We have many voting concerns in the country right now, including:
- Voter ID laws which disenfranchise thousands of people, many of them old and poor. The most thorough article I've read on this can be found HERE at pro-Publica (Everything You've Wanted To Know About Voter ID Laws), "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. " A good column here by Ernest Dumas at the Arkansas Times: "Pure GOP Meanness". Don't miss this article at the ACLU website: "Voter Suppression in America".
- Changes in hours of early voting which disenfranchise thousands of people due to long lines and excessive wait times, sometimes exceeding 4-5 hours. A few links for people who can't quite remember what happened November 5th: Long Lines Suggest a Need For Voting Reform (Opinion piece at the Washington Post); Andrew Cohen at the Atlantic: No One Should Have to Wait 7 Hours to Vote; and this article about long lines in the Washington D.C. area. Meanwhile, just to be fair and balanced, here's an article from the conservative Heritage.org which believes that complaints of long voter lines are overblown. (No, Heritage.org, most of us didn't have to wait more than fifteen minutes to an hour. But that doesn't mean that long voting lines are not a problem!)
- Gerrymandering of Congressional districts, particularly in states controlled by Republicans. Here's a good article with a link to a Republican State Leadership Committee report that bragged about how the gerrymandering worked. Another Washington Post opinion piece on the issue HERE. Two other articles on this, this one from the LATimes (Short of Voters, the Republicans Gerrymander Their Way Back to Power), and this lament at Salon.com: The House GOP Can't Be Beat. It's Worse Than Gerrymandering, which does talk about why the problem may be worse than simple gerrymandering.
- Rigging of the Electoral College system in states now controlled by Republicans which voted Democratic in 2012. So many good articles on this mess: Mother Jones: "GOP's Plan to Rig the Electoral College Explained"; The Atlantic: GOP's Plan To Take the Electoral Vote Rigging Scheme National; also at The Atlantic: How To Win States and Disenfranchise People. Thom Hartmann presents a strategy to deal with this HERE at Truth-Out. Google "Republicans rigging the electoral college" for many more articles on this,particularly for information on the various states.
- A challenge to the Voting Rights Act (brought by Republican interest groups) which may result in less federal oversight of elections in states and counties that have traditionally disenfranchised minorities. Here's a good summary of that at NPR.
- ONE older lady in Ohio who claims to have voted twice and perhaps voted more than that.. who IS being investigated for voter fraud.
Now.. Which of these situations, which of these affronts to our democratic national principle of one person/one vote, are getting the most press and the most concern from Republicans and other right wingers?
You get three guesses and the first two don't count.
(You can find information on the woman in Ohio all over the right wing Internet sites.. Just do a search on "Ohio woman voted six times".)
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