“What is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the other….Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting.”
That was not said by Frederick Douglass in the 1860’s, or Medgar Evers in the 1960’s. That was Hillary Clinton last week. This made me feel so, how shall I say, out of touch, because I knew nothing about these apparently obvious efforts to suppress the vote. I must have missed the memo or the dog whistle language that has evidently been embedded in GOP strategic revelations.
I mean, it must be prominent in Republican strategy, since this is, after all, a “sweeping” effort. I failed even to catch the right-wing equivalent of the New Black Panthers using billy clubs to intimidate white voters. Remember Minister King Shabazz and his colleague reportedly pointing at voters in 2012 and shouting racial slurs, including phrases such as “white devil” and “you’re about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.”
I must also have missed Hillary’s explanation of how, given all this voter suppression, a higher percentage of blacks than whites voted in 2012 for the first time in American history. And how young voters constituted a higher percentage of the vote in 2012 than even in 2008, when hope and change was pervasive.
That is hardly the end of it. For as long as many of us can remember, everyone voted on a single day. But now, there is early voting in 33 out of 50 states, federal motor voter laws that require states to let you register to vote when you register your car, plus internet registration and voting on the rise. Five separate constitutional amendments deal directly with the right to vote. Is there really a problem with people who want to vote but are stopped from doing so?
Do Republicans want less of the young, poor and minority voters to exercise their franchise? Of course they do, because that improves their chances of winning, but the question is whether the politics is supported by defensible policy. Raise your hand if you are willing to argue that a person who can’t prove he is who he says he is, especially given the myriad pathways to proof, should still be allowed a vote.
So what is Hillary talking about? Well, she was speaking in Texas and chose to highlight that state’s shameful record of present-day voter suppression. Madame Secretary’s case in point – Texas, which requires a photo identification be presented at the time a person wishes to vote, allows the use of a Concealed Handgun Licence (CHL), but not college ID’s. Yes, that is the outrage.
Texas is listed as one of only seven or eight states, including the Old Dominion, that qualify as a “Strict photo ID” state by the National Conference of State Legislatures. That means “[v]oters without acceptable identification must vote on a provisional ballot and also take additional steps after Election Day for it to be counted.”
The CHL is one of four Texas state-issued photo ID cards honored at the polls, along with three issued by the federal government. But Hillary is shocked and appalled that only those seven forms of positive ID are accepted by Texas. Perhaps she overlooked the part about Texas issuing photo ID’s for free. Yes, no charge, with applications available in English and Spanish at any of the over 200 driver license centers in the state. Does that qualify as burdensome? Is the right to vote not precious enough to insure the integrity of the results?
Does Hillary know or even care that CHL holders have a particularly high burden of proof – they must undergo a “fingerprint based state and FBI Criminal History background check”? After all, why would she – or anyone reporting on what she said – want to bring that up? True to form, this Kabuki dance she and the media are performing is devoid of critical analysis of whether real voters are being suppressed. And not only is the answer no, but that is in fact the opposite of the truth. Real intimidation is coming from the federal government, which is shamefully targeting those who are trying to keep the vote honest.
Witness the efforts the Obama administration to terrorize Catherine Engelbrecht for starting True the Vote, a “voter rights and integrity organization.” Once again Obama here has made the phrase”Nixonian” obsolete by using the levers of the federal government to try and destroy Ms. Engelbrecht because of her passion for an honest vote count. As observed by the liberal legal scholar Jonathan Turley, Obama has become the president Nixon wished he could be.
Surely, though, there must be more examples of Republican voter suppression, yes? Well, let’s look at the most Republican state in the nation and another state considered by many to be the most historically racist. Utah does not require a photo ID, while Mississippi does, but the state-issued photo ID is free. Draw your own conclusions.
One thing we know for sure is that the left acts terrified of an honest vote. How terrified? Well, in addition to federal intimidation of voter integrity groups, every single deep blue state in the country requires either zero ID or a non-photo ID with generous allowances for those who do not have one. How surprising.
Now there will of course be stories like this shouting “Texas Election Judge Had To Turn Away 93-Year-Old Veteran Due To Strict Voter ID Law”. Well, that too is bunk – you see, even if you don’t have any of the approved ID devices Texas requires to vote, you can still cast a provisional ballot. You then have six days to go to the local election board and either present a qualified photo ID, or sign an affidavit.
It is true that some states charge a nominal fee for a state-issued photo ID for those who have none of the ID’s that most people possess, generally somewhere between $15 and $25. Does that really constitute voter suppression? No, but while these states should probably issue these ID’s for free – the revenue is hardly worth the political cost – that will hardly stop the squawking from the left on this phantom issue.
Hillary does not want to even leave this issue to the states. She proposes automatic, universal registration to every person 18 or older. No need to register – ever. So that raises another question: to what extent should individual states even be permitted to set their own voting laws anymore? Should this issue be settled, as it almost always is by the left, through a once-size-fits-all federal law which would take all control away from individual states?
Now of course we all know Hillary is in search of wedge issues, and this one is a beauty. Those of us who have been around the block understand this is little more than another of her poll-tested policy pronouncements, and an effective one it is from a political standpoint. After all, she was able – in one fell swoop – to demonize Republicans in general and four prominent (presumptive) GOP presidential candidates (Bush, Walker, Christie & Perry) in particular for their voting rights atrocities as governors, while potentially energizing those key elements of the Obama base – young people, poor people and minorities – she will need to become president.
The fact that this sweeping indictment of the GOP is false, cynical and shameful has never been much of an impediment for her. It did not stop her from lying about Benghazi or deleting e-mails or accepting foreign contributions from countries doing business with the State Department. The fact that this is opportunistic demagoguery will be overlooked by a media consumed by hoopla, horse race and of course bias, and uninterested in challenging a proposition like voter suppression, much as they have no inclination to examine whether catastrophic climate change is a real threat.
In order to win the election, Hillary need only follow the successful get-out-the-vote model of Obama 2012 and do the hard work of identifying and cashing in on default Democrats and persuadable voters, especially those who lack enthusiasm. But why dedicate all the time, effort and money necessary to do so when you may be able to accomplish the same thing with mere demagoguery?
