Voter ID Laws, An Attempt To Rig The Elections

I have written many times in the pass about the Republican effort to block people from their right to vote by placing barriers for voters who are more likely to vote Democratic. Now in courts case the facts of how they are rigging it ballot box are coming out.

I wrote about how in Pennsylvania it came out in the court case that at the legislative hearings the facts were grossly misstated. That 758,000 Pennsylvanians or 9.2% of registered voters did not have the state-issued IDs required to vote under the law and this was after Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele said that 99 percent of eligible voters possessed the requisite IDs.

Also in Pennsylvania the Republicans claimed massive voter fraud, but in court they stipulated that hat they had no evidence of prior in-person voter fraud, or even any reason to believe that such crimes would occur with more frequency if a voter ID law wasn't in effect. In addition they said that they do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states the statement reads.

Now again the truth came out in court, this time down South Carolinian, an article in the Atlantic said that…

Here, for example, is the transcript from Wednesday morning's session of the federal court trial now underway before three (largely baffled) judges. Take a few moments to read for yourself how unprepared South Carolina is to ensure, come November, that registered voters -- men and women who have voted without incident before -- will have their votes counted this election season. Below is my favorite passage from the morning session -- but first here is a little bit of background for it.

On Wednesday morning, Beeney questioned Andino about the status of registered voters who come to vote on Election Day without the new form of photo identification required by the new law. Those registered voters may be permitted -- the emphasis is on the word "may" because local officials seem to have a great deal of discretion to make that call -- to cast a provisional ballot if they state they had a "reasonable impediment" to getting the new identification cards.

Those provisional ballots, in turn, may then be challenged (by anyone) on the basis that the provisional voter didn't have a "reasonable impediment" after all. The challenges are heard and resolved on the Friday following the election -- one day in advance of the "certification" of the election results that occurs on Saturday. Andino testified that South Carolina notifies provisional voters of this hearing by mail between Tuesday's election and Friday (which doesn't leave much time for the postman, does it?).

A provisional voter isn't told that his or her vote has been challenged. The provisional voter is simply told there will be a hearing. So if that voter wants to defend his or her "reasonable impediment" declaration, the voter has to go to the county seat on the Friday following the election to make sure that his or her vote will be counted. Of course, a lack of transportation, public or otherwise, is likely to have been one of the biggest reasons why that voter could not get his or her new identification in the first place.

So once again we see a systematic effort by Republicans to block legitimate voters from voting. The Republican repeat over and over again that there is massive voter fraud but they don’t have any facts to back-up those claims (That fact has come out in many court cases. Here in Connecticut the Secretary of State must audit the election results and they did not find any voter fraud.). It is the old adage that if you repeat a lie often enough and loud enough it becomes the “Truth.”