Obviously against the law!

 

VOTE

The Power of Recycling and of Words

One woman changed the way we throw out our trash.

First amendment.

Blocking the women's vote in Texas....

As of November 5, Texans must show a photo ID with their up-to-date legal name. It sounds like such a small thing, but according to the Brennan Center for Justice, only 66% of voting age women have ready access to a photo document that will attest to proof of citizenship. This is largely because young women have not updated their documents with their married names, a circumstance that doesn’t affect male voters in any significant way. Suddenly 34% of women voters are scrambling for an acceptable ID, while 99% of men are home free.

As of November 5, a birth certificate is not enough. Women voters will have to show legal proof of a name change: a marriage license, a divorce decree, or court ordered change; and they have to be the original documents. No photocopies allowed. This means thousands of women face the hassle of figuring out what they need and how to get it. Then they face at least a $20 fee, more if a woman doesn’t have the time to stand in line and wants it mailed. As a result, many women who are eligible to vote, won’t.

You have to hand it to Texas. Abortion politics threaten to drive the election for governor, so they have figured out a way to discourage a large group of women who are likely have a personal interest in the issue of choice: married women of child-bearing age. Women who might favor Wendy Davis.

You think Texas Republicans know what they've activated? All those totally pissed off Texan women?  Really?  Disenfranchising voters so the Republicans can keep their grip on power exposes the last frantic gasps of a dying party.  RIP to the GOP.

Because voters might vote Democratic...

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Vote. Tell your friends to vote. Get your family to the polls. Just vote.

Rolling Stone:

The GOP War on Voting: In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year

And: Talking Points Memo: Legal Battles Loom In Fight Over Voter ID Laws

A note to Senator McConnell

Federal employees are Americans. They pay taxes. And they vote.

Take back our democracy

Being schooled by an 82 year old grandmother

Taking the 'undecideds' to task:

If you are undecided - and I am at a complete loss for how you could be - please consider the following:

Which party has been screaming terrorist, socialist, Marxist, murder him and kill him… and which party has been talking about hope and unity.

Which party has been throwing everything but the kitchen sink at you everyday for the past two weeks hoping to scare you into thinking that there is an Un-American part of the country… and which party has been sayng that there is no red America and no blue America but only the United States of America.

Which party thinks war is the answer to everything… and which party has suggested that maybe we need to sit down and talk this out to see if peace is possible.

Which Presidential candidate just gave a speech accusing Barack Obama of delaying the World Series game. I mean of all things. In fact, that is a lie. But my god, that is the McCain talking point for the day? That’s a small thing I know, but when Harold hears something on TV about sports, that’s a big thing in our house. So he checked. It was a lie. But McCain is counting on you to not check to see if he was telling the truth. He is counting on Americans to be fat and lazy. And as silly and ridiculous as that little lie is… what more do you need? He will lie to you to get your vote.

So tell me again why you are undecided?

Oh yes I forgot. The terrorists are going to get us.

Link found via Morse at MediaNeedle

No, no, no! It's supposed to be DEMOCRATS who cheat at voting!

SACRAMENTO -- The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario late last night on suspicion of voter registration fraud.

State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California.

Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department comes after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by his firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM. The voters said YPM tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters. The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.

Since it worked so well the last few times...

It's going to be used to explain how Obama's election and presidency are a sham:

Let's be clear about what this is. These are random stories about fake vote registrations. The Drudges and Fox scoundrels of the world seem to think that if someone fills out a voter registration card for Mickey Mouse, that Mickey Mouse might show up and cast a vote they're not entitled to cast. It doesn't and there is zero evidence of any voter fraud or anything that would make voter fraud more likely. The level of lying, bad faith or at best ignorance of the people making these claims is really beyond imagining. This isn't vote fraud. There's no evidence of vote fraud. Nothing. This is an effort of a losing political party to a) lay the groundwork for challenging their defeat at the polls b) lay the groundwork to pass laws to make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote.

And in the 2004 election:

The Republicans making these claims argued that these problems with registration cards were opening the coming election up to widespread vote fraud. Logically, this makes no sense. And, more importantly, all evidence shows this has never happened, certainly not in any widespread sense. Every person who claims otherwise is either ignorant or speaking in bad faith.

