An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot. If this were happening in an emerging democracy, we’d condemn it as election-rigging. But it’s happening here, so there’s barely a whimper.
The laws are being passed in the name of preventing “voter fraud.” But study after study has shown that fraud by voters is not a major problem — and is less of a problem than how hard many states make it for people to vote in the first place. Some of the new laws, notably those limiting the number of days for early voting, have little plausible connection to battling fraud.
These statutes are not neutral. Their greatest impact will be to reduce turnout among African Americans, Latinos and the young. It is no accident that these groups were key to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 — or that the laws in question are being enacted in states where Republicans control state governments.
Again, think of what this would look like to a dispassionate observer. A party wins an election, as the GOP did in 2010. Then it changes the election laws in ways that benefit itself. In a democracy, the electorate is supposed to pick the politicians. With these laws, politicians are shaping their electorates.
He's absolutely correct. The GOP is using census redistricting and voter ID laws to maintain political power at the expense of voters. How do you know Dionne is on to something? Because the attacks on him from the right have nothing to do with the substantive issues he presents. Example: the National Review:
Today, 505 days before Election Day 2012, E. J. declares in his Post column that, should the Republicans oust the Obama administration on November 6 of next year, it will be because of a nefarious plot to deny citizens their right to vote by requiring said voters to demonstrate that they are who they claim to be.
Did someone say these people were getting desperate?
Ann Althouse plays the "soft bigotry of low expectations" card:
[Dionne] himself propagates racism in the form of an assumption that black people have trouble performing the simplest task.
Bryan Preston at Pajamas Media goes right to the ACORN and NBPP lies:
Having ACORN and similar leftist groups screw up the works with thousands and thousands of fraudulent registrations? Not a problem, to E. J. Dionne. Rampant vote brokering, as has been repeatedly uncovered in South Texas? Not a problem. Having the Black Panthers stand around with weapons to intimidate voters right outside polling places? Not a problem in Dionne’s world.
The Voter ID laws don't even address these issues...if these issues even existed, having being debunked again and again. Given Dionne's premise, this is the best the right can come up with. Conspiracy! ACORN! Black Panthers! Racist! The same garbage they shout every time.
They've got nothing and they know it.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment