The Grey Lady treats us to this year’s principal GOP winning strategy: arbitrary enforcement of voter identification requirements. On the surface, one recognizes that someone just has to prove who they are for just about everything in our security crazed country (including frequently entry into private office buildings), so why not “prevent fraud” in voting?
I agree. Why not? Well… the overwhelming majority of reported incidents of fraud occur with respect to absentee ballots (as the article notes). Absentee ballots, frequently people living abroad, in the military, traveling, etc., are overwhelmingly (at least historically) Republican voters. And yet, the i.d. laws do nothing— not a blessed thing– to curb fraud in this area. Whereas live voting… will be met with demands for passports or driver’s licenses or other documentation that poor people (including a disproportionate number of people of color) simply don’t have.
And there’s the rub. And THE POINT. Those people vote Democrat, by and large. And so, once again, whether it be illegal “felon purges”, or long lines in poor neighborhoods (but not affluent ones), or outright crooked voting machines (probably less prominent than believed, and a far smaller part of the problem because they are less necessary!), the Republicans have concocted what may well be a winning strategy (if not necessarily one that is fair… or legal.)
Yes, yes, both sides look for any possible edge to win… I know all about the Daleys and Chicago and Tammany Hall. But these days, only one side is willing to cheat on what amount to almost purely racial lines, a throw back to elections, say, of 1956, 1906, or earlier rather than to 2006, when we supposedly have things like a Voting Rights Act, a Civil Rights Act, etc. And for the GOP, it seems, this kind of strategy has two salutory effects: it keeps down Democratic voters, of course, and, perhaps as importantly, it reminds the “base” that code-words like “gay marriage” and “family values” really do mean (Jim) what we all think (Crow) they do (again), and keeps that turnout among “the base” nice and high.
On to victory!
tdog
here we go…for more
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