Comments on: GOP v. Voting Rights Act

By: kramartini

kramartini — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 01:54:21 +0000

There will be no fallout from the end of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

The decision will be handed down in June 2013 and will be forgotten by November 2014.

By: RogerClegg

RogerClegg — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:17:31 +0000

Gee, Bill, race-bait much? What a long, irresponsible rant of name-calling and race-card-playing. You ought to be able to disagree with conservative Republicans without tarring them all as racists.

What’s ironic here is that the principal use to which Section 5 has long been put by people like Mr. Yeomans (in his days in the Justice Department’s civil rights division) is the creation of segregated and racially gerrymandered voting districts — a purpose quite at odds with the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement.

Here’s why Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is bad policy, outdated, unconstitutional, and ought to be struck down by the Supreme Court: http://www.pacificlegal.org/opeds/Overtu rn-unconstitutional-Voting-Rights-Act

By: germany3

germany3 — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:32:33 +0000

Any idea that republicans engage in voter suppression is so wrong and,in truth, indicates projection. Democrates not Republicans are the party of voter fraud.

Voting is a privalege and a duty. Any voter should be proud to show proof of eligibility and not hold the franchise lightly.

The thought that, in order to vote, a person would need to be picked up at their door and bussed to the polling place or they would not put any effort into voting sickens me.

Just another example of the dumbing down of society and the continuing rise in irresponsible behavior.

By: sylvan

sylvan — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:45:37 +0000

Thanks Sanity-Monger. I completely concur with your additions to list of needed national voting standards. If we had had proof of votes in 2000, we could have avoided the dark years of W. Now, will the House will consider any of our well-considered proposals to make voting uniformly fair? Not if they want to keep their jobs.

By: QuietThinker

QuietThinker — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:54:45 +0000

Unfortunately, what the article presents is a true picture of the state of affairs. I would add as a footnote that the Republicans only hold sway in the House of Representatives due to gerrymandering – they lost the popular vote for the House of Representatives as well as the Senate and Presidency. To take Texas as an example, the shape of the districts is completely absurd, done with the explicit intent of reducing minority representation.

Any rejection of the Voting Rights Act will be the doing of the Republican party, e.g. Republicans on the Supreme Court voting on party lines rather than on the law.

By: jcfl

jcfl — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:40:32 +0000

as long as the wealthy and large corporations have the gop by the short hairs we will see continued voter suppression. therefore the sooner the gop returns to their historical minority ankle biting position and more normal supreme court justices are appointed the better.

By: Sanity-Monger

Sanity-Monger — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:38:15 +0000

Interestingly, I think the motivation for the Republicans no longer boils down to race (“we don’t want blacks or Hispanics to vote”), but politics (“we don’t want Democrats to vote”). I guess perhaps this is some measure of progress. But the more Republicans try to prevent poor people from voting (which is really what these tactics are about — the minority aspect of them is just a side-effect), the more minorities will avoid voting for them, and the stronger will be Republican motivation to suppress voting rights for these groups.

It was inspiring to see the lengths that people went to to vote in 2012, in spite of the choice between the guy who is only an enabler of elites versus the guy who is a full-fledged member.

@sylvan, I agree with you except would add that voting machines should also be held to national standards, and one of those standards should be a paper trail that would enable a verifiable manual recount. It all boils down to this question: do we actually want to know the will of the people, or do we merely want to make it look like we do?

By: sylvan

sylvan — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:05:08 +0000

I believe we need to amend the voting rights act and call for minimum standards for polling access and hours; automatically registering people to vote when they become 18; the state owning the vote counting, not these consultants; and publicly funded elections, and the outlawing of all political ads, supplying instead a public web site and printed matter explaining candidate positions and their voting records,if applicable, as well as their entire resume. I don’t have a problem with voter ID laws but the state should provide ID proactively instead of making them exceedingly difficult to procure; and the onus should shift to the state to provide ID and registration and back up verifications, or they must allow the voter to vote unless they can prove someone ineligible. Maybe after another Citizen United-like disaster courtesy of The Supremes, we will demand our right to easily cast our votes, and require our legislatures to encode our voting rights and stop playing little boy games.

By: tmc

tmc — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:40:45 +0000

If we really want the people aka: the Public, to have an actual vote in our government, then we must have term limits for congress and campaign finance reform. Otherwise they are just fooling you.
Personally, I don’t believe the public should vote. That was a great idea in the past centuries where social groups were smaller and more like minded. Since we are not, we are diversified and more fragmented, we should look at our electoral college system again as a new base.

By: agencyRN

agencyRN — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:33:49 +0000

Obviously this plan has been in the works since the Tea Party took over the house,and the republicans loaded the Supreme Court.What they didn’t figure is that the people would fight so strongly to vote for their choice.

And if the Supreme Court strikes down section 5, watch what happens.In rural areas they will move the pooling places so far away from area where people of color live that they won’t be able to vote.

The states with the Tea Party govenors will come up with the newest versions of Jim Crow,or any other method to restrict people of color.