In These Times: The Right’s New Attack on Voters

[marmar]

The Right’s New Attack on Voters
By Jessica Pupovac



Last April, as a national debate raged over whether Indiana’s voter ID law protects election integrity or disenfranchises low-income voters, a more sinister and potentially damaging voter-vetting proposal sat quietly in nine state legislatures, attracting little attention.

Laws that would require proof-of-citizenship in the form of a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers in order to register to vote have been introduced in eight states: California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

That number was pared down from nine in late May, when, under popular pressure, the Missouri legislature ended their sessions without calling their proof-of-citizenship referendum to a vote. The Missouri bill—HJR 48—was the only such law that had the potential to go into effect prior to this November’s elections.

Birdell Owen, a Missouri resident who was displaced by Hurricane Katrina and has no birth certificate, was among those who celebrated the victory.

“I should be able to participate in my democracy, she says, “even if Louisiana can’t get me a copy of my birth certificate. I’m glad Missouri politicians had the sense to protect my right to vote.”

Supporters of proof-of-citizenship bills say they aren’t trying to dissuade people like Owen from voting. Their targets, they claim, are the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

“When we have close elections in this country, the people have to have confidence that it was lawfully decided by honest, legitimate voters, not non-citizens and illegal people trying to participate in the process,” said Mark “Thor” Hearne, national election law counsel for President Bush’s 2004 campaign and a prominent conservative voting restriction advocate, on NPR in 2006.

Hearne was an avid supporter of the recent Missouri proposal, but so far, he and other supporters have been hard-pressed for evidence of an immigrant electoral take-over. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3737/the_rights_new_attack_on_voters/

[tulsakatz]

1. that figures.......

my driver's license expired last year and I had to have a certified copy of my birth certificate to get a new one!!

[Puzzler]

2. This is such BS...

... the last thing so-called illegal immigrants do is to show up at places where they could be "exposed" (so to speak).

[Uncle Joe]

3. I believe they did a study of actual voter fraud and the number was less than a hundred

out of hundreds of millions of votes cast. I'm convinced this is a non-issue created for the sole purpose of disenfranchising the American People from their government.

The corporate media will never bring up the minuscule number of voter fraud incidents as compared to the total votes cast, because they prefer not to regard or remind the American People that the people are citizens. The closest they will ever come to referring to the American People as citizens is by inference that some people; usually hispanics are "illegal aliens", this is primarily for division purposes, because that's how corporations rule. The corporate media doesn't like to refer to the American People as citizens because that term is too empowering.

They prefer to call the American People customers or consumers because these terms take power away from the people regarding their own self-governance. A customer or consumer is primarily to be sold on some product, not to be represented. As for the corporate media, they regard commercial paying corporations as their clients. Clients have the power over customers and if a corporation profits by imprisonment of the American People, profits by overruling the doctors treating the sick, profits by becoming hired mercenaries with powers that diminish the power of the very government and the publics military which is supposed to be for the people, so be it, the corporate media could not only care less, the welcome they prospects of having ultimate power.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.