Voter Suppression in 2018

[Dill]

Rachel Maddow has been reporting on voter suppression over the last two shows, prompting me to post on the subject in this forum.

Will North Dakota’s Discriminatory Voter-ID Law Cost Democrats the Senate?
https://www.thenation.com/article/will-north-dakotas-discriminatory-voter-id-law-cost-democrats-the-senate/

So the North Dakota race matters. Heitkamp is behind.... To close the gap, she needs to mobilize voters who favor the state’s Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party ....

That will be dramatically harder if thousands of Native Americans are disenfranchised by the voter-ID law, .... Rejecting the claim that voters can easily “adapt” to the new requirement—in the few weeks between now and the election—Ginsburg wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Elena Kagan: “That observation overlooks specific fact findings by the District Court: (1) 70,000 North Dakota residents—almost 20 percent of the turnout in a regular quadrennial election—lack a qualifying ID; and (2) approximately 18,000 North Dakota residents also lack supplemental documentation sufficient to permit them to vote without a qualifying ID.”

The ND law requires that Voter IDs have a residential address. Many on reservations do not have that. (I lived on the Crow Reservation in MT for a number of years. We had no street addresses. Streets had Crow names, but these were not marked on any map or street signs.)  ND has virtually no history of voter fraud, but the IDs ostensibly designed to prevent such fraud would keep
THOUSANDS of Democrat-leaning voters from voting--in a state where a Democratic Senator is up for election.

I could tack on to this question issues from other states. Georgia seems to have special difficulties at the moment as well.
Black Voter Suppression: Senior citizens ordered off of bus heading to Georgia polls for early voting
https://thegrio.com/2018/10/17/black-voter-suppression-senior-citizens-ordered-off-of-bus-heading-to-georgia-polls-for-early-voting/
The Georgia Voter Suppression Story Is Not Going Away
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/georgia-voter-suppression-brian-kemp-736817/amp/
It’s in this role that Kemp oversees Georgia’s elections, and, on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that over 53,000 voter applications have been put on hold under the controversial “exact match” verification policy. Over two-thirds of those affected are African American.

And then there is Texas,

Harris County Verifying Thousands of Voter Registration Addresses
https://empowertexans.com/local/harris-county-verifying-thousands-of-voter-registration-addresses/
In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote
https://www.texasobserver.org/in-violation-of-texas-law-most-high-schools-arent-giving-students-the-chance-to-register-to-vote/
Federal judge: Texas is violating national voter registration law
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/04/03/federal-judge-hands-texas-loss-voter-registration-lawsuit/
Voter Registration Around Austin Smashed Records. That May Be a Problem.
https://www.propublica.org/article/voter-registration-around-austin-smashed-records-that-may-be-a-problem
Travis County received a record 35,000 applications on the final day of voter registration, leaving officials there only days to input the data. While the increase in voter participation is good news, the recent surge is complicated by the fact that the registrations were submitted on paper. Texas is one of only 13 states not to have online voter registration.

[Dill]

According to the Brennan Center, at least 15 states are currently dealing with voting rights litigation.

The State of Voting Rights Litigation
https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/state-voting-rights-litigation
Florida's litigation is Hurricane Michael related. The others mostly deal with restriction of registration or of voting, via voter ID laws.

The Atlantic had a great article on the problem back in July.

Voter Suppression Is Warping Democracy
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/poll-prri-voter-suppression/565355/

The new data support perhaps the worst-case scenario offered by opponents of restrictive voting laws. Nine percent of black respondents and 9 percent of Hispanic respondents indicated that, in the last election, they (or someone in their household) were told that they lacked the proper identification to vote. Just 3 percent of whites said the same. Ten percent of black respondents and 11 percent of Hispanic respondents reported that they were incorrectly told that they weren’t listed on voter rolls, as opposed to 5 percent of white respondents. In all, across just about every issue identified as a common barrier to voting, black and Hispanic respondents were twice as likely, or more, to have experienced those barriers as white respondents.

The numbers not only suggest that policies such as voter-ID requirements and automatic voter purges do, indeed, have strong racial and ethnic biases, but also that there are more subtle barriers for people of color that compound the effects of these laws. Fifteen percent of black respondents and 14 percent of Hispanic respondents said that they had trouble finding polling places on Election Day, versus 5 percent of whites. This finding squares with research indicating that frequent changes to polling-site locations hurt minority voters more.

Surprising that this problem endures decades into the 21st century.

[BmorePat87]

My state delegate posted about the ND law. Pretty disgusting and pretty blatant.

[Yojimbo]

Don't forget what's going on in Georgia. Voter roll purging and then wiping a server when a lawsuit was filed.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/georgia-election-server-wiped-after-suit-filed

[*michaelsean*]

Breyer and Sotomayor went with the majority?

[*PhilHos*]

Well, I've heard it repeatedly stated that there's no voter fraud going on in this country, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ...

[Dill]

(10-18-2018, 11:10 AM)PhilHos Wrote: Well, I've heard it repeatedly stated that there's no voter fraud going on in this country, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ...

Voter fraud, no (or next to none--10-12 incidents every 60 million votes).

Election fraud yes. A constant problem.

[Dill]

(10-18-2018, 09:02 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: My state delegate posted about the ND law. Pretty disgusting and pretty blatant.

That one hit close to home. My home county in Red Montana is always blue or purple because of the reservation.
The other reliably blue county is Missoula, home of the University of Montana.

