Courts Reject GOP Voter Suppression Overreach in Four States

By Josh Israel, ThinkProgress

31 August 2012

readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/13219-courts-reject-gop-voter-suppression-overreach-in-four-states

ith Thursday’s ruling that a Texas voter identification law violates the Voting Rights Act, a pattern continues to emerge of Republican legislatures and governors attempting to enact illegal voter suppression legislation and courts striking them down. Among the recently rejected laws are strict voter identification laws, provisional voting restrictions, limits on voter registration drives, and reduced availability for early voting.

Here’s a partial roundup:

• Florida: Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed a bill last year to impose harsh new restrictions on third-party voter registration groups, requiring them to turn in completed registration forms 48 hours – to the minute – after completion, or face fines. A federal judge blocked the law in late May and agreed to permanent kill its provisions this week. In a separate case, a judge rejected provisions earlier this month that would have reduced the number of days and hours available for earlier voting.




• Ohio: A 2006 Ohio law, signed by then-Gov. Bob Taft (R), said that even in cases where poll-workers steer voters to the wrong polling place, provisional votes cast in the wrong precinct must be discarded. Monday, a federal judge granted an injunction to block this rule.




• Texas: A U.S. District Court three-judge panel blocked a Texas voter ID law – signed by Gov. Rick Perry (R) last May, finding that it “imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor” and that “a disproportionately high percentage of African Americans and Hispanics in Texas live in poverty.” Earlier this week, a different federal three-judge panel ruled the state’s gerrymandered redistricting law was also in violation of the Voting Rights Act.




• Wisconsin: In July, a state circuit court judge blocked a voter ID law, signed by Gov. Scott Walker (R). In his ruling, he noted the law addressed a problem that was “very limited, if indeed it exists” and would create a “needless and significant impairment of the right to vote.”

In addition, a federal court in South Carolina is currently considering the legality of a voter identification law. South Carolina state officials have shown no examples of actual in-person voter impersonation fraud and have conceded that requiring a photo identification to vote would not actually prevent a determined voter impersonator from voting as someone else.

These illegal voter suppression tactics – ostensibly designed to solve the virtually non-existentproblem of voter fraud – are the real election fraud.

FRI AUG 31, 2012 AT 07:40 AM PDT

Pretend President Romney heads to Louisiana to tour Isaac damage

byJed Lewison on www.dailykos.com/

As of late Thursday night, nearly three-quarters of New Orleans had no power.

Given that Louisiana is still in the middle of its recovery effort from Hurricane Isaac and that Mitt Romney has no role to play whatsoever in that effort, this seems like an odd and self-centered distraction:

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will head to Louisiana to tour damage from Hurricane Isaac.Romney has scheduled a last-minute visit Friday to Lafitte, La., where he will tour damage with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal – obviously – a Republican. The storm canceled the first day of Romney’s Republican convention, and his campaign has been considering a visit for several days. [...]

In Louisiana, Romney will thank emergency first responders for their work.

As he thanks those first responders, I hope Mr. Romney will reconsider his words from just two months ago, when he mocked President Obama for seeking more funding for first responders.“He [President Obama] says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers,” Romney said on June 8 of this year. “Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

Maybe with his tour today, Romney will realize just how wrong he was to mock President Obama for wanting to hire more first responders. But of course this really isn’t about them, it’s about the photo-op, and while Romney will make a big show of thanking them for their service, all the thank yous in the world don’t make up for a pink slip. And if Mitt Romney gets his way in November, that’s exactly what a lot of the people he sees today will get.