Winning the Zombie Vote

How states are rigging the 2012 election

By E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: June 19

An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot.

Are they making the slot in the ballotbox narrower? Those dastardly rogues!

If this were happening in an emerging democracy, we’d condemn it as election-rigging.

We wouldn’t, but you might. Then again, requiring a state-issued ID in the United States, where we have watermarks and magnetic strips, is somewhat different from requiring a state-issued ID in Afghanistan, where the most advanced piece of technology not belonging to the US military is a rock.

But it’s happening here, so there’s barely a whimper.

And yet, I keep hearing about how requiring a state-issued ID to vote is tantamount to lynching black people.

The laws are being passed in the name of preventing “voter fraud.” But study after study has shown that fraud by voters is not a major problem

Considering the scale of the fraud of the ACORN registration scandal (and that’s just the one we know about) and the decades-old Chicago tradition of winning the cemetery vote, voter fraud is a major problem.

Worse, though, is that by implying that voter fraud is unimportant, Dionne allows an insidious misconception to fester. The very notion of the one person one vote principle that is foundational to our Republic. Certainly fraud is likely to occur in major elections with a lot at stake That doesn’t mean that the integrity of the election should be sacrificed to convenience for those too lazy or shortsighted to get to the correct poll on the correct day.

 — and is less of a problem than how hard many states make it for people to vote in the first place.

I don’t have an issue with voting being a process that requires more foresight than a whim. Do you?

Some of the new laws, notably those limiting the number of days for early voting, have little plausible connection to battling fraud.

Funny, I missed how big of an issue early voting was in those “emerging democracies.” After all, Iraq can’t possibly have democratic institutions if Kurds and Shiites don’t have the opportunity to vote for two months leading up to the election?

These statutes are not neutral. Their greatest impact will be to reduce turnout among African Americans, Latinos and the young.

All of these constituencies have access to the ballot box. All of these constituencies have access to identification cards. It’s sad that the left decides to deride these constituencies by implying that they’re too inept or apathetic to bring a valid ID card to the right polling place on the right day. It’s more sad that, statistically, these constituencies prove them right.

It is no accident that these groups were key to Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 — or that the laws in question are being enacted in states where Republicans control state governments.

Democrats were reluctant to take on voter fraud that favored Democrats? Impossible!

Again, think of what this would look like to a dispassionate observer.

It would look like a sane government is moving to protect the sanctity of their elections.

A party wins an election, as the GOP did in 2010. Then it changes the election laws in ways that benefit itself.

Um…should the party that lost the election change the election laws? Would that soothe your conscience? If so, we’ll make those laws retroactive to 2008.

In a democracy, the electorate is supposed to pick the politicians.

Civics 101: in a democracy, the electorate is supposed to vote on laws. In a Republic, the electorate picks the politicians to make and enforce the laws.

With these laws, politicians are shaping their electorates.

So it’s kind of like congressional redistricting?

Paradoxically, the rank partisanship of these measures is discouraging the media from reporting plainly on what’s going on.

A member of a left-wing biased media is chiding that very same biased media in the belief that its fictitious impartiality is in fact, a right-wing bias. And to top it all off, he calls it a paradox. Brilliant.  

Voter suppression so clearly benefits the Republicans that the media typically report this through a partisan lens, knowing that accounts making clear whom these laws disenfranchise would be labeled as biased by the right.

This is some of the worst writing I’ve seen out of EJ Dionne in quite a while. It’s also some staggeringly scatterbrained reasoning. The advantage of “voter suppression” is so manifestly obvious that the media refuses to report on that advantage for fear of a right-wing base that already trumpets the media’s [manifestly obvious] anticonservative bias? Isn’t it more likely that the early voting requirements in Florida just don’t make an interesting story?

But the media should not fear telling the truth

Right, because conservatives have a history of bullying the media. Feel free to tell that to Sarah Palin in between the barbed jabs coming from MSNBC.

or standing up for the rights of the poor or the young.

The god-given right to vote five weeks before election day from the wrong polling place without an ID, damn it, because I’ve got some serious Madden to play on election day. After all, that’s why we fought the Civil War!!!

The laws in question include requiring voter identification cards at the polls,

In other words, voting requirements will be only slightly more stringent than those to enter a Costco.

limiting the time of early voting,

To put this in perspective, early voting still lasts longer than the never-ending Weiner sexting scandal.

ending same-day registration

Now what would liberals say if conservatives pushed same-day registration for gun ownership?

and making it difficult for groups to register new voters.

Groups like the thoroughly disgraced ACORN, and new voters like dead people and foreign citizens. (It’s the Chicago Way. Actually as Sean Connery says, pulling a gun when they pull a knife is the Chicago Way, but this is the second Chicago Way.)

