Stop Playing Dumb on Voter Obstruction

Update: Steve Schmidt, McCain-Palin top strategist: "It’s part of the mythology now in the Republican Party that there’s widespread voter fraud all across the country. In fact, there’s not."

One of the first public reactions to the Romney-Ryan ticket getting trounced at the 2012 polls was Paul Ryan's complaint about the urban vote.

"The surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race," Ryan told WISC-TV. (Shear, Steinhauer. NYT)

Ryan knows what that mysterious "urban vote" means.  It means black votes, and they must be stopped. Voter fraud.

In the Wisconsin voter ID trial next Monday, November 4, as predictable as cold in a Wisconsin winter, we'll be treated to uncritical false equivalence press reports of "voter fraud" v. "voter rights".

That there is no in-person voter fraud is irrelevant, the media feels an obligation to play it dumb and present Ryan and the GOP fabrications as fact.

No matter the idiocy of the GOP lie, no matter the empirical truth of 100,000s being disenfranchised by the GOP-crafted photo voter ID law, the GOP objective of disenfranchising voters will not be reported.

I work as an elections inspector (poll worker). Most of the people voting are known by one or more of the poll workers, and the registered voter has to state her address and name, verified by two poll workers just to vote.

Election protection is not the objective of voter ID, GOP protection is.

The problem for the GOP is the Wisconsin Constitution is broad in the protection of voters against temporary partisan majorities, and the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, though not as sweeping is a powerful weapon used against those imposing voting obstruction.

The GOP has been working for years to add an additional qualification to vote, a photo voter ID, in violation of the Wisconsin Constitution.

This is a nationwide project, which is why there was a flurry of state voter ID laws right after five GOP justices declared section 4 the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.

Voting rights remain under GOP attack.

Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge David T. Flanagan issued a permanent injunction on July 17, 2012 that remains in effect, writing:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has often used the term "constitutionally qualified elector" to describe one eligible to vote in our state. That is because the Constitution, not the legislature or any law enacted by the legislature, is the source of the right to vote and unlike the United States Constitution, the Wisconsin Constitution sets forth explicitly the requirement for eligibility to vote, Art III, Sec 2 (4). The court must begin any consideration of voter eligibility legislation with the recognition of this bedrock constitutional foundation of Wisconsin voter eligibility.

The GOP is still passing legislative burdens to make voting more difficult or impossible for as many non-GOP voting citizens as the GOP can get away with.

That's the truth.