enough $$ for the GE and polling stations being forced to close. Any help or info would be greatly appreciated Thank You!! |
Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Realkurtb
Post Number: 158
Registered: 6-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2012 - 2:00 pm: |
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Janis,
It's 2012 and that which used to be practiced quietly without talking about it publicly by shadowy "dirty tricksters", is now being legislated in the open. I speak of organized voter discouragement if not outright suppression.
It used to be those who favored a strict legalistic interpretation of existing, constitutionally approved through litigation, state election statutes were charged, irresponsibly, for practicing "voter suppression". We have the classic "Boy Who Cried 'Wolf'" problem. The unwise use of that charge in the past has desensitized too many to what clearly is now voter suppression. Many people feel they've heard it too often now.
The game has changed. By effectively redefining, in the public's psyche, voting as no different from getting on a commercial aircraft or buying alcohol, they have gotten the public to treat voting as not even a right any more, and BY ASTONISHING NUMBERS in polls, too!
People openly opine that those who don't pay Federal Income Taxes should EXPECT to not vote. Just a few years ago, no one would dare to say such things for fear of being ostracized from polite society. Now it's a badge of honor to exhibit such obscene ignorance, apparently.
There is no "you can't be serious" filter any more. This is a frightening turn of events. They "justify" it based on some very bad behavior from SOME (few) on the left. Decade after decade of legislation HAS BEEN PASSED to make voting easier and easier for more and more marginal citizens. The need to exercize some modicum of responsibility to become registered to vote has gone away, in big chunks in years like 1993 and 2002. Some people, formerly in the shadows but now in legislatures, even objected to a CONCEPT like even having a "Help America Vote Act". They are now in office, and they'd like to sing, "The Times, They Are A'Changin'......BACK!"
Expect more hubris and more brazenness from them. They've gotten a disturbingly large proportion of the citizenry to buy into their fundamental bigotry. I believe they slumbered until their version of the unthinkable happened - January 20, 2009. Then, all bets were off. Now, while I'm no fan of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, his presence does NOT justify what we're witnessing in the ultra-rightist backlash.
In the final scene, the people, ALL OF THEM, are entitled to the leaders THEY, not I, want. All they need to do is the ordinary things to qualify, not this other new extra crap. If we eventually need to go Photo ID, I'm okay with that, as long as it is done gradually enough to include the most marginal, needy and disconnected of citizens. Sooner? Right now? No. |
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