The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board today correctly slaps Wisconsin Republicans in the legislature who want to immediately adopt voter photo ID.
Look for the bill, and companions to eliminate early voting, and same-day registration - - to sail through the legislature next year for Gov. Scott Walker's signature as fast as the process can happen.
Why?
Because they can.
Governing from the center has no appeal for them.
And because elections are about many things, and for the winners, it's about consolidating and extending power.
So in the 2011 legislative session, the first order of business is self-preservation.
Then the public business - - with grateful 'real' voters in Republican strongholds assured that their rights are no longer in jeopardy.
What a crock.
Republicans and talk show hosts locally and nationally have been concocting the phantom "voter fraud" issue for years, ginning up and then chasing their propaganda that, for example, John Kerry stole Wisconsin from George W. Bush in 2004.
And that illegal voting is rampant.
They even accuse each other of fraud when elections or a recount are not going their way. I'm looking at you, Tea Partier/Republican goof Joe Miller.
For Wisconsin Republicans, the fake issue is 100% political. It's intentional fear-mongering, stirring up the suburban and small-town, out-state base to believe that in the cities - - those dens of iniquity - - bad things are taking place at the polls.
In reality, this is the equivalent of headless bodies in the Arizona desert.
I was a voter protection observer at a downtown Milwaukee polling place during the recent election, and a Republican observer from out-of-town was somewhere surprised and just plain happy to see how efficiently the polling place was run.
The self-induced expectation of shady, slippery voting never took place.
The observer had no one to challenge.
A handful of idiots were found in past elections to have either voted twice or falsely entered names on registration forms to earn a few extra, per-head bucks in a practice now completely discredited and gone.
Those people were caught - - the system works as is - - and severely punished - - which is a good thing. No one should tamper with voting - - and that includes legislators who can meddle with the system from their official, insider posts.
What the GOP will do in Madison is worse than anecdotal voter fraud that is more a product of poverty or confusion or individual sneakiness.
The GOP goal is to erect barriers to voting against people who move frequently, like students or low-income residents, or who will not be crisply organized prior to election day and and had obtained whatever ID the Republicans say is sufficient in the "papers, please" state they are hell-bent on creating here.
Any surprise that an Arizona-style anti-immigration bill is already being prepared by the same hard-core, right-wing GOP legislative caucus?
In a city like Milwaukee, the obstacles will tamp down voting among minorities - - and that's fine with Republicans, because most of those voters are Democratic.
Combine a strategy to depress the vote in Milwaukee, and in college towns, with the new advantage in fund-raising handed to Republican-leaning corporations by the US Supreme Court in the Citizens United case and you have at least the opportunity for solidified GOP rule in Wisconsin for some time to come.
In partisan politics, an uneven playing field is usually a dream.
In Wisconsin, The Fitzgerald brothers, Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) are going to take turns running the bulldozer to regrade and degrade the political environment to their advantage.
The newspaper editorial reminds Republican legislators that jobs is the number one issue in the state. - - as Republican candidates frequently said during the campaign.
Well, don't believe everything you hear.
For legislators, securing their own jobs is always the first priority, a political necessity dove-tailing with denying those positions to the opposition.
All made easier if the opposition's voters are turned away at the polls by legislative scheming that is downright immoral.
Everyone can still vote, they will just need to provide an ID as they do when they rent a movie. If you drive to the poll you are required to have a DL to drive the car so just pull it out and show it.
ReplyDeleteThe only people upset about voter ID are those that hope to gain an advantage by not using it. Why else would you not want to show who you are to exercise you right to vote?
Well, Anonymous, this may come as a shock but everyone does not live where you live or how you live.
ReplyDeleteThey don't drive. They don't have a car or a driver's license. But they are just as entitled to vote as you are.
And putting up more barriers for them will result in some of them not voting.
There are plenty of safeguards and ID requirements for registerign to vote. Requiring voters to show ID at the polls is unnecessary and will be disruptive, not to mention causing some perfectly legitimate voters to be turned away. But that, of course, is the goal.
Excuses, excuses... Voter id is a law that any reasonable person would support. Most Wisconsinites do, but progressives are irrationally against Voter id. There were provisisions for poor people to receive free Wisconsin id's.
ReplyDeleteDoyle and the Democrats killed Voter id, TWICE, ostensibly for the same reason Rowen posits: because the Dems could. So yes, Voter id WILL be the first law to go. I demand it!
The second law to be rescinded will be the statewide smoking ban in Wisconsin. That matter WILL be up to tavern and restaurant owners to decide--not pc correct progressive nannies. If a tavern owner posts "no smoking" then that establishment will have no smoking. Understand that simple concept of freedom and choice?
That's tough poopoo for non-smoking patrons or tavern employees. They can find work in non-smoking places. Just as you National Socialists forced this travesty on us--we are going to shove it back down your throats.
You Lefties ready to dance? And yes, we are going to kill that stupid train, too.
James: what is the difference between a Republican who only votes along party lines and you? I have never seen anything that you disagree with on any key democratic cause.
ReplyDeleteI want to know how 20+ million people from third world countries are good for America. These people are undercutting low skilled American jobs, filling emergency rooms, and taking money from taxpayer funded social net programs. It is no longer logical to be a welfare state and allow millions to come here without a penny and reap free benefits, while American citizens--of all ethnic backgrounds--suffer unemployment, loss of health care, foreclosures, etc.
After amnesty, what stops the flood of even more across the border? Many already use dead peoples social security numbers, now you want them to vote? They have that right in their country, not here. Go ahead, keep calling this "mean" or "unfair." Watch the democrats lose power until THEY learn to govern from the center. Stopping illegal immigration has become a central issue a majority of America wants.
Voter I.D. is a common sense issue that most people consider reasonable and logical. This should be a "central" issue voters on both sides can agree upon. However, Democrats want people to commit voter fraud because it benefits them to have people using false identities. With elections being incredibly close, there is no room for fraud.
To the last Anon: Please reread the posting. Nowhere is there anything but a denunciation of voter fraud.
ReplyDeleteThere has been a handful of prosecutions in Wisconsin since the 2004 election. You are treating a myth as a reality.
Your blanket attack on immigration is mind-boggling. Immigrants always revive the culture - - and many people here today are distant relatives not only of immigrants, but immigrants who came, jumped ship in the harbor.
Immigrants contribute to the economy, pay taxes and often do jobs that others will not do.
The US is not a welfare state. It has social programs, but hardly meets the traditional definition of a welfare state.