Friday, November 30, 2012

On Same Day Registration, Scott Walker Can't Handle The Truth

You would think the party that lost November 6th after so badly botching campaign truth-in-advertising - - 'Chrysler is moving Ohio jeep production to China' - - and election-night (Dick Morris, et al) predicting- - 'Romney will win in a landslide' - - would give its penchant for fantasy and false-speaking a rest, but not Scott Walker when it comes to why Wisconsin should get rid of election-day voter registration.

If you listen to Walker, his proposal to end it has nothing to do with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan getting drubbed on November 6th in Wisconsin through record turnout when about one-sixth of the votes were cast after same-day registrations, often by students and those mean-spirited "urban voters" that Ryan blamed for his defeat.

No - - Walker is concerned with those overworked "wonderful volunteers" who choose to work the polls election day and had a lot of registration paperwork to handle.

I've done a bit of poll-watching in more than one Milwaukee election and I have never seen or heard a poll worker complain or face any unmanageable registration-related matter.

I blogged about it after the 2008 presidential election - - also a big-turnout event - - and offer a few paragraphs about that experience:

I was a volunteer Democratic observer for the November, 2008 election at the City of Milwaukee Central Library polling place and was paired with a very nice Republican poll-watcher who'd been sent in, as I recall, from Eagle, WI in Waukesha County to help us city folk run a clean election.

We chatted and watched all day long as the experienced poll workers there ran a flawless, open and honest process.

At the end of the day, the GOP fella agreed that the poll operation had been perfect, and off he went....

I heard a similar story from another observer who worked in Riverwest, again where things went off without a hitch, and the out-of-county GOP observer went home without seeing the fraud they're propagandized to expect.

You might also want to read the remarks of poll workers interviewed after Walker made his get rid of same-day registration proposal.

Or the comments from election clerks who said it was a bad idea, too.

So let's tell the truth here and call it for what it is: voter suppression.

Walker and any legislator backing such anti-democratic legislation should be severely criticized for backing yet another way to restrict voting for purely partisan and self-serving gain, because legislating off talk radio talking points and insulting arguments makes a mockery of governance:

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Fill-In WTMJ Talker Says Too Many Morons Might Be Voting

AM 620 WTMJ radio used Missouri talker Nick Reed as a fill-in for Charlie Sykes this morning.

The portion of the show I heard in my car towards noon was his argument against same-day voter registration.

Reed said that having more of something - - like friends, or cars, or voters - - doesn't mean its necessarily a good thing.

Especially if you don't know who these new voters are, or what they think, or whether 80% of them are morons.
 

6 comments:

Rick Horowitz said...

Jim: Walker latest excuse for going after same-day registration is my commentary topic on "InterCHANGE" this evening.

Anonymous said...

James - look at the poll workers comments on HP.

Anonymous said...

But nearly a dozen poll workers who spoke with The Huffington Post all had the same message: Same-day registration is not a problem, and Walker should not eliminate it.
"This whole idea that this is somehow a burden on poll workers is just not true, and I can guarantee you it's not the perception of the vast majority of the people who work at the polls," said Ruth Irvings, 61, who served as a poll worker in Milwaukee this year with her 24-year-old son.
"I've been a poll worker, and I've worked the registration table [in the last three elections]," added Lenore Rusch, 75, a Wausau resident. "We have no problem whatsoever. We aren't overworked. ... For Walker to say that the people who are doing the registration can't keep up is just foolish. He should come down and watch once in awhile."
Kevin Rusch, Lenore's 53-year-old son who has worked at the polls in Wausau for the last year and a half, was more blunt in his assessment of Walker's claim: "That's utter bullshit. I don't know who he's talking to."

James Rowen said...

Great minds...
I will be watching.

James Rowen said...

Commenters: I had put a link in the posting to the HuffPo piece!

Laurette McGovern said...

Simply put, S. Walker does not know what he is talking about. Not now, and I suspect he never will.