GOP Attempts to Suppress Voting Bite Them on Ass

[MineralMan]

With the news that Newt Gingrich doesn't qualify for the Virginia Primary, the GOP's attempts to suppress voting in many states has come back to hurt GOP candidates. New voting regulations in Virginia now require election officials to cross-check signatures on primary petitions with current addresses. That was one of the strategies the GOP has been trying to implement in various states in an attempt to suppress voting.

Trouble is, that very process has cost Newt Gingrich an opportunity to run in Virginia's primary election, since too many of the signatures on petitions to put him on the ballot ended up being eliminated through this address checking.

The Republican party seems determined to eliminate itself, and doesn't even know it. Other measures designed to disenfranchise people may have similar effects. For example, the state-issued photo ID requirements in many states may eliminate a number of older persons who no longer drive and who haven't gotten state IDs because they don't need them. The new requirements for such IDs may well eliminate many of those older persons from even being able to get a state-issued ID, due to documentation requirements that may be difficult to meet. Older voters tend to vote for Republicans on average, so the GOP is actually eliminating its own voters in the process of trying to disenfranchise the poor and other groups.

Way to go, GOOPers! Way to cut off your own noses to spite your face!

[MineralMan]

1. Thanks for the recs!

[opihimoimoi]

2. KnR 10...... :o) To win by scamming is NO CLASS...GOPers are cheaters and scammers...lying too

[LuvNewcastle]

3. They don't give a shit about Newt anyway.

He's just another pretend foe for Romney to vanquish on the way to his coronation. If the right people wanted Gingrich to survive, he'd be on that ballot, rules be damned. Romney has been the choice all along, they just have to make it look like he earned it.

[MineralMan]

4. Ah, but Newt cares about Newt.

He's pissed today over this. And he's not the only GOP candidate who didn't qualify, either. Sauce for the goose...

[zbdent]

5. If the Repugs were serious about fighting voter fraud ...

Ann Coulter would have spent time in prison ...

[MineralMan]

7. Ann Who?

Haven't thought about her in a very long time.

[montanacowboy]

6. They don't have the foresight to see this stuff

means Republicans TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! are there no Republican Seniors or students or poor - they think it will only disenfranchise Democrats, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa fuck you Newt and all your ilk

[MineralMan]

8. Exactly. That's why they fail.

GOP is FAIL.

[tblue37]

33. They don't mind losing a FEW Republican votes in order to suppress

A LOT of Democratic votes, and that is what these ID laws will do.

[freshwest]

35. And all their ilk! Haha!

[Scuba]

9. This is ridiculous. Those laws were never meant to apply to Republicans. n/t

[MineralMan]

10. Absolutely right. They were only suppose to bar Democrats

from voting. Wha' hoppened?

[PeaceNikki]

11. .

[MineralMan]

16. Most excellent toons...

[stevenleser]

25. I agree and they are now up on my FB page. nt

[liberal N proud]

12. Karma

[MineralMan]

15. Karma, indeed!

[duhneece]

23. Instant Karma, in political time nt

[bemildred]

13. Priceless. nt

[MineralMan]

17. Perhaps, but I hope it has cost them plenty

to put this stuff in place.

[bemildred]

19. It appears to me that it already has.

But what do I know?

[MineralMan]

20. So it has...so it has...

[Odin2005]

14. Karma.

[MineralMan]

18. Their dogma ate their karma, I think.

[Odin2005]

22. DUzy!!!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

39. Or, their karma ran over their dogma.

Either way, they're screwn.

I love it.

[Blue Owl]

21. Beautiful! Gag on your own shit GOP.

n/t

[elleng]

24. LOVE IT!

The 'law' of unintended consequences!

[LongTomH]

26. We can only hope!

Karma's a bitch; but, I still think we should be prepared for an uphill battle in 2012. The Repukes are going to haul out every dirty trick in the books.

[freshwest]

36. True. Must be vigilant. 2012's not even here yet. I'm sure they've got other schemes.

[progressoid]

27. Cool but...

Gotta link?

Thnx.

[maximusveritas]

28. Well, the GOP establishment wants Romney to win, so I'm sure they're not complaining n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

29. hee!

[blackspade]

30. the GOP continues to bring the stupid....

[robinlynne]

31. just one thing: older voters tend to vote republicna on average is not true. Where did that sentence

come from?

[tblue37]

32. The Republican Establishment does not want Gingrich (or Perry) as the nominee. They

want Mitt to be the nominee, so they are probably quite satisfied with the fact that Gingrich and Perry can't get on the ballot.

As for older voters being unable to get ID--that might disenfranchise a few elderly Republican voters, but it will disenfranchise far more voters from demographic groups that lean Democratic. Many of the elderly people who cannot get the necessary IDs are poor, many are African Americans, and many are reliable Democratic voters because they lived through the Depression and they know that FDR's policies helped and Hoover's did not.

[freshwest]

34. Hohoho! Merry Christmas! Hoised on their own petard!

Oh, this just made my evening. Yes, I'm very bad.

[mwb970]

37. republicans hate our democracy with a passion.

They continually undermine the pillars of our system of government, hoping to someday bring it all crashing down. We used to execute traitors; now we elect them to high office. If they manage to get on the ballot, that is.

[sofa king]

38. If you think that's bad....

I recently gave up on an article I was going to write about the effects of Republican rule over the past decade. The statistics were unfortunately beyond my easy use or verification, but here's where I was going with it:

* While life expectancy on average has risen from 2000-2010, it has actually dropped steeply in Southern states, I think particularly in counties under strong Republican control. Poverty and race do not appear to be the reason; poor education, however, does appear to be related. In the meantime, extremely affluent people are living much longer, enough to skew the overall life expectancy, but representing an insignificant fraction of voters.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/15/national/main20071192.shtml

* The areas with the lowest life expectancies also appear to be the areas under the strongest Republican control. Smoking, obesity, low education, and high blood pressure appear in higher concentrations in those areas.

* The argument I was trying to make was that conservatism was the ultimate cause of increased death rates in those areas. Low education rates go hand in hand with poor health and political conservatism (you really do have to be stupid to be poor and Republican at the same time). Poor conservatives are also less likely to fully utilize the tattered remnants of our social safety net.

Now, I wished to argue, that combination is killing voters and damaging their health at an increased rate.

I was unable to come up with actual statistical estimates, but what I thought I could show was that the next election would be materially affected by the mass die-off of stupid conservatives, and that the die-off was directly related to Republican attempts to stymie health care reform, to keep the minimum wage low, to spike the economy while President Obama is in office, and to maintain tax breaks for the wealthy.

The result, I predict, is going to be several million fewer conservative voters nationwide in the 2012 election. Many of them will be dead as a result of the policies they enthusiastically endorsed; as many or more will be in a poor state of health come November and will be less likely to vote. Still more of them will be statistically indistinguishable from the voters that Republicans are intending to suppress, will also fall victim to Republican voter suppression efforts, and will be less capable of jumping through the administrative hoops that were set up to prevent their smarter neighbors from voting.

By backing a tiny, very wealthy sub-set of American voters, Republican policy has actually managed to kill off a significant chunk of their voting base. It amuses me to no end to think that America's conservatives, who have wasted so much time and effort fighting socialism and Darwinism, are about to screw themselves by killing off their voter base through the imperfect practice of social Darwinism.

Maybe I should shoot my thoughts over to Ruy Texiera and see if he can do anything with it. I'm probably totally full of crap, though, because I'm a terrible statistician.

[EC]

40. With so many homes being forclosed

I'm guessing a lot of addresses have changed. Isn't Virginia kinda a transitory State? Many of the people that work in D.C. live there, so every 4 years there is a turn over.