For Once, North Carolina Counts!

The three registered Democrats in my household (minus Independent but not yet registered grandson who just turned 18) all voted yesterday in the basement of the First Baptist Church. Where the precinct polling place was moved 6 years ago when the train station was being refurbished (for passenger service that never materialized), and has not moved back. We took to absentee and early voting after only one trip to the Baptist basement, given that I resented the Noah’s Ark mural looking over my shoulder, the many (obviously new and for the purpose) posters reminding us of what Jesus would think and do, and absolutely hated those awful, notorious Diebold Etch-a-Sketches that threw 2004’s state races into such turmoil that Diebold was shown the border and told NEVER to return. Criminals.

They did paint over the Noah mural, and we went back to paper ballots. In a town with just two precincts and a total population of 738, it’s just not that hard to count votes. Filling in a little circle like we did in school, with a nice black Sharpee ensures me that nobody’s going to misinterpret my intent. No chads to hang, no programming to hack, just a nice black mark right there next to the name of the person I’m voting for. Cool.

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Filed under Party Primaries, Voting Rights, Barack Obama, Campaigns, Hillary Clinton, Presidential Candidates | Comment (0)

The New and Improved Poll Tax

The US Supreme Court ruled on April 28th that voter ID laws are constitutional despite the fact that they disenfranchise at least 11 million eligible voters, expand restrictions on felony voting to millions of people who have unpaid parking tickets or minor moving violations that haven’t been taken care of, or have lost their auto insurance for some reason. It also amounts to an onerous poll tax for millions more Americans whose crime is simply being poor, elderly or disabled.

The justices split on the decision along entirely political lines, not surprising because these laws that require voters to produce a photo ID with a future expiration date primarily affect traditional Democratic Party voters. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion, citing the usual Republican fear of voter fraud as the state interest. Yet according to a survey by the Center for Policy Alternatives, voter fraud is extremely rare. From 2002 to 2005, an Ohio survey showed a total of 52 people convicted of any type of voter fraud, while just a tad less than 200,000,000 votes were cast in general elections by Ohio voters.

That’s half of one ten-thousandth of 1 percent. This is not a big issue.

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Filed under Voting Rights, Constitution, Analysis, Government Lawsuits, Corruption, Republicans | Comment (0)