This Sunday Joy-Ann Reid had an excellent panel of expert guests on to discuss the ramifications of the republican voter suppression laws enacted in republican controlled states.
— AmJoy | May 14th, 2017
Joy Reid and her panel of experts discuss the many reasons – including new voting restrictions in 14 states and a purging of over one million people from voter rolls – that drove down the critical African-American vote in 2016, particularly in critical swing states.
One of the false claims (a slur to be sure) made by republican politicians is that POC were just too lazy to get out and vote. A load of discriminatory horseshit to cover for what they knew their voter suppression laws would accomplish; voter suppression. Several republican politicians were caught bragging this agenda of suppression up.
Another false claim made by these same republican politicians, in their attempt to justify a return to Jim Crow voter disenfranchisement is the propaganda of “voter fraud”; a completely and repeatedly debunked cover story pulled out of thin air.
This next screen grab of a chart shows what happens when republicans, free from the pre-clearance provision that was gutted from the VRA, are allowed to enact voter suppression laws:
A “drop in turnout”. That was the story put out by many News outfits after the elections were over. That was the analysis by more than a few sources
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Here is Joy-Ann Reid and her round-table in what is a very illuminating discussion — imo
— Now, the Trump regime has chosen, Kris Kobach, a republican, author of the racial profiling SB-1070 “papers please” law and — “the architect of the most racist law in modern American history” — to co-chair Donald Trump’s new Commission on Election Integrity
The truth:
Critics said the commission’s findings will be used to justify unnecessary restrictions on the right to vote.
“This commission is a fraud. And President Trump has chosen a fraud to be in charge of it,”
said former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, a Kansas City Democrat who founded Let America Vote, a national organization dedicated to defending voting rights.
The real purpose of the commission, Kander said, is to use taxpayer dollars to create the false impression that there is widespread election fraud to make it easier to pass restrictive voting laws at the state level.
“For over a decade,” Kander said, “the Republican Party has made it a central part of their political strategy to push the myth of widespread voter fraud … when the real problem they’re trying to solve is there are certain groups of Americans who are unlikely to vote Republican.”
One very interesting point that Ari Berman brought up explained something very important to the republican propaganda efforts.
The Trump regime campaigned on, and many republican politicians sold the lie that immigrants must be deported because not only are they “dangerous criminals” (and worse lies) “stealing American jobs” but as Trump repeatedly claimed in his refusal to accept his status as the definitive popular vote LOSER — by 3 MILLION VOTES — immigrants are illegally voting — “stealing Americans votes”.
This venomous lie was and obtains as a key part of many republican campaigns. A lie that may have also swung voters towards Trump and the republicans that were actively selling that brutally dishonest narrative.
Trump of course, was and remains glued to this particular piece of propaganda for vainglorious reasons. He can’t abide the 3 million popular vote ass kicking he received from HRC.
The GOP otoh, exploited this propaganda for more pragmatic reasons as part of their ongoing fear-mongering campaign; tricking and intimidating people into believing that there were millions of so-called illegal voters — immigrants — ‘stealing something from republican WWC Americans’..negating and watering down the republican vote. Hence the call for and “justification” for a mass deportation force and more restrictions on voting
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Then there is this:
This is a partial result of Kris Kobach’s fraudulent Crosscheck voter disenfranchisement program:
Rolling Stone obtained a portion of the list and the names of 1 million targeted voters. According to our analysis, the Crosscheck list disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters – with some of the biggest possible purges underway in Ohio and North Carolina, two crucial swing states with tight Senate races.
- It seems to me to be way past time to tell it like it is. Turnout didn’t merely “fall” for POC. Turnout was systematically manipulated by the republican party to purge people (especially targeting AA’s) of their Right to Vote.
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Deliberate, malicious voter disenfranchisement. Period
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— Kudos to Joy-Ann Reid & Ari Berman, and all those on the panel..
..with special thanks to guest Janai Nelson - Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund - for her ongoing work fighting back
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Here is a report put out by the NAACP that Janai Nelson spoke of titled:
“Democracy Diminished shows how the Supreme Court’s decision in the Shelby County case — which second-guessed the judgment of Congress, the testimony of experts and overwhelming evidence of voting discrimination — has left millions of minority voters vulnerable to voter suppression schemes in towns, counties and states across the country, ” said Sherrilyn Ifill, LDF’s President and Director-Counsel.
With some more good news covering the ACLU efforts battling Trump/Kobach just days ago:
posted @ McClatchy by Bryan Lowry | May 11th, 2017
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has lost his appeal and has been ordered to turn over documents from his meeting with President Donald Trump to the ACLU by Friday.
U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson on Wednesday upheld an earlier order from a federal magistrate judge requiring Kobach to hand over the documents to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of an ongoing voting rights lawsuit against his office.
Robinson, who is based in Kansas City, Kan., was appointed by President George W. Bush
.. from a GWB appointed judge no less.
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Then this:
The ACLU’s lawsuit centers on a Kansas law that requires voters to provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport. Robinson temporarily blocked Kobach from enforcing the requirement for people who had registered while getting a driver’s license under the federal motor voter law for the 2016 election.
..so Kobach’s discriminatory “papers please” is, again, blocked by a judge as a violation of people’s Rights — this time Kobach’s attempt to undo the federal motor voter law that has helped so many people
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“integrity” — another word when used by the GOP that has become defaced into a twisted and cruel joke
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More good news:
More of this too please: