Froth Slosh B'Gosh

Still Unconstitutional

Pennsylvania's odious Voter ID law struck down.  Again.

Governor-Bought-And-Paid-For can appeal to the PA Supreme Court, but I strongly suspect that the attempt to disenfranchise voters via photo identification laws is quite dead.  For now.

Voter ID Law Struck Down

What I expected.  Frankly, ever since the 2012 election, it seems the Corbett administration has shown little interest its little voter-supression effort.

A Commonwealth Court judge on Friday ruled the Pennsylvania voter ID law  violates the state constitution by imposing an unreasonable burden on voters,  dealing the controversial requirement its most serious blow in nearly two years  of litigation.

Judge Suspends PA's Voter Supression Law....Again

I wont be surprised by a permanent injunction at this point.

Pennsylvania voters will not be required to produce identification to cast ballots in November.

A Commonwealth Court judge has barred enforcement of the state's 2012 voter ID law until he makes a final determination in the case challenging the legislation.

In his ruling Friday, Judge Bernard McGinley said while poll workers asking for ID was not itself disenfranchisement, a hardship was created for voters by the state's misleading or nonexistent information on the new law's requirements.

Of course, misleading an innnacurate information is a feature, not a bug, when the intent is to try and keep as many people as possible from voting.

VOTER FRAUD!!!

And once again, its the GOP that perpetrated it.  From The Brad Blog:

With these 300 fraudulent votes created by one Republican candidate alone, that's 300 more fraudulent votes than have ever been created by ACORN or anybody who has ever worked for them.

But, of course, you're unlikely to hear that, or even this story itself, from the tenacious Fox "News" "voter fraud special investigative unit" or the GOP clowns who help them disinform American voters.

As I've noted before, photo ID laws do nothing to prevent this kind of fraud.  As I've noted before, impersonating another person at the polls is so incredibly rare, and so easily detected, trying to stamp it out by disenfranchising thousands of legitimate voters is a fool's errand.  And as I've also noted before, if a Republican is complaining about something, you can bet that he or she is neck deep in the activity at the root of the complaint, be it voter fraud, teh gays, or whatever.

UPDATE:  I still cannot post in comments but Lefty points us to a similar story recently adjudicated in Ohio involving a Democratic poll worker that I was unaware of.  The point is, of course, that voter fraud simply doesn't occur in person, when it happens it is by manipulation of the process by insiders, usually via absentee ballot abuse.  Voter ID laws do not, and in fact the cannot, address those problems.  So again, what is the point other than an attempt to supress turnout?

 

PA GOP Boss Admits Voter ID Suppressed Democratic Turnout

ACORN!!

Only it isn't Acorn, it is, once again, a Republican. 

A Martinsville man pleaded guilty in Augusta County Circuit Court Tuesday to fraudulently putting voter signatures on petitions to get former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on the Virginia Republican presidential primary ballot last year.

Adam Dustin Ward, 28, of Martinsville, pleaded guilty to 36 counts of voter fraud and foregery, according to a report by NBC 29.

Ward collected thousands of signatures with similar handwriting with addresses that could not be confirmed.

I've come to the conclusion that because Republicans commit so much voter fraud and voter suppression, they just cannot comprehend that Democrats aren't doing the same.  As I've often typed, if Republicans accuse Democrats of doing something wrong, you can bet that they're doing exactly what they're charging Democrats with, only 100 times worse.

Unconstitutional?

I've always thought that Pennsylvania's Voter ID law was blatantly unconstitutional, and its looking like the Commonwealth's Attorney General might think so as well.

"We're talking a lot about the role of the attorney general versus the role of  also protecting the constitution," she said. "Sometimes, as you know, there is a  parallel proceeding. In my view, the constitution always wins."

Its not incumbent upon me to prove that I'm a citizen, the burden is on the state to prove that I'm not.

 

 

Voter ID Delayed Again

Some good news.  PA citizens will not be required to present their "papers" for the spring primary.  The case challenging the voter suppression law will be heard on July 15th, but so far, I haven't seen or heard of anything the Corbett administration or the Republican controlled legislature has done to address the court's issues with the law.

I'm starting to get the impression that perhaps the administration just wants this to whole matter to go away now that the presidential election is over, and they don't want it to be another "everybody hates Tom" issue for the 2014 gubernatorial race.

Rigging The 2016 Election

After using underhanded tactics to alter senate bounderies to favor themselves, Virginia is now considering doing away with its winner take all electoral vote allocation for one which, if it had been in place for the 2012 election, would have awarded Romney nine of Virginia's 13 EV's, and President Obama only four, despite Obama carrying the state.  The "reasoning" given behind the move is breathtakingly dishonest. 

Sen. Charles W. “Bill” Carrico, R-Grayson, said the change is necessary because Virginia’s populous, urbanized areas such as the Washington, D.C., suburbs and Hampton Roads can outvote rural regions such as his, rendering their will irrelevant.

So much for one person, one vote, eh? Obama won Virginia by three percentage points, but under this scheme, the will of the majority of the state's voters will be rendered irrelevant.   As I asked before, if "proportional" EV allocation is such a good idea, why aren't deep red states like Texas considering it?

Just Change The Rules!

Pennsylvania Republicans introduce Calvinball legislation.

Under their bill, the winner of Pennsylvania as a whole will receive only 2 of the state’s 20 electoral votes, while “[e]ach of the remaining presidential electors shall be elected in the presidential elector’s congressional district.”

Pennsylvania is a blue state that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every single presidential race for the last two decades, so implementing the GOP election-rigging plan in Pennsylvania would make it much harder for a Democrat to be elected to the White House. Moreover, because of gerrymandering, it is overwhelmingly likely that the Republican candidate will win a majority of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes even if the Democrat wins the state by a very comfortable margin.

Just rig the election, and its all perfectly legal.  If its so important to make sure the electoral college vote is distributed on a proportional basis, then why aren't republicans in Texas introducing similar legislation?