Vote, Dammit!

There’s been lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth over yesterday’s election results, which put a Fundiegelical wackadoodle into the Kentucky governor’s office, denied transgender rights in Houston, and some other depressing news.

It seems this happens every time it’s not a presidential election year. And there’s a very good reason for that.

Democrats don’t vote in off-years. They just don’t. There may be a lot of good reasons for it — voter suppression, working three crap jobs, etc. etc. but the bottom line is, rank and file Democrats don’t think it’s important to vote in non-presidential elections. They’re not going the extra mile to overcome the obstacles like they do in presidential elections. They just don’t see it as a priority. The volunteers aren’t there, the motivation isn’t there, the energy isn’t there.

Republicans sweep every off-year election (I don’t know, feels like it, at least). Republicans run on amygdala-tweaking issues like gays and ‘bortions and fear and loathing and that gets people to the polls every time. Democrats don’t seem to do that; if they do, it doesn’t seem to resonate. Yesterday we did have one sparkle of good news: the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court. Seems to me people understood the importance of that vote and they made the effort.

This is a big problem for Democrats. It’s why we have Tea Party nutballs in Congress and state legislatures voting on Agenda 21 resolutions. Now thousands of Kentuckians could lose their health insurance as a result.

Democrats, you need to figure this out. Not too long ago Nashville had a very important General Election where we voted for a new mayor. Several of my gay friends, people in their early 30s, did not vote. They “didn’t have time.” Really what they were saying is, they didn’t make the time (although with a week of early voting in Nashville, there’s really no excuse for that). Among those running were a candidate who voted for a GLBT non-discrimination ordinance, and someone else who said they were against such things. You’d think that would have been sufficient motivation. Someone who supports your right to exist, versus those who do not. In fact, one of my gay friends said he supported Megan Barry but when I asked if he voted, the answer amazingly was no! That’s some support, folks.

People, with support like that, how can Democrats win?

Fortunately, Nashville’s mayoral election went into a runoff and I badgered my non-voting friends mercilessly until they went to the polls, and showed me “I Voted” stickers to prove it.

But you know, this is a problem for Dems nationwide. And we will continue to lose elections until we figure out how to impress upon our voters the importance of, you know, actually making the effort to vote.

It seems stupid and it is, but this is something the DNC and state and county parties really need to figure out. There needs to be a public education campaign, there needs to be a real grassroots effort, from the churches to the unions to neighborhood organizations and every other group to get people off their asses. Every election. Not just every four years but every year.

Elections are every year, people! And if you don’t vote in every election, you’re a bad person.

If we can’t figure this out, the rest is just pointless. We cannot succeed with a party that doesn’t care about anything but the White House.

AFP’s Bag Of Dirty Tricks

Americans For Prosperity, the Koch Bros.-group supported by Nashville moneybags Lee Beaman which is bankrolling the anti-AMP movement, has been caught perpetrating a voter suppression campaign in North Carolina.

Showing it’s nothing more than a Lee Atwater-style band of dirty tricksters, AFP was busted sending confusing, error-riddled “official” voter application forms to hundreds of North Carolina voters … and a cat. They were busted when complaints started flooding into the State Board of Elections:

The form includes incorrect or conflicting information, as outlined below, according to the State Board of Elections.

• At the top, the form states voter registrations are due 30 days before an election to the State Board of Elections’ office. Below, in smaller type, it states the deadline is 25 days before the election.

The deadline to register to vote is actually 25 days before the general election, but people should send information to their county elections board, not the state board, Lawson said. If voters do send their information to the state board, it will be forwarded to the appropriate county board, Lawson said.

• The first page also states people should return the registration to the N.C. Secretary of State’s office, though the envelope is addressed to the State Board of Elections.

• It states the Secretary of State’s office has an elections division and can answer questions about registration.

The Secretary of State’s office does not handle elections, Lawson said, though other states do house their elections division within their secretary of state’s office. The form also gives the wrong phone number for the Secretary of State’s office – the number is actually for the State Board of Elections.

• The form states that after voters mail in their information, they will be notified of their precinct by their local county clerk.

“There’s no county clerk that would do these things,” said Lawson. “It would come from the county board of elections or the elections director, under their signature.”

• The registration form also includes the wrong ZIP code for the State Board of Elections. The ZIP code associated with the board’s post office box is 27611, and the board’s office ZIP code is 27603.

Alison Beal of Wake Forest received one of the forms at her home, but it was addressed to her brother-in-law, who lives in Caldwell County. Beal is not a member of Americans for Prosperity and says her brother-in-law would not be a member either.

Beal said she quickly noticed the inaccuracies because she has been involved in past voter registration drives. She knew there was no elections division within the Secretary of State’s office, Beal said.

“I went to the Board of Elections website so I could make sure about what my suspicions were,” she said. “I’ve always been a big proponent of voting. I was like, ‘You know, this is really irritating.’ ”

Honest mistakes? Doubtful. Seems like this was sent to likely Democrats, for one thing. The idea being to spread confusion and misinformation, so people are given the idea that it’s just easier not to bother to vote.

