Voter Suppression – immigrationcourtside.com

GONZO’S WORLD: ATTACK ON U.S. CENSUS LATEST FRONT IN GONZO’S WAR ON AMERICAN DEMOCRACY!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-justice-department-pushes-for-citizenship-question-on-census-alarming-experts_us_5a46fc79e4b0b0e5a7a68d3d

Justin Elliott reports for HuffPost:

“The Justice Department is pushing for a question on citizenship to be added to the 2020 census, a move that observers say could depress participation by immigrants who fear that the government could use the information against them. That, in turn, could have potentially large ripple effects for everything the once-a-decade census determines — from how congressional seats are distributed around the country to where hundreds of billions of federal dollars are spent.
The DOJ made the request in a previously unreported letter, dated Dec. 12 and obtained by ProPublica, from DOJ official Arthur Gary to the top official at the Census Bureau, which is part of the Commerce Department. The letter argues that the DOJ needs better citizenship data to better enforce the Voting Rights Act “and its important protections against racial discrimination in voting.”
A Census Bureau spokesperson confirmed the agency received the letter and said the “request will go through the well-established process that any potential question would go through.” The DOJ declined to comment and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Observers said they feared adding a citizenship question would not only lower response rates, but also make the census more expensive and throw a wrench into the system with just two years to go before the 2020 count. Questions are usually carefully field-tested, a process that can take years.
“This is a recipe for sabotaging the census,” said Arturo Vargas, a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Census and the executive director of NALEO Educational Fund, a Latino advocacy group. “When you start adding last-minute questions that are not tested — how will the public understand the question? How much will it suppress response rates?”
The 2010 census included a handful of questions covering age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, household relationship and owner/renter status — but not citizenship.
“People are not going to come out to be counted because they’re going to be fearful the information would be used for negative purposes,” said Steve Jost, a former top bureau official during the 2010 census. “This line about enforcing voting rights is a new and scary twist.” He noted that since the first census in 1790, the goal has been to count everyone in the country, not just citizens.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

Under the law and Supreme Court precedents, census data is used to draw Congeessional districts. Indeed, quite contrary to the way the GOP operates, Reprsentatives are supposed to represent the interests of all of the residents of their district, not just “voters” or “GOP voters.”

The DOJ’s bogus request to add a citizenship question is a rather transparent attempt to reduce Hispanic political power, in line with the overall White Nationalist anti-democracy direction the party is moving under Trump.

PWS

12-30-17m

WASHINGTON POST: VOTING RIGHTS ARE THE CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE OF OUR AGE — AS USUAL, JEFF SESSIONS IS SQUARELY ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/voter-suppression-is-the-civil-rights-issue-of-this-era/2017/08/19/926c8b58-81f3-11e7-902a-2a9f2d808496_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.1bfaa722c738

“Yet even if all 1,500 Confederate symbols across the country were removed overnight by some sudden supernatural force, the pernicious crusade to roll back voting rights would continue apace, with voters of color suffering its effects disproportionately. Pushing back hard against those who would purge voter rolls, demand forms of voter ID that many Americans don’t possess, and limit times and venues for voting — this should be a paramount cause for the Trump era.

In statehouse after statehouse where Republicans hold majorities, the playbook is well established, and the tactics are becoming increasingly aggressive.

Mr. Trump’s voter fraud commission is at the vanguard of this crusade, and the fix is in. Its vice chairman, Kris Kobach, is the nation’s most determined, litigious and resourceful champion of voter suppression. Under his tutelage, the commission is likely to recommend measures whose effect will be that new obstacles to voting would be taken up in state legislatures. Millions of voters are at risk of disenfranchisement from this effort, and the knock-on effects of such a mass act of disempowerment are dizzying.

The events in Charlottesville and the president’s apologia for the right-wing extremists there should mobilize anyone passionate about civil rights. There would be no better target for their energies than the clear and present danger to the most fundamental right in any democracy: the vote.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

Sessions and his Civil Rights Division are supposed to be out there defending the right of citizens, particularly minorities, to vote. Instead, he has thrown the weight of the Justice Department to those GOP hacks seeking to suppress the vote. Meanwhile the Civil Rights Division is thinking of perverse ways to abuse Civil Rights laws by using them to promote white privilege and white supremacy.

Sen. Liz Warren was silenced by McConnell when she told the truth about Sessions’s continuing racism. She was right.

PWS

08-20-17

“LACKS CREDIBILITY” — That’s A Federal Judge’s Verdict On KRIS KOBACH, The White Nationalist Kansas Elected Official Leading The Trump-Pence Voter Suppression Effort!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kris-kobach-sanctions_us_595d4d60e4b0d5b458e7ce73

Sam Levine reports in HuffPost:

“In a Wednesday ruling, [Judge James P.] O’Hara denied Kobach’s request for a motion for reconsideration because he was introducing new arguments he hadn’t used before.

“Significantly, defendant never represented, as he does now, that his misstatements were the result of editing errors. The court declines to grant reconsideration based on this explanation ‘that could have been raised in prior briefing.’ In any event, this new excuse lacks credibility based on its late assertion (which appears to be an attempt at a second bite at the apple) and lack of supporting documentation,” O’Hara wrote.

Kobach is the vice chair of a commission that Trump convened to investigate elections. He is also running for governor of Kansas.”

[emphasis added]

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Read the complete article and a copy of Magistrate Judge O’Hara’s order at the link.

It’s no wonder that 44 states, including a number of so-called “Red States,” are declining Kobach’s request for information, in whole or in part, in connection with a bogus commission (and taxpayer financed boondoggle) to investigate what all credible experts and prior studies have shown to be a non-problem. Read the latest article from the Washington Post below:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/trump-voter-commission-discloses-names-of-members-plan-to-store-data-at-white-house/2017/07/06/74e454ae-625d-11e7-84a1-a26b75ad39fe_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_voterdata-650pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.644cd6cad0db

Kobach’s career marked by consistent xenophobia, white nationalism, and the squandering of public resources speaks for itself.

Oh, and another thing: Judge O’Hara’s finding that Kobach’s motion to reconsider “lacks credibility” was issued in connection with a previous order sanctioning Kobach for unethical conduct. http://immigrationcourtside.com/2017/07/02/smelling-a-rat-named-kobach-many-states-decline-to-provide-voter-info-to-bogus-trump-commission-looking-for-voter-fraud-gops-well-known-voter-suppression-efforts-turn-off-many/

You can’t make this stuff up, folks!

PWS

07-06-17

JUSTICE WATCH: Experts See Sessions’s DOJ Joining Efforts At Voter Suppression!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/department-of-justice-voter-purge_us_595d22b1e4b0da2c7326c38b?1g9&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Sam Levine writes in HuffPost:

Former Department of Justice officials and voting advocates are seriously alarmed over a DOJ letter sent to states last week that they say could signal a forthcoming effort to kick people off voter rolls. This comes as national attention focuses on several states blocking a request for voter information from President Donald Trump’s commission to investigate voting fraud, which does occur, but is not a widespread problem.

The DOJ sent the letter to 44 states last Wednesday, the same day the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity sent a letter controversially requesting personal voter information. The DOJ letter requests that election officials respond by detailing their compliance with a section of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which covers 44 states and was enacted to help people register to vote, but also specifies when voters may be kicked off the rolls.

Several experts said it’s difficult not to see the DOJ letter in connection with the commission’s letter as part of a multipronged effort to restrict voting rights.

Former Justice Department officials say that while there’s nothing notable about seeking information about compliance with the NVRA, it is unusual for the department to send out such a broad inquiry to so many states seeking information. Such a wide probe could signal the department is broadly fishing for cases of non-compliance to bring suits aimed at purging the voter rolls.

“These two letters, sent on the same day, are highly suspect, and seem to confirm that the Trump administration is laying the groundwork to suppress the right to vote,” said Vanita Gupta, the CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and former head of DOJ’s civil rights division under President Barack Obama. “It is not normal for the Department of Justice to ask for voting data from all states covered by the National Voter Registration Act. It’s likely that this is instead the beginning of an effort to force unwarranted voter purges.”

These two letters, sent on the same day, are highly suspect, and seem to confirm that the Trump administration is laying the groundwork to suppress the right to vote.Vanita Gupta, head of DOJ’s civil rights division under President Barack Obama.

“If this went to any individual states, I don’t think anybody would’ve blinked twice,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division in the Obama administration. The letter asked for public information that was uncontroversial, he added, but what made the letter “really weird” was that it was sent out to so many states.

“The Department of Justice does investigations all the time, but those are usually based on individualized predicates to believe that there’s a problem in a given area, in a given jurisdiction. And I’m not aware of a similar letter being sent to blanket jurisdictions across the country,” he said.”

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Read the complete article at the link. The concept that “Gonzo Apocalypto” would protect anybody’s voting rights except those of white GOP leaning voters is borderline absurd. Deconstructing (and perverting) the American justice system one gonzo decision at a time.

PWS

07-056-17

SMELLING A RAT (NAMED KOBACH), MANY STATES DECLINE TO PROVIDE VOTER INFO TO BOGUS TRUMP COMMISSION LOOKING FOR VOTER FRAUD — GOP’S WELL-KNOWN VOTER SUPPRESSION EFFORTS TURN OFF MANY!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trumps-voting-commission-asked-states-to-hand-over-election-data-theyre-pushing-back/2017/06/30/cd8f812a-5dce-11e7-9b7d-14576dc0f39d_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_voterintegrity-625pm:homepage/story&utm_term=.5cd2f8de9d8d

The Washington Post reports:

“President Trump’s voting commission stumbled into public view this week, issuing a sweeping request for nationwide voter data that drew sharp condemnation from election experts and resistance from more than two dozen states that said they cannot or will not hand over all of the data.

The immediate backlash marked the first significant attention to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity since Trump started it last month and followed through on a vow to pursue his own unsubstantiated claims that voter fraud is rampant and cost him the popular vote in the presidential election. The White House has said the commission will embark upon a “thorough review of registration and voting issues in federal elections,” but experts and voting rights advocates have pilloried Trump for his claims of widespread fraud, which studies and state officials alike have not found. They say that they fear the commission will be used to restrict voting.

Those worries intensified this week after the commission sent letters to 50 states and the District on Wednesday asking for a trove of information, including names, dates of birth, voting histories and, if possible, party identifications. The letters also asked for evidence of voter fraud, convictions for election-related crimes and recommendations for preventing voter intimidation — all within 16 days.

[Trump’s voter-fraud commission wants to know voting history, party ID and address of every voter in the U.S.]

While the Trump administration has said it is just requesting public information, the letters met with swift — and sometimes defiant — rejection. By Friday, 25 states were partially or entirely refusing to provide the requested information; some said state laws prohibit releasing certain details about voters, while others refused to provide any information because of the commission’s makeup and backstory.

President Trump signed an executive order on May 11, initiating an investigation into voter suppression and election fraud. Here’s what we know so far. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

“This entire commission is based on the specious and false notion that there was widespread voter fraud last November,” Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) said in a statement. “At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump’s alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression.”

California, a state Trump singled out for “serious voter fraud,” also refused to participate. Alex Padilla, the California secretary of state, said providing data “would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud.”

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Read the complete article at the link.

Gee whiz, why would anyone think that a Commission led by notorious white nationalist, racist, xenophobe Kris Kobach, in behalf of the GOP, which has been on the forefront of voter suppression efforts, formed because The Donald can’t face the fact that Hillary was more popular than he was, would have any ulterior motives up its sleeve! Oh yeah, and did I mention that Kobach recently was sanctioned by a Federal Judge for unethical behavior? See http://immigrationcourtside.com/2017/06/24/federal-judge-sanctions-kobach-for-misconduct-in-ks-voting-rights-case/

Just one more way the Trump Administration wastes taxpayer money while attacking American democracy.