Nonetheless, CNN and other national news outlets and especially local media outlets, either out of ignorance or bad faith, ran hard with these stories -- just as CNN is doing now.

After the election, there was a lot of pressure from Republicans in states like Nevada, Washington, New Mexico, etc. (not surprisingly, all key swing states) to have local US Attorneys prosecute these cases. The word came down from Washington, DC, particularly the political office at the White House that this was a top priority. And the local US Attorneys launched into it.

But there was a problem. Most of these were ethical prosecutors. And when they looked into it there just wasn't anything there. Most of the stories weren't even true. And those that were, were obviously isolated and in most cases not done with malice. The number of people who could actually be prosecuted could be counted on one hand. Local Republicans got angry; Karl Rove got angry. And the US Attorneys got fired.

That's the real story of the US Attorney firing scandal. And what we're seeing today is textbook -- exactly the same as what we saw in 2004 and 2006. It's a scam. And the very recent history should be enough for news networks like CNN and others not to let themselves become complicit in this disgrace.

Republicans lose if everyone votes. Democrats win if everyone votes. Guess what the Republicans will do?

It took a Canadian to say it

But it still applies down here in the US.

Chet Scoville of Vanity Press:(my bold)

Nobody, not the Liberal Party, not the Conservative Party, not Stephen Harper, not Paul Martin, not Stephane Dion, ever has the right to govern. All anyone ever has is permission to govern, on a temporary basis. If you want to govern, you have to convince the voters to give you permission to do so. You work for them. They don't work for you.

Thanks, Chet.

Now all we need to do is go to Washington D.C. with a bullhorn and tell these twits on both sides of the aisle to stop thinking we are warmongering religious fanatics but actually left of center tolerant humanitarians. And for them to stop fucking up our country and the world.

All your votes are belong to us

Literally.

"A comprehensive study of electronic voting systems (PDF) by vendors ES&S, Hart InterCivic and Premier (formerly Diebold) found that 'all of the studied systems possess critical security failures that render their technical controls insufficient to guarantee a trustworthy election'. In particular, they note all systems provide insufficiently protection against threats from election insiders, do not follow well-known security practices, and have 'deeply flawed software maintenance' practices." Some of these machines are the ones California testers found fault with last week.

Update 12/19: Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat in comments mentioned that Colorado is addressing this problem:

DENVER (AP) — Colorado's secretary of state has declared many of the state's electronic voting machines to be unreliable, but said Tuesday that some of them could still be used in November if a software patch was installed.

Other machines that failed could be replaced with equipment certified for use in other states, Secretary of State Mike Coffman said.

Coffman met with a task force of state lawmakers to discuss what Colorado should do the day after he decertified three of the four voting equipment manufacturers allowed in the state, affecting six of Colorado's 10 most populous counties.

California's disguised petitions

If you sign petitions, read every page where you put your signature.

Susie of Suburban Guerrilla:

I should note that the clipboard is arranged such that a rubber band holding the petitions to the cardboard is positioned on the top of the page, across the actual ballot language in question - thus, partially hiding the text of the ballot initiatives on pages 2-4 unless you actually stop and pull down the top of the page.

I agreed to sign the cancer initiative, but the comment about signing four times raised a red flag, because I’m familiar with the structure of ballot petitions, so I paused before signing and looked at the other initiatives. However, I’m absolutely sure that most of the people signing, young college students on a rush to get their lunches and off to class, did not take this step.

What they are doing is getting people to sign for ballot initiatives without their knowledge or informed consent, using young peoples’ desire to do a good thing and their lack of familiarity with the legal paperwork of initiative petitions. If this is not illegal it is certainly deeply unethical. The moment I realized what was going on, I told the petitioners that they shouldn’t be telling people to sign for ballot initiatives they’re not aware of. Immediately after, I called the school newspaper, the Daily Nexus, the Courage Campaign, the Santa Barbara Democratic Central Committee, and the California Democratic Party.

Perhaps if you see this happening, tell the petition collectors that even though they are being paid by the signature or by the hour, you're going to report them for obtaining signatures under false pretenses. Would this work? Sadly ... there is no law to protect us from voters being absolute dumbshits.

Read each petition that you sign.

Update 11/16: More links.