It’s a neat trick. It’s a felony to deliberately misinform voters. AFP has plausible deniability here, “oh our woopsies, sorry!” Meanwhile, they’ve confused hundreds of people in left-leaning Raleigh. Nice try, assholes. Does anyone think this works?

Here’s where groups like Americans For Prosperity always stumble. They assume voters are stupid. They assume people don’t know better. They assume people aren’t interested and don’t care. In other words, they believe their own bullshit. What they miss is that the more you try to prevent people from voting, the more those same people are going to go the extra mile to vote, just to prove you wrong.

And these are the dishonest players who Lee Beaman has brought to Nashville to fight against mass transit and take over our school board. Watch your mailboxes, Nashville. If they’re playing dirty in North Carolina you can be damn sure they’re going to play dirty here.

Because When The People Vote, Republicans Lose

This is what you do when you can’t run on your ideas:

A new Florida law that contributed to long voter lines and caused some to abandon voting altogether was intentionally designed by Florida GOP staff and consultants to inhibit Democratic voters, former GOP officials and current GOP consultants have told The Palm Beach Post.

[…]

Wayne Bertsch, who handles local and legislative races for Republicans, said he knew targeting Democrats was the goal.

“In the races I was involved in in 2008, when we started seeing the increase of turnout and the turnout operations that the Democrats were doing in early voting, it certainly sent a chill down our spines. And in 2008, it didn’t have the impact that we were afraid of. It got close, but it wasn’t the impact that they had this election cycle,” Bertsch said, referring to the fact that Democrats picked up seven legislative seats in Florida in 2012 despite the early voting limitations.

Another GOP consultant, who did not want to be named, also confirmed that influential consultants to the Republican Party of Florida were intent on beating back Democratic turnout in early voting after 2008.

Of course, Democrats have known this forever. But it’s just really amazing to me that a political party whose ideas are so obviously unpopular refuses to change its ideas, and instead decides the way to go is to steal elections by suppressing the vote. Yes, do tell me how you’ve all got huge boners for the Constitution. Last I checked, voting was in there too.

Republicans are truly horrible people. They could try being less horrible but I guess you can’t win an election that way. Or wait … that’s not it. You can’t appease the plutocrats that way. Or something. God, I just don’t get it. No one likes your ideas, so why don’t they change them? It’s just so bizarre.

Props to Wisconsin Republican Dale Schultz, who is offended and repulsed by these shenanigans going on across the country as Democrats are:

“I am not willing to defend them anymore,” he explained when show co-host Dominic Salvia asked why Republicans sought to limit the number of voting hours a municipality could offer. “I’m just not, and I’m embarrassed by this.”

Indeed, Schultz is right to be embarrassed. It’s downright embarrassing for a political party to operate this way! Schultz nailed it with his assessment of the modern GOP in Wisconsin, and his words hold true for every red state where voter suppression laws are being passed:

It’s just, I think, sad when a political party — my political party — has so lost faith in its ideas that it’s pouring all of its energy into election mechanics. And again, I’m a guy who understands and appreciates what we should be doing in order to make sure every vote counts, every vote is legitimate. But that fact is, it ought to be abundantly clear to everybody in this state that there is no massive voter fraud. The only thing that we do have in this state is we have long lines of people who want to vote. And it seems to me that we should be doing everything we can to make it easier, to help these people get their votes counted. And that we should be pitching as political parties our ideas for improving things in the future, rather than mucking around in the mechanics and making it more confrontational at the voting sites and trying to suppress the vote.

Ayyyyymen.

Your Modern Democracy

Here we go again:

Col. Davis, according to his Howard University bio, is a prominent human rights lawyer, retired Air Force colonel, and former Gitmo chief prosecutor. His resume is pretty impressive. Pretty sure he knows how to work a voting machine.

We can send a man to the moon but we can’t operate an election. But yes, let’s create a Voter ID requirement so complicated that thousands of women are disenfranchised and even the former speaker of the United States House of Representatives can’t get an ID. (For the record, I know Virginia and Texas are not the same, but Virginia’s Voter ID law goes into effect in 2014, just FYI.)

Remember to vote today, folks. And after you vote, check your vote. Then double-check it. Because when Republicans are in charge of your state government, nothing functions, not even the most fundamental element of our democracy.

Hacking The Vote… AGAIN

You know, if this were happening in a Third World country, we’d all nod our heads knowingly and just marvel that anyone thought they could get away with it, or that the public would stand for it. If this were the 1970s USSR, we’d all know the score.

But no, this is America, and questioning why former Bain Capital executives and Romney bundlers would own an e-voting machine company actually being used in this election is simply not done.

But please, let’s talk about Voter ID some more.

I love Forbes magazine’s “liberal columnist” Rick Ungar’s take on this, too:

Hopefully, everything will go swimmingly in Cincinnati on Election Day. And, if it doesn’t, it will no doubt be the result of honest error.

Oh, no doubt.

Really, guys. You couldn’t find anything else to invest in? You couldn’t donate all those hundreds of thousands to charity rather than put it into political contributions so that your fellow countrymen would have no reason to ever doubt or question the results of so important an election—or any election for that matter, even if it’s the choice of a county dogcatcher?

Really, Forbes? You need to ask the question? Wake up and smell the coffee.

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