From a press release from Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee:
I was very concerned when I was informed of multiple incidents in which voters in predominately minority neighborhoods of my congressional district were intimidated and harassed. These incidents were documented by both the electronic and print media.
Accordingly, I shared my concerns with the Department of Justice and the Harris County Attorney’s office, who are investigating these incidents. I even visited with some of these voters who experienced intimidation and went to polling locations to view firsthand the way voters were being treated. The right to vote is a fundamental right enshrined by our Constitution, and my interest is to ensure that every person’s right to vote is protected.
You can read the Congresswoman's letter here (PDF). It is similar to a letter Rep. Sylvester Turner had sent previously.
The voter intimidation scheme has been featured prominently -- almost daily -- in the Houston TV market. Here's one story:
The best sources for this are the American Independent, Off the Kuff, and Talking Points Memo. A round-up of their stories are linked below, for further reading:
Glenn Smith has written an excellent piece at Huffington Post I wanted to point everyone's attention to, titled, "The Struggle for Voting Rights in 2010." It leads off:
It seems extraordinary that Americans must still struggle for their right to vote. A new group in Texas - the Diversity League of Houston - is leading the struggle there. More about this group in a moment. But it's staggering that after all these years there are still reactionary forces working to suppress the voting rights of those they suspect of opposing their radical, right-wing policies.
African-Americans were given the right to vote with 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870. After a century, many blacks were still barred from voting by lynch mobs, bigoted literacy tests, poll taxes and such. The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, adding further guarantees. Women in America were finally granted the franchise in 1920. And yet the struggle continues election after election as right-wing thugs take to the streets (and to the offices of their co-conspirators among voter registration officials) to deny the franchise to qualified American citizens.
Last month I posted a piece at HuffPost detailing the lies of a group in Houston, Texas - the King Street Patriots -- who have raised a substantial anti-voting rights war chest. Conspiring with the Harris County voter registrar, Leo Vasquez, the group doctored photos and made up stories about people registered to a vacant lot. It is all part of a plan to deny the right to vote to American citizens.
The group unveiled its plan just prior to a suspicious fire that destroyed all of Harris County's voting machines. There's still no word on whether the fire was intentionally set.
The group, the Diversity League of Houston, has put up an excellent video everyone should watch:
The Indiana Court of Appeals today declared Indiana's voter ID law unconstitutional because it does not apply uniformly to all voters.
The three-judge panel unanimously held that the requirement that voters present government-issued identification at the polls runs afoul of the Indiana Constitution's "Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause," which provides: "The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens."
Two reasons were cited by the Court of Appeals: the law doesn't require absentee voters to provide an affidavit affirming their identity even while requiring photo identification for in-person voters; and the law exempts residents of state-licensed care facilities from the ID requirement if their facility happens to be a polling place.
Texas Republicans have fought tooth and nail to suppress our voting rights, and they've continually pointed to the Indiana law as "proof" that it works. They have some serious egg on their face today, as the party of "No" learns what it means to be shot down for their illegal and dishonorable efforts to suppress voting rights.
Recent studies show that a more diverse electorate turned out last November, including historically underrepresented young and minority voters. Since the election, Republican operatives have continued to use the specter of voter fraud to loosen regulations on voter suppression activities while pushing policies to make voting more difficult for the crop of new voters.
As several states enter critical phases in their legislative sessions, the debate for one of the most controversial election reforms continues to dominate headlines and legislative hearings. This year, more than 26 states introduced legislation to go above and beyond federal election law relating to voter ID, despite near consensus among voting rights advocates that it hurts the process far more than it helps. Last week, the hysteria around voter ID reached an all time high in six states, evoking public concern from advocates and citizens alike.
(Putting this excellent post back atop the page. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
Airport Security Checkpoint or Polling Place?
Here is an honest and easy-to-understand statement of a Republican belief that lies behind their efforts to place burdensome and bureaucratic barriers between citizens and the ballot box:
Few citizens have the formidable intellectual and moral capacities (let alone the time) required for the role that [popular democracy] assigns to the citizenry, although defenders of the concept believe that participation in democratic political activity strengthens these capacities, enabling a virtuous cycle.
That quote is from Judge Richard Posner, of the Seventh U.S. Court of Appeals. It's in his book, "Law, Pragmatism and Democracy." Posner wrote the appeals court opinion approving Indiana's restrictive voter identification requirements. The restrictions on voting, he said in that opinion, would harm many citizens. But we shouldn't care.
Let the quote sink in.
Because so many of us lack the intellectual and moral capacity to participate in our governance, restrictions on voting are no big deal to Posner and his ilk.
In Texas this week, debate opens on a proposal that places extraordinary identification requirements on citizens who wish to vote. The proposed law's ambiguous language appears to grant part-time, amateur polling place officials the absolute power to accept or reject a would-be voter based solely on that citizen's appearance or other subjective judgments. For the first time since women and blacks were granted the vote, appearance alone may disqualify a would-be voter. We'll return to this in a moment.
Posner is an open opponent of popular democracy. Most anti-democrats simply lie, not wishing to fuel what is the ultimate "wedge" issue in a democracy: should all citizens share equally in the decision-making of their communities and country? Some Republican backers of restrictions on voting may not share Posner's belief in the inferiority of many citizens. They simply want to use the law to reduce the number of people inclined to vote against them.
Cross-Posted at Project Vote's Voting Matter's Blog Weekly Voting Rights News Update
by Erin Ferns
Last week we wrote about how partisan-fueled voter fraud rumors are leading election reform debates, potentially changing the way many Americans vote in future elections. With at least one state swiftly moving a bill to require all voter applicants to present proof of citizenship before registering to vote, and another strongly supporting the passage of voter ID, the threat of voter disenfranchisement looms ahead.
Cross-Posted at Project Vote's Voting Matter's Blog Weekly Voting Rights News Update
by Erin Ferns
As we predicted last December, legislation designed to prevent so-called voter fraud has dominated election law debates in several states this year. Last week alone, Georgia's controversial voter ID law was upheld by a federal appeals panel, the Texas Senate "sparked deep partisan tensions" by eliminating the majority rule in order to aid the passage of a voter ID law, and nine more states introduced numerous voter ID bills.
As Barack Obama spoke of hope in a Wilmington park named for Harriet Tubman and abolitionist Thomas Garrett, just north of the Mason-Dixon line, some Republicans were still setting loose the dogs along the freedom trail.
Last week, Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and some embarrassed but silently capitulating GOP state senators destroyed legislative tradition and subverted procedures intended to protect against "the tyranny of the majority" to pass a regressive voter identification bill. Twelve Angry Democrats in the Senate did their best. But they were outnumbered. In the Right's theory of democracy, minorities should sit down, shut up, and do what they're told.
The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for barriers to voting, of course. The court's opinion in the Indiana voter ID case was bad enough. But Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, did a more honest job of articulating the elitist logic of voter suppression when he penned his opinion approving the Indiana law.
I'd been thinking about posting some summary thoughts on Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's sad and reckless attack on voting rights and the legislative process. Then I noticed that elliotk had just posted a BOR journal more eloquent than, well, more eloquent than the words of mere mortals.
Isaiah 10
1 Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
3 What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.
