GOP Is as Desperate in Texas as Wisconsin

Update: See Ernest A. Canning excellent analysis on the Brad Blog. "The state," the Veasey petition argues, "has no interest in --- and the public certainly has no interest --- in enforcing intentionally discriminatory laws." The DoJ adds to the weight of that argument by pointing to the District Court's findings as to how, in the face of demographic changes that threaten to reduce white Anglo Texans to minority status, each successive Photo ID bill enacted by the state became increasingly restrictive of minority voting rights --- with SB 14 having been passed "with 'unnatural speed' over the objection of legislators who represented predominantly non-white districts," and that "the Texas Legislature had rejected a 'litany of ameliorative amendments' that would have softened SB 14's impact on minority voters."
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Republicans were dealt a body blow in their efforts to block voters in Wisconsin last week.

How are Republicans supposed to win if they can't block voters and gerrymander districts?

Next up is Texas which has an even more restrictive Voter ID law than Wisconsin's.

In Texas the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit imposed this onerous Voter ID law even closer to Election Day than did the Seventh Circuit on Sept. 12 (before this decision was vacated).

"On October 9, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos struck down Texas’s harsh photo ID law, ruling after a lengthy trial that the Texas legislature enacted the law to purposely discriminate against minority voters," notes the Brennan Center.

Plaintiffs' emergency application against the Texas ID law and others are being heard by Justice Scalia.

The U.S. Dept of Justice has also filed an application.

The case is Veasey v. Perry (No 14A393). The state of Texas' response is due Thursday at 5 pm.

An array of civil rights groups and the US Dept of Justice against Texas.

Voter ID Takes Hits Across the Board

This has been a bad week for the Republican Party's voter obstruction project.

More light has been shone on the anti-voting efforts of the GOP across the nation.

GOP allies in the judiciary, especially the Soviet bloc on the U.S. Supreme Court—Scalia, Thomas and Alito—are hostile to voting. They would prefer a different system of government.

Rick Hasen puts it thusly: "Simply put, Justices Alito, Scalia and Thomas do not value the right to vote as strongly as the other members of the Court."

This morning's lede editorial in the New York Times notes voter ID laws are an "antidemocratic sham."

State and municipal election bureaucrats in Wisconsin are mostly silent on these facts that Republicans are attacking the foundation of representative democracy.

One man who is not silent is Judge Richard Posner writing for dissenting colleagues on the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Posner notes the fact that it is Republicans who are trying to stop citizens from voting.

Rarely has a white power structure, not since Jim Crow, have underground political movements been called out at the judicial level for its actions against the Constitution.

From Posner's October 10 dissent:

 

TABLE 2

States with Strict Photo ID Laws — Political Makeup When the Laws Were Adopted
(Nos. 14-2058 and 14-2059; p. 17)

 

Same-day Voter Registration Problem, and Easy Fix

Wisconsin Voter Registration Application;
GAB-131 document (REV 2014/05)

No voter ID is required to vote in Wisconsin

Repeat, no matter the noise emitting from our corrupt attorney general: No voter ID is needed to vote in Wisconsin.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered no voter ID.

Moving on.

Same-day registration

There is one issue with Election-day registration (that Scott Walker tried to eliminate in 2012, backing down), and it's an easy fix.

The problem

The problem is the new voter registration system on Election Day has voters enter their data into the voter registration form from lap tops, under the supervision of poll workers (who ask questions on ID and residency).

The Fall 2014 Primary Election Day in August gave us a live usability test of the new voter registration system.

The results point to the problem for November's Election Day-registration voters, and the time period for registering voters increasing exponentially in high-turnout elections: Time to register on the new system is long and confusing for voters.

A rough guess: 30 minutes per voter.

Election inspectors (poll workers) train in filling out the Wisconsin Voter Registration Application form (above-right). Voters are given no such training and asked to input the data not knowing what data field is next.

The process takes longer with the voter (rather than the election inspector) entering the data, presenting the necessary ID and residency documents, printing out the Registration Application form, checking it for errors, and then voting.

Some 30 minutes per voter for registering, plus time in line, and each voter's time ahead of other voters added to voters behind her.

The Fix to the problem

The fix is multiple lap tops and more staff to help registering.

