In Voter Suppression News, Judge UPHOLDS Pennsylvania Voter ID Law

hat tips-djchefron and RobM

From TPM.com:

TPMMuckraker

Judge Won’t Block Pennsylvania’s Voter ID Law

Ryan J. Reilly- August 15, 2012, 9:10 AM

A state judge on Wednesday refused to block Pennsylvania’s controversial voter ID law. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson’s 70-page order ruled that opponents of the law failed to establish “that disenfranchisement was immediate or inevitable.”

Simpson did not rule on the case’s merits, only on whether it could be enjoined. Opponents of the law are expected to appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.

“We’re not done, it’s not over,” Witold J. Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who helped argue the case, told the Associated Press. “It’s why they make appeals courts.”

Simpson ruled that the law “does not expressly disenfranchise or burden any qualified elector or group of electors. The statute simply gives poll workers another tool to verify that the person voting is who they claim to be.”

He said that opponents of the law “did an excellent job of ‘putting a face’ to those burdened by the voter ID requirement.”

“At the end of the day, however, I do not have the luxury of deciding this issued based on my sympathy for the witnesses or my esteem for counsel,” Simpson ruled. “Rather, I must analyze the law, and apply it to evidence of facial unconstitutionality brought forth in the courtroom, tested by our adversarial system.”

So, the people putting the law into effect couldn't come up with ANY voter fraud, yet this law, which can disenfranchise AT LEAST 10 PERCENT OF CURRENT VOTERS, was upheld.

Uh huh.

Voter Suppression 2012: Wisconsin and Florida Editions

hat tips-BlackSista, The Reid Report, 3CHICSPOLITICO:

I've been telling you about the concerted, nationwide attempts at VOTER SUPPRESSION, just in time for the 2012 Election. We will point out what has happened in Wisconsin and Florida.

WISCONSIN


From The Black Sista:

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You can’t script a scene like that with Senator Fred Risser being cut off by Senate President Ellis (Risser’s one of the longest serving legislators in the country). It looks like a scene from the floor of the Reichstag in the early 1930s. It makes Mr. Smith Goes to Washington look like a fantasy. And it has the whiff again of where’s your papers, boy? that President Obama eventually overcame.

Let’s face it, it’s the poll tax come north. This is voter suppression. And this time, it will disenfranchise not only black Democratic voters, but poor people, the elderly (some of whom–lord help us all–voted these Republican idiots into office), and students who still carry driver’s licenses from out of state but who are resident here in Wisconsin while they attend UW. (The Republicans particularly voice contempt for the Madison campus as though it is the equivalent of UC Berkeley during the Sixties. Both campuses are much quieter these days yall, though the tradition of activism remains here and there. The same contempt is displayed when they talk directly or indirectly (in codes) about Milwaukee, with its large African American community.) Along with Latinos and immigrants and new citizens, all of these groups vote, and many vote consistently Democratic. That’s why Walker, the Fitzgeralds and the rest of their claque were so insistent about instituting this uncalled-for legislation. And it’s not just happening in Wisconsin. It’s happening in all of the 28 states where Republicans control the governor’s chair and the legislature.

Before I go into the story, I just want to say that I have seen nothing yet of a grassroots movement that would counteract the effects of yet another Walker-Fitzgerald-inspired imposition on Wisconsin. A movement that would go into the hinterlands–to the hunters-fishermen-flag-waving areas–as well as the cities–to the hip-hop nation as well as the students–and help educate these groups about what to expect and how to fight it. A movement that would even help and encourage those to get a state ID card ($28.00 at your local DMV) and become legal. People needed to get started yesterday because this will impact the upcoming recalls. And not everyone has a computer in order to get the word. This needs to be a house-to-house, face-to-face movement in all communities and neighborhoods in order to counter misinformation and voter suppression. Since the Republicans cannot sustain a majority in fact, they will try to legislate it (or manufacture it) into existence.

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