Tag: voter suppression

Trump Has a Who’s Who of Vote Suppressors Working to Keep the GOP in Majority in 2018

The following article by Steen Rosenfeld was posted on the AlterNet website July 18, 2017:

It’s a setup to create a pretext to newly police the voting process.

On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence will swear in some of the most notorious Republican voter suppressors to the White House’s ludicrously named Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

“It is hard to imagine a list of people less credible on the issue of the extent of voter fraud in the United States, and who have done more to raise the scourge of voter fraud as a means to advocate for laws to make it harder for people to register and to vote,” wrote Rick Hasen on ElectionLawBlog.org on July 10. “This is not a list meant to inspire bipartisan cooperation on fixing election administration. It is assembling a rogues’ gallery of vote suppression.” Continue reading “Trump Has a Who’s Who of Vote Suppressors Working to Keep the GOP in Majority in 2018”

First meeting of Trump’s voting commission makes clear that suppression is the goal

The following article by Kira Lerner was posted on the ThinkProgress website July 19, 2017:

Yet Mike Pence claims the panel has “no preconceived notions.”

Vice President Mike Pence claimed during the first meeting on Wednesday of the White House’s Commission on Election Integrity that the group will go about its work with “no preconceived notions.” Just minutes later, commissioners took turns insisting there is mass fraud across the country that could influence elections.

Kansas Secretary of State and commission co-chair Kris Kobach claimed in his introduction that as many as 18,000 non-citizens could be registered to vote in Kansas, without mentioning the shady math and questionable studieshe used to arrive at that number. The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky insisted that massive fraud is occurring across the country. And even New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Garder, a Democratic commissioner, argued against making voting easier, saying it doesn’t require a massive amount of fraud to influence elections. Continue reading “First meeting of Trump’s voting commission makes clear that suppression is the goal”

Trump Accuses Voting Officials of Hiding Something

The following article by John T. Bennett was posted on the Roll Call website July 19, 2017:

At first vote commission meeting, accusations surround data claims

President Donald Trump kicked off the first meeting of a panel he has tasked with probing his own voter fraud claims by questioning why some states are refusing to turn over voting data to his administration.

“I’m pleased that more than 30 states have already agreed to share the information with the commission and the other states that information will be forthcoming,” Trump said. “If any state does not want to share this information, one has to wonder what they’re worried about.”

That’s when the unpredictable president appeared to venture from his prepared remarks and went right after state officials who are withholding the voter data his administration is seeking. Continue reading “Trump Accuses Voting Officials of Hiding Something”

Keeping Voters off the Rolls

The following article by Liz Kennedy and Danielle Root was posted on the Center for American Progress website July 18, 2017:

Introduction and summary

The ability to cast a ballot freely is key to having our voices heard and exercising control over our government. Without the right to vote, people do not have a say in the laws they must follow, and if the basic precept of a liberal democracy—the consent of the governed—is broken, the descent into authoritarianism begins. But to cast a ballot, every state except North Dakota requires people to register to vote.1

Many states have made great advances in lowering barriers to voter registration, providing a gateway to voter participation through tools such as automatic voter registration, same-day registration, and online voter registration.2 Unfortunately, many states are using voter registration tricks that manipulate the voter rolls and keep eligible

Americans from having their voices heard. This report looks at two of the worst practices used to block eligible voters from participation: documentary proof of citizenship requirements, where people must show evidence of citizenship in order to become registered to vote, and illegal voter purges. Like other forms of voter suppression, both of these practices close off the democratic process to wide swaths of eligible Americans.

Continue reading “Keeping Voters off the Rolls”

Election Experts See Flaws in Trump Voter Commission’s Plan to Smoke Out Fraud T

The following article by Jessica Huseman was posted on the ProPublica website July 6, 2017:

The commission told ProPublica that states’ voter rolls will be run against federal databases to find potential fraudulent registrations — a move experts say will result in thousands of errors and could distort fraud.

Credit: Dave Kaup, Reuters

Vice President Mike Pence’s office has confirmed the White House commission on voter fraud intends to run the state voter rolls it has requested against federal databases to check for potential fraudulent registration. Experts say the plan is certain to produce thousands of false positives that could distort the understanding of the potential for fraud, especially given the limited data states have agreed to turn over.

“This just demonstrates remarkable naivety on how this voter data can be used,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “There’s absolutely no way that incomplete data from some states — mainly consisting of names and addresses — can be used to determine anything.” Continue reading “Election Experts See Flaws in Trump Voter Commission’s Plan to Smoke Out Fraud T”

Do voter identification laws suppress minority voting? Yes. We did the research.

The following article by Zoltan L. Hajnal, Nazita Lajevardi and Lindsay Nielson was posted on the Washington Post website February 15, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions takes the oath of office in the Oval Office on Feb. 9. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The Justice Department just got a new boss: Jeff Sessions. He is raising alarms in the civil rights community. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is concerned about his “record of hostility” toward the Voting Rights Act and the enforcement of civil rights. The NAACP-Legal Defense Fund lamented that it is “unimaginable that he could be entrusted to serve as the chief law enforcement officer for this nation’s civil rights laws.” No one knows for sure how Sessions will perform as attorney general — the former Republican senator from Alabama did, after all, once vote to renew the Voting Rights Act, in 2006 — but for many his record is deeply troubling. Continue reading “Do voter identification laws suppress minority voting? Yes. We did the research.”