PWS

07-02-17

NYT: Meet The White Nativist, Anti-Democracy Politician Kris Kobach — If You’re Non-White, He’s Out To Restrict Or Eliminate Your Right To Shape America’s Future — “implementing policies that protect the interests and aims of a shrinking white majority.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/magazine/the-man-behind-trumps-voter-fraud-obsession.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Trending&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article

Read Ari Berman’s shocking profile of a minor politician who wields outsized influence within the GOP and is out to put a “White’s Only” sign on the American Dream. For Kobach, the “Jim Crow Era” was the glory day of the “rule of law” in the U.S. When Kobach talks about the “rule of law” it’s code for using the legal system to cement the rule of a disproportionately white GOP minority over the rest of us, and particularly Americans of color. Will the “sleeping majority” wake up before we’re all disenfranchised by this racist in a suit hiding behind his Yale law degree and ability to spin legal gobbledygook? Kobach isn’t just “the ACLU’s worst nightmare,” as he smugly touts himself. He’s American Democracy’s worst nightmare!

Here’s a sample of what Kobach has in store for the rest of us:

“Kobach’s plans represent a radical reordering of American priorities. They would help preserve Republican majorities. But they could also reduce the size and influence of the country’s nonwhite population. For years, Republicans have used racially coded appeals to white voters as a means to win elections. Kobach has inverted the priorities, using elections, and advocating voting restrictions that make it easier for Republicans to win them, as the vehicle for implementing policies that protect the interests and aims of a shrinking white majority. This has made him one of the leading intellectual architects of a new nativist movement that is rapidly gaining influence not just in the United States but across the globe.”

Read Berman’s lengthy article, and think about what YOU can do to put the kibosh on the plans of this self-proclaimed “fanatic” and his dream of turning America into a “White GOP Folks Only Club.” Even Republicans who might remember enough to know that the GOP in the far, far distant past was the “Party of Lincoln” might want to rethink their party’s support of and association with this dangerous extremist. Act before it’s too late and Kobach steals YOUR American Dream and turns it into a nightmare!

PWS

06-13-17

WashPost: Courtland Milloy Lays Bare Sessions’s White Nationalist Agenda!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-virginia-politician-calls-for-hate-to-leave-his-hometown-easier-said-than-done/2017/05/16/0ca5dc3a-3a55-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.39c1a4b01e14

Milloy writes in an op-ed:

“Here’s what white supremacy really looks like:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions gearing up for another “war on crime.” But first, he has to manufacture enough fear of people of color. He recently tried by declaring, falsely, that New York “continues to see gang murder after gang murder, the predictable consequence of the city’s ‘soft on crime’ stance.”

Sessions threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal grants from the city’s police department if the city didn’t start turning in undocumented immigrants to federal authorities.

[Sessions issues sweeping new criminal charging policy ]

In other words, if New York doesn’t have a crime problem now, Sessions would cut police funding until it did have one.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, citing the city’s low crime rate, called Sessions’s remarks “outrageous” and “pitiful.” Sessions later conceded that New York police had created “some of the best” techniques for fighting crime.

But that’s not the end of it.

Under the Trump administration, local police departments are slated to get more powerful weaponry and expanded powers to use them. Corporate prison complexes could see an increase in profits if Sessions’s push to bring back mandatory minimum sentences moves forward. Rural communities in majority white areas will get new prisons — along with jobs overseeing a veritable plantation of mostly black and Hispanic inmates.
The judiciary is a key component in the maintenance of this system. Police are rarely charged for fatally shooting someone while on duty. According to an analysis by The Washington Post and researchers at Bowling Green State University, 54 officers faced charges for such shootings between 2005 and 2015, a fraction of the fatal police shootings that occurred across the country in that time. The majority of the officers whose cases have been resolved have not been convicted, The Post found.

