Important: Anyone paying attention to North Carolina today?

[Skidmore]

No amount of lionizing of Snowden and screaming about NSA is going to make a rat's ass of difference if you don't start directing your attention to the erosion of voter rights. 2016 is hugely important. It will decide our congress, where the nasty assed laws like the Patriot Act and Fisa provisions were created and maintained. It will decide representation for the body that does not exercise oversight and gave away its war powers to Bush and Cheney and didn't look back. If you have no voice, you truly have no representation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-north-carolina-voter-id-law-20130812,0,7370847.story

North Carolina's governor signs sweeping voter ID bill into law

By David Zucchino

4:53 PM PDT, August 12, 2013

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DURHAM, N.C.--One of the nation’s most restrictive voter ID bills was signed into law Monday by North Carolina's Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican.

The new law requires voters to show government-issued ID cards, with polling places not allowed to accept college ID cards or out-of-state driver’s licenses. The law also shortens early voting by a week; eliminates same-day voter registration; allows any registered voter to challenge another voter’s eligibility; and ends popular preregistration for high school students.

Republicans have said the law will combat voter fraud and restore integrity to voting, but they have offered no evidence of voter fraud in the state. Civil rights groups and many independent analysts say the law is a blatant attempt to curb voting by blacks, students, the poor and other groups that tend to vote Democratic.

The law takes effect for the 2016 elections.

Civil rights groups have threatened to sue the state and Atty. Gen. Eric Holder has said the Justice Department may pursue legal challenges to voter ID laws passed by several states, including North Carolina.

[MotherPetrie]

1. Funny, I thought voting for Dems like Obama would reduce egregious govt. privacy invasions.

Instead it has made them worse.

Maybe you should try another argument to start your post with.

[Skidmore]

3. Participating in the election process at state and local level is

hugely important. The "Dems like Obama" canard does not address the notion that very real erosion of civil rights is occurring at a state level where Republicans have control of the legislatures and governorships. You can pay attention to the shiny thing or you can get down in the trenches and dig.

[emsimon33]

2. Excellent point!

The voter suppression in place in 2012 knocked out 5% of Obama's vote. Next time, if we don't do anything, it will be much, much more!

My conservative, narcissistic 21-year-old niece, a North Carolina State senior this year, finds nothing wrong with voter ID requirements. She is an example of the lack of critical thinking and entitlement that characterizes too many people in North Carolina. I hope that the recent far right policy movement in the state has a significant negative effective on businesses and people in general moving to the state. We need to boycott the state as Arizona has been boycotted.

[Peacetrain]

4. I know I know..

It is amazing.. its the "what if" vs "the what just happened"..

the what just happened IS going to take away rights.. and people seem to forget..if you want to use that Nazi Germany comparison.. only 10% of Germans were Nazis.. the rest got bull dozed.. and sometimes I think we bulldoze our selves to the point that we become blind to how we are being manipulated.

They did it in 2010 and got the state houses and then the redistricting.. That is why I am much more about the state elections now then the Federal. They are all important.. but we really blew it big time in 2010