In our voting district, Fitchburg District One (wards one-four), the demographics and frequency of same-day registrants demand some nine lap tops per voting district of roughly 3,000-plus voters on Election Day.

In communities where there are young voters and renters, nine lap tops per 3,000-registering voters are advisable to decrease the long lines in November 2012 and June 2012.

In student and dense population districts, this number is higher.

Ask your municipal clerk. Ask the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and the Democratic Party.

Among Wisconsin's 1,800 municipal clerks, most are open to logical suggestions, and clerks have lists of Special Registration Deputies who are willing to take up the slack of regular poll workers to see that Election Day registrants are not penalized for participating in the highly successful Wisconsin policy of same-day registration.

People (especially those with young children) are sometimes forced to get up and walk away without having registered when the lines are too long, another objective of the Republican Party. I've seen it.

"During major statewide elections, 10 – 15 percent of Wisconsin electors register to vote or update their voter registration on Election Day," notes the Wisconsin Governmental Accountability Board (GAB).

Statewide Election Day-registering voters composed some 266,974 voters, 10.6 percent of the electorate in November 2012, notes the GAB.

Here is a list of Wisconsin municipal clerks, staff and contact info.

For more information on voter registration deadlines and how-to-resister, see the GAB voter registration site. Early registering and early voting are advised.

For the Republican Party that used the now-blocked voter ID law as "a mere fig leaf for efforts to disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government," other dirty tricks are ready to be implemented including harassment and interference with a voter's effort to vote.

If you see intimidation, discrimination, or any interference with a voter's process of voting, check the polling place's large bulletin board of public information and report the crimes.

Ask for the Chief Election inspector, and ask for the documenting of an incident report for starters. Then call the Clerk's office, the GAB, and the US attorney's office.

Appleton Post Crescent: Scott Walker Owes Explanation about Secret Email System

The Appleton Post-Crescent blasted Scott Walker in a weekend editorial condemning Walker for his hostility to the Wisconsin people's right to know.

The blistering editorial in the wake of revelations of secret emails follows similar blasts from the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, the Beloit Daily Herald, the Wisconsin State Journal, the Capital Times and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

It's no wonder Walker and the Republicans attack voting, gerrymander the legislative districts in secret, attack open government in criminal violation of the law; one can go on listing the Walker assaults against democracy.

Scott Walker is all about evading accountability for his actions against the people of Wisconsin.

Walker will say in quickly muttered bursts: I want to talk about the future, not the past.

Of course Walker does, this way he doesn't have to account for his criminal past. And Scott Walker's promises about the future are as unreliable as his commitment to the public's right to know what their governor is doing and has done to their state.

Scott Walker should face the people of Wisconsin, and answer their questions to their satisfaction.

The Appleton Post-Crescent editorial reads in part:

It’s about responsible government and subverting the public’s right to know. ...

Walker has refused to answer questions about the email system, but he needs to. Did he know about it and participate in it, as at least one of the emails states? And if so, how does he think this secret system was ethical? How does he think hiding communication that’s considered a public record was serving his constituents?

His answers will speak to his integrity not just when he was Milwaukee County executive but today, as governor. His lack of answers so far speaks to it, too.

The Wisconsin Campaign for Governor in 2014—A Morality Play

Suppose a Wisconsin officeholder assumes public office and one of his first acts is to arrange a campaign operation inside the very office confines to which he was elected.

Not just a political infrastructure, but an active campaign with electioneering, email system and laptops, monitoring the media, secret communications in violation of Wisconsin's public records law (a primary check against New Jersey-style political corruption), regular meetings of campaign and public office staff inside the office (a courthouse office) and his top aides and the officeholder using the public office to coordinate campaign strategy with carrying out public duties. And with top aides reminding each other to carry out the campaigning covertly.

Any reasonable person would see this as knowingly committing misconduct in office, criminal misconduct in office.

We don't have to suppose; we have Scott Walker. His aides were convicted or took immunity deals.

Walker was elected governor and the evidence in emails and testimony obtained by law enforcement resulted in 15 criminal convictions.

After using the Milwaukee County Executive's office as a campaign office, including but not exclusive to Walker's 2010 run for Wisconsin governor, Walker again betrayed the Wisconsin people as governor and sold out to big-moneyed interests and his own extremist ideology on which he dared not campaign, while making unequivocal promises of 250,000 new jobs.