General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDisenfranchisement needs to become a criminal offense.
You are taking from someone something of value without their permission when you make it inordinately difficult or impossible to exercise their right to vote.
Every single politician gives lip service to the idea that voting is one of the most valuable things any American has. Then right wing politicians turn around and put enormous effort into denying, infringing and harassing, virtually outlawing voters whom they dont think will vote for them.
They lie, obfuscate and physically block voters, especially poor and minority voters from the polls. They do this by making the rules to vote so onerous that they cant be met by the average voter who the republicans wish to harass, or they make getting to a polling place all most impossible for most of these voters. Witness Dodge city Kansas where the only polling place was moved Out of the city so that voters had no opportunity to get to the polling place. A judge agreed that this was wrong, but oh well...to late to do anything about it because...well...confusion ya know.
Enough is enough, there is no voter fraud going on. Period. There are no prisons filled with fraudulent voters. Period. There are no hoards of illegal voters running amok. Period.
There is election fraud, encouraged by republicans and their sycophants, voter intimidation, obfuscation, obstruction, lies and physical attacks. All against democrats and their supporters.
Its time to end this now. All national offices must be controlled by federal law when it comes to voter ID. Period. Any attempt by a politician or other official to prevent voters from exercising their right to vote must be met with swift criminal charges, felony charges.
Disenfranchisement = Fucking With Our Elections = Absolutely Should Be A Crime.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,909 posts)flor-de-jasmim
(2,128 posts)jcmaine72
(1,773 posts)Mandatory 20 year sentence in a federal prison at least.
diva77
(7,696 posts)behalf of citizens, but it turns out that the AG will just defend the elections official(s) - at least that was what we were told at the time a few years ago. If citizens want to do anything about it, they have to hire their own lawyers and then, ironically, their tax dollars pay to defend the accused.
moondust
(20,042 posts)Qutzupalotl
(14,359 posts)States control elections. Thats baked into the system. A federal approach is not the way to go here. Rather, we should take a page from ALECs playbook and introduce model legislation for these reforms in all 50 states.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)that it's not possible for state controlled elections to be governed by a federal law on this issue? We used to have the voting rights act.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Ilsa
(61,721 posts)NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)It was enacted exactly to prevent the voter suppression attempts we're seeing now. Yes, I agree it should be criminal, but while we had the VRA we didn't see this kind of wholesale disenfranchisement.
alwaysinasnit
(5,088 posts)mountain grammy
(26,693 posts)Shrike47
(6,913 posts)And felony charges for intentionally denying right to vote.
I'm no Constitutional scholar but I've been saying this for years. The GOP has usurped our rights for long enough. Too many states are playing along when it suits them.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Further, punishment should be proportional to responsibility of position and/or egregiousness of interference. The grave misuse of power of someone like Secretary of State Brian Kemp in Georgia should call for decades in prison.
TheBlackAdder
(28,277 posts)uponit7771
(90,379 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)Several hundred million dollar judgements against the Republican Party will get their attention
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