The Republican War on Democrats

I heard someone on the radio today talking about the Republicans focused efforts over the course of decades to minimize/eliminate the Democratic Party’s voting base.

Now we have Voter ID

And

Historically, the person on the radio suggested, that the “War on Crime” has an intentional and disproportionate impact on those that would vote Democratic.

So I thought I’d take a quick look – if nothing else to get people to think about it.

Be honest – how many of you ever even thought to connect this with eliminating the right to vote for many.

A couple of years ago – I might have thought this was tinfoil hat stuff – but not so much anymore.

Something to think about.

Felon voting has not been regulated federally although some argue that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can be applied to felon disenfranchisement and that Congress has the authority to legislate felon voting in federal elections.

In addition, 10 states restrict some people with a misdemeanor conviction from voting.

ProCon.org

Between 1980 and 1989, 

         drug arrests in the United States increased 134 percent,

while the number of total arrests increased only   37 percent.

State correctional authorities had jurisdiction over 1,402,624 prisoners at year end 2010,

The federal prison population reached 209,771 prisoners at year end 2010,

August 21, 2012 (Salon.com)

Felony Disenfranchisment is Voter ID’s “Evil Twin”

Eric Nielson writes that since 2010, 11 states have passed laws that make it more difficult to vote, but that just as bad, especially for minority voters, are laws disenfranchising people who have served time for felonies.

Citing a report from The Sentencing Project, Nelson refers to the 5.85 million people who are now barred from voting because of a felony conviction, about 2.5 percent of the total population, some for life, with “ a vastly disproportionate impact on African-Americans.”

Read the whole report  >>>>HERE<<<<<

C'mon - how many people are we talking here???

Really????  A lot, a little, how many????

 

If we use current or former imprisonment as the criterion for class membership, we estimate its size at approximately 7.7 million people at year-end 2010. By our estimates, about 3.4 percent of the adult voting age population have once served or are currently serving time in a state or federal prison.

If we adopt a more inclusive definition of the criminal class, including all convicted of a felony regardless of imprisonment, these numbers increase to 19.8 million persons, representing 8.6 percent of the adult population and approximately one-third of the African American adult male population. Any group of this size will have profound and far-reaching social, political, and demographic consequences. Because the felon population is drawn so heavily from the most disadvantaged groups in American society, however, understanding this group’s historical growth and current size is vitally important for understanding and addressing U.S. social inequalities.

So – if you were to believe what that person purported on the radio – eventually – if the Repugs have their way, there will be no one but Republicans allowed to vote.

Which it seems – by the way – appears to be Karl Roves wet dream.

There’s always been this talk of a permanent Republican majority that Rove is trying to forge, and he sees it, the nation, as being entirely Republican. And, in fact, I think that’s Rove’s line, and I don’t buy it.

He faces, and the Republican Party faces, an extraordinary challenge in the—with the Hispanic boom. There are now 50 million Hispanics in the United States. In 2020, at the current rate of growth, there will be 70 million. If they start to vote, they tend to lean heavily Democratic, and you will start to see states like Texas and Arizona flip from red to blue. And Rove is trying to stop that.  And one campaign he’s supported is what is known as a campaign fighting voter fraud.