Saturday, December 24, 2011

Hooray!

I look forward to federal legislation that undoes these voter ID laws, excessive legislation that addresses a non-existent problem, a problem that is a right wing myth rather than fact.  The issues of myth versus fact, of ideology versus reality, is pertinent as it is reflected in other aspects of our nation, and our differences.

There have been things about the Obama administration which were disappointing; this is not one of them.

From Reuters and MSNBC.com:
law blocked by Justice Department

'Non-white voters' are 'significantly burdened,' department alleges

 By
updated 2 hours 6 minutes ago
The Obama administration on Friday blocked a new South Carolina law that requires voters to have photo identification because of concerns it would hurt minorities' ability to cast a ballot.
Republican Gov. Nikki Haley in May signed into law a measure that says voters must show a driver's license, passport or military identification along with their voter registration card in order to vote.
Under the law, anyone who wants to vote but does not have a photo identification must obtain a new voter registration card that includes a photo. A birth certificate or passport can be used to prove identity.
The Justice Department said the requirement could harm the right to vote of tens of thousands of people, noting that just over a third of the state's minorities who are registered voters did not have a driver's license needed to cast a ballot.
"The state's data demonstrate that non-white voters are both significantly burdened" by the law and "disproportionately unlikely to possess the most common types of photo identification" needed, Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said in a letter to the state.
The state can appeal the decision at the Justice Department or in federal court. Attempts to reach a spokesman for Haley were not immediately successful.
Democrats have described the law as a "voter suppression" effort against minorities who historically do not always have photo identification cards. Republicans countered that their goal was to prevent voter fraud.

However, Perez said that South Carolina's submission to the Justice Department did not offer any evidence of voter fraud that was not addressed by existing law and that "arguably could be deterred by requiring voters to present only photo identification at the polls."
The Justice Department said plans by state officials to provide exemptions to the photo identification requirement were incomplete and vague. The state also has not finalized education and training materials.
If those issues were addressed, the Justice Department said the state could resubmit its plans and officials would consider revising its position.
The Justice Department move marks an escalation in the battle between the Obama administration and Republicans who control the legislatures in some states just 11 months before the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.
Obama lost South Carolina in the 2008 presidential race by a nine-point margin to his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain.
Under the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, certain states like South Carolina must seek approval from the Justice Department or the federal courts for changes made to state voting laws and boundaries for voting districts.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this month said his team was reviewing changes to voting laws in other states including Florida and Texas and will challenge any that are discriminatory in violation of the federal voting rights law.
"The reality is that — in jurisdictions across the country — both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common," he said in a speech in Austin, Texas.
The Justice Department has also challenged a new election map drawn by Republicans in Texas, arguing that it does not fairly represent the exponential growth in Hispanic voters. Hispanics largely have supported Democrats in past elections.

10 comments:

  1. So then you are against gun registration and NICS as well. If you don't have a state issued photo ID, you cannot buy a gun. Therefore, minorities are disproportionately at a disadvantage. So you feel that the GCA '68 and the Brady act are civil rights suppression efforts. On your basis for opposing voter ID, I agree then.

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  2. "The Justice Department said the requirement could harm the right to vote of tens of thousands of people, noting that just over a third of the state's minorities who are registered voters did not have a driver's license needed to cast a ballot.
    A birth certificate or passport can be used to prove identity."

    I'm curious why they don't tell us how many people don't have a birth certificate.
    Anyone wanna take a guess at how many people don't have a birth certificate?

    It's gonna be a real bummer when they can't buy beer or cigarettes
    without a picture ID. LOL!!!!

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  3. FatWhiteMan:

    Really? How much did it cost, aside from the cost of gas or some other incidental expense, to vote?

    If a person is too poor, or disenfranchised in some other way, to vote this sort of thing is a pretty inexpensive remedy that actually SAVES taxpayers' money by removing a level of bureaucracy and admin from the process.

    Anyone buying a gun obviously has enough discretionary income (or oneathem credit card thingies) to afford their purchase. The cost of the NICS data base is already in the system, the act of registration is incredibly simple. Here's a bonus, if some lying piece of shit with a FFL is doing something illegal then there will be a paper trail. Win-win, except of course for the poutyfaces.

    "It's gonna be a real bummer when they can't buy beer or cigarettes
    without a picture ID. LOL!!!!"

    Why? What makes you think that they aren't already required to have one? Every state I've lived in for the last 50 years (and then some) required proof of age for those purchases when law mandated it. The system was/is subject to lots of abuse, but that's got nothing to do with an insufficiency of resources and everything to do with human greed.

    The situation of underage customers purchasing of alcohol, cigarettes and certain OTC meds is somewhat akin to the, "FFL, I don't need no steenkeen FFL to sell my gunz "collection" to a couple of hundred people over a period of twenty years" NON-LOOPHOLE in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act*. The only real difference being that the laws prohibiting minors from those other purchases are the subject of LOTS of arrests, prosecutions and convictions. Your
    "Assholez wit teh gunz sellin' to other assholes wit or witout the gunz'? Not so much.



    * You may know it by it's informal name, "The Nazicommiejackboots Stealin' My Gunz And Puttin' Me In A FEMA Deathcamp Law"

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  4. Yup, we see which rights matter to gun grabbers.

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  5. "Yup, we see which rights matter to gun grabbers.

    December 24, 2011 4:02 PM"

    Enumerate them, dipshit.

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  6. Democommie,

    Voting rights? Dog Gone defends those. Gun rights? Dog Gone denies those.

    Are we clear now?

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  7. Greg, You should be embarrassed to use the word "rigths" so much. Please keep in mind when the sacred and venerated Founding Fathers devised the greatest nation on earth, voting rights were quite restricted. The demi-gods themselves owned human beings of the dark persuasion, and women were little more than pack animals.

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  8. Mikeb302000:

    Careful, Greg Camp is an originalist* where the 2nd Commandment, as written by the divinely inspired KKKristian Founding Fathers is concerned.

    He is also a proud resident of the proud state of Arkansas. Let's never forget that Arkansas was one of the brave states that fought to hold onto its constitutional right to OWN people, during the War of Southern Treachery from 1861 to 1865.

    Hey, is that hogleg he's got stuck in his "Crossdraw gunbelt" in that pitchoor of himself a replica, or maybe even a real CSA gun; one that was used to gundown some thievin bluecoat who was tryin' to steal some honest razorback's propitty--other humans? Damn, that would be soooo cool!



    * Although, curiously, he and many of his gunzloonz brethren are very much NOT gonna be in any steenkeen militia.

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  9. Democommie,

    That hogleg to which you refer is a reproduction (replica being a new copy made by the original maker) of the Remington 1858 cap and ball revolver. It was more likely to be used by Union soldiers than Confederates. Southern soldiers who carried handguns more often had a Colt Navy or a Southern copy. The latter many times had brass frames, thanks to the shortage of steel during the war, and shot loose over time. The Remington also tended to be more accurate, thanks to the top strap and fixed barrel.

    As for my Southern roots, my ancestors were mostly hill people, so I doubt that any of them owned slaves. Some may have sided with the North, given where they lived, though I have no information one way or the other.

    Mikeb302000,

    The rights that the Founders ennumerated were poorly understood at first. It's taken us two hundred and more years to figure out the implications of what they created, and we're still working them out.

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  10. "The rights that the Founders ennumerated were poorly understood at first."

    Yeah, riiight.

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