Heitkamp only won by 3,000 votes the last time around. Shaving a few thousand reservation votes off the total could insure a Republican win and perhaps control of the Senate.

[jj22]

(10-18-2018, 11:46 AM)Dill Wrote: Voter fraud, no (or next to none--10-12 incidents every 60 million votes).

Election fraud yes. A constant problem.

Exactly.

[Benton]

(10-18-2018, 11:10 AM)PhilHos Wrote: Well, I've heard it repeatedly stated that there's no voter fraud going on in this country, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ...

According to Trump's report, no.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/03/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission-evidence-documents/index.html

But that doesn't mean there isn't voter suppression, poll manipulation, etc.

[fredtoast]

(10-18-2018, 12:14 PM)Benton Wrote:  poll manipulation

Doing it right now.

[NATI BENGALS]

Remember when me and many others disagreed with Trump that the election is rigged? I was wrong he was right.

[Dill]

Georgia County Under Fire For Rejecting Large Number Of Absentee Ballots
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gwinnett-county-rejected-ballots_us_5bc64bb8e4b055bc947b129f

High rate of absentee ballots thrown out in Gwinnett
https://politics.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/high-rate-absentee-ballots-thrown-out-gwinnett/azdOsCxX2X6mT8PTrgZlJI/

Gwinnett is throwing out far more absentee ballots than any other county in Georgia, according to records from the Secretary of State’s Office. Ballots were discarded because of allegedly mismatched signatures, incomplete forms or missing residential addresses.

The county rejected 390 absentee ballots through Sunday, which represents 8.5 percent of all mailed ballots received in Gwinnett so far, according to state figures. Across Georgia, less than 2 percent of absentee ballots have been rejected. Gwinnett accounts for about 37 percent of all rejected ballots in Georgia.
Problems with rejected ballots are a “red flag” for racial minorities in Gwinnett, where more than 60 percent of residents are Latino, black or Asian, said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director for the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. It wasn’t clear Monday exactly how many of the rejected ballots came from voters who are minorities.

Because of its sizable Latino population, Gwinnett is the only county in Georgia that is federally mandated to provide elections materials in both English and Spanish. The primary election in May was the first time such materials, which include registration forms, ballots and everything in between, were used.

The issue of ballot rejections in Gwinnett came after news last week that more than 53,000 Georgia voter registrations are on hold because of discrepancies between registration applications and government records. Under the state’s “exact match” law, registration applications can be put in pending status even for small inconsistencies, such as a missing hyphen in a last name or a typo.

Voting, civil rights groups home in on Gwinnett’s absentee rejections
https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/just-group-sues-kemp-gwinnett-elections-board-over-ballot-rejections/1qMxof9sA0um6w32vmrG2I/

Two separate suits filed this week in U.S. District Court in Atlanta name Secretary of State Brian Kemp and the Gwinnett County elections board as defendants.

Gwinnett’s 390 rejected ballots accounted for about 37 percent of the total rejected ballots statewide.

Analysis by the Lawyers Committee suggested that the rejections affected Asian, black and Latino voters at greater rates than white voters. More than 60 percent of Gwinnett residents are non-white.

Gwinnett County has denied any wrongdoing.

[*Nately120*]

Typical liberals...you'd rather sit and complain about how the system is rigged against you than work hard and make your vote count more, or something.

[Belsnickel]

(10-18-2018, 10:58 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Breyer and Sotomayor went with the majority?

This wasn't an opinion. What happened was that there was an emergency appeal made for a stay on the decision. It was presented to Gorsuch, who then referred it to the full court. In order to receive the stay, the appellants required five of the justices to vote in their favor. This was before Kavanaugh took the bench, so they would've needed five of eight. The dissent was written by Ginsberg and joined by Kagan, but this wasn't a full decision and so it's not one where the full bench will join in opinions being written. There was no majority opinion, for instance.

[Belsnickel]

I think one of the things we often forget is how much Shelby County v. Holder has played a role in this. Since that ruling, not just those states formerly required to seek federal approval, but all states have been given the go-ahead to enact voter restrictions aimed at suppressing voter turnout.

What is interesting to me is just how inventive and blatant they have become with their efforts. Michigan, for example, recently passed a law to raise the minimum wage. They did it so that it would remove the need for the referendum to do that very thing on the ballot. The Republicans have been open about this, saying they wanted to get it off the ballot to reduce voter turnout and they have vowed to gut the law next year once they have won the legislature again.

[*michaelsean*]

(10-22-2018, 08:49 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: This wasn't an opinion. What happened was that there was an emergency appeal made for a stay on the decision. It was presented to Gorsuch, who then referred it to the full court. In order to receive the stay, the appellants required five of the justices to vote in their favor. This was before Kavanaugh took the bench, so they would've needed five of eight. The dissent was written by Ginsberg and joined by Kagan, but this wasn't a full decision and so it's not one where the full bench will join in opinions being written. There was no majority opinion, for instance.

Got it.  Thank you.

[GMDino]

[Belsnickel]

(10-22-2018, 09:14 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Got it.  Thank you.

No problem. I had just noticed that no one had answered that question and I figured it might be because others were confused by that, as well.

[Dill]

(10-19-2018, 06:55 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Typical liberals...you'd rather sit and complain about how the system is rigged against you than work hard and make your vote count more, or something.

Er, aren't those "complainers" filing lawsuits and running voter registration drives?

Why would you think anyone was just "sitting"?