It’s worth noting that Dionne has presented a five paragraph jeremiad plying the fear of racism, election tampering, and conservative media bias (I know, it’s a laugher, but try to stay with me) before even mentioning what these proposed laws entail.

Sometimes the partisan motivation is so clear that if Stephen Colbert reported on what’s transpiring, his audience would assume he was making it up.

Oh you and your pop culture references from 2007! Adorable! Oh wait. He’s still on the air? Shit.

In Texas, for example, the law allows concealed handgun licenses as identification but not student IDs.

Let’s see:

Conceal handgun license recipients are subject to an extensive background check and put through onerous state regulations. Student IDs—the ones that aren’t being given to illegal immigrants and other non-citizens—are regularly doctored by sure-handed punks with Exacto knives hoping to score a six pack at the local Circle K. (Good times from my youth…*Sigh* I really thought I could turn 1986 into 1981. Live and learn, I guess.)

And guess what? Nationwide exit polls show that John McCain carried households in which someone owned a gun by 25 percentage points but lost voters in households without a gun by 32 points.

Republicans would win a militia-off. Doesn’t change the fact that a concealed carry license is a very good form of identification, whereas a student ID is not.

Besides Texas, states that enacted voter ID laws this year include Kansas, Wisconsin, South Carolina and Tennessee. Indiana and Georgia already had such requirements. The Maine Legislature voted to end same-day voter registration.

So 5 reliablly red states and two reliably blue states changed their election laws? This isn’t exactly blowing my skirt up, fellas.

Florida seems determined to go back to the chaos of the 2000 election.

You mean it’s going back to the butterfly ballot?

It shortened the early voting period, effectively ended the ability of registered voters to correct their address at the polls and imposed onerous restrictions on organized voter-registration drives.

All of which had precisely nothing to do with the chaos of the 2000 election, which was primarily an issue because Democrats are too dumb to vote properly.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, by 6 to 3, upheld Indiana’s voter ID statute. So seeking judicial relief may be difficult. Nonetheless, the Justice Department should vigorously challenge these laws, particularly in states covered by the Voting Rights Act.

I’m not a legal expert, but I’m pretty sure once something is upheld or struck down by the Supreme Court, it’s considered “settled law.”—“precedent” even! Calling for the Justice Department to continue raising nonsensical suits on something that is settled from a legal standpoint is not only foolish and petty, but it clogs up the courts with nuisance suits. And if the argument is that voting requirements—whether they be showing identification or shortening the time the polls are open—deter the democratic process by placing roadblocks in the way of a vital governmental process, shouldn’t frivolous suits from the justice department against the states be equally scorned? After all, these suits impugn the ability of the state legal team to do the people’s work, undermine the self-determination of the states and cost a hell of a lot of money.

And the court should be asked to review the issue again in light of new evidence that these laws have a real impact in restricting the rights of particular voter groups.

Sure. Let’s all pay a hell of a lot more lawyers to file more stupid suits.

“This requirement is just a poll tax by another name,” state Sen. Wendy Davis declared when Texas was debating its ID law early this year.

We name things to impart meaning. Poll taxes were detrimental because they necessarily excluded a certain segment of society. ID requirements don’t fit that bill at all. I have to provide more identification to watch an R-rated movie than these bills are requiring to vote.

In the bad old days, poll taxes, now outlawed by the 24th Amendment, were used to keep African Americans from voting.

Thanks for the history lesson, doc.

Even if the Supreme Court didn’t see things her way, Davis is right. This is the civil rights issue of our moment.

I thought that was gay marriage.

No wait, it was electing the first black president.

No wait, the civil rights issue of our moment is global warming.

Or some nonsense about circumcision that always reminds me of Arrested Development.

The civil rights cause has some pretty terrible heirs.

In part because of a surge of voters who had not cast ballots before, the United States elected its first African American president in 2008.

Read: uninformed dolts.

Are we now going to witness a subtle return of Jim Crow voting laws?

Subtle bigotry. The kind that’s so subtle you can’t even see! Boy those conservatives are nefarious.

Whether or not these laws can be rolled back,

They can, but not through the courts.

their existence should unleash a great civic campaign akin to the voter-registration drives of the civil rights years.

You can’t relive the glory days just because you think it would be groovy. The two are not related in any way, shape, matter, or form.

The poor, the young and people of color should get their IDs, flock to the polls and insist on their right to vote in 2012.

Wait wait wait. People should flock to the polls…which open in 2012…to insist on their right to vote…which, by virtue of them being at the polls has been granted…

Can you really vote yourself the right to vote?

If voter suppression is to occur, let it happen for all to see. The whole world, which watched us with admiration and respect in 2008,

And then quickly shifted their attention to developing nuclear programs.

will be watching again.

Christ. He didn’t just nationalize a state issue. He internationalized it. Simply breathtaking.