The Post also reported: “Among the officers charged since 2005 for fatal shootings, more than three-quarters were white. Two-thirds of their victims were minorities, all but two of them black.”

It is as if the vision of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who recently declared that white “culture and demographics are our destiny,” are coming true. In effect, black and brown lives do not matter.

And with voting rights under attack, the chances of getting elected officials who might take a stronger stance for justice becomes slimmer by the year.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that North Carolina legislators had acted “with almost surgical precision” to blunt the influence of black voters. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made clear in a separate opinion that the ruling did not mean that court was taking a stand for or against the actions. Encouraged by the high court’s statement, the legislators have vowed to keep at their obstructionist ways.

President Trump, having fomented fears of “Mexican rapists” during his campaign, announced Monday that he was cracking down on a Mexican gang. “MS-13 is going to be gone from our streets very soon, believe me,” he said, during a ceremony for slain police officers. “When policing is reduced, it’s often the poorest and most vulnerable Americans who are the first to suffer. We have all seen the tragic rise in violence and crimes in many of our disadvantaged communities.”
But Trump offered no plan for dealing with that disadvantage. Nothing about more jobs or affordable housing. Not better health care — just more police officers with bigger guns.

No need for the white protesters to wave Confederate flags and chant “white power.” Trump and Sessions know how to placate them by attacking black freedoms.

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PWS

05-17-17

WashPost Political Analysis: More Lies & Obfuscation From Stephen Miller — Like His Boss, Miller Makes It Up As He Goes Along — But, He Does (Inadvertently) Reveal The Real Reason For The Bogus “Fraudulent Voter” Offensive: Lower The Turnout Among Those Groups Of Citizens Who Normally Vote For Democrats!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/02/12/mixed-into-his-falsehoods-on-voter-fraud-stephen-miller-did-hit-on-one-truth/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_milleranalysis-135pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.34ef3ee8f935

Phillip Bump writes in the Washington Post:

“There’s a theory under which some people operate which holds that presidential advisers appear in the news media to provide insight into what the president is doing for the American people. Governance broadly, and the White House specifically, can be inscrutable to outsiders, but since our democracy depends on an informed populace, it has historically been important to shed as much light as possible on what’s happening. Politicians and their allies don’t always like to shed that light, but they’ve generally acquiesced to participating in the effort.

On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, President Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller wasn’t interested in shedding light on reality. If anything, he was running around turning lights off. Inadvertently, though, he did offer one bit of insight into what’s happening at the White House.

. . . .

Three claims here. First, that there are millions of people who are registered in multiple states. Second, that dead people are still registered. Both of those things are true. (Among those registered to vote in two places, by the way, are Trump’s son-in-law, treasury nominee, daughter and press secretary.) But that’s not voter fraud. It’s a sloppy registration system — and indifference from people whose first instincts when relatives die is not to ensure that the registrar of voters is informed.

The third claim is that 14 percent of noncitizens are registered to vote, which is based on an academic analysis released several years ago. It has been subsequently shown to be problematic. [In fact, it earned the coveted “Four Pinocchio Award” from the Post’s “Fact Checker” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/10/24/no-eric-trump-14-percent-of-noncitizens-are-not-registered-to-vote/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.3c0bdd64fa0c ] As anyone paying attention to the issue should know.

. . . .

Kobach is the secretary of state in Kansas, in charge of the state’s electoral process. He has held that position since 2011, the year the state passed new restrictions on voting in the name of preventing fraud.

The net effect? A report from the Government Accountability Office determined that turnout fell by several percentage points in the 2012 election relative to comparable states. And the populations that saw the biggest drops in turnout?
Young people, newly registered voters and black people. Populations that tend to vote more heavily Democratic.

That’s almost certainly the point. Miller was trying to mislead people with his false arguments about voter fraud. But he ended up offering some insight after all.”

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Miller and Steve Bannon are among the remarkably unqualified guys that are pulling the strings from the Trump White House.

PWS

02/12/17

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