That is, if the Voter ID laws in other states don’t turn things around for Romney…
While Obama has a clear advantage given his incumbency, Romney does have a path to victory — though it’s a steep climb. He must win most of the seven most competitive states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia — in order to reach the magic number. For instance, he can lose Ohio’s 18 electoral votes and still become president if he wins the other six and hangs onto those already in his grasp. It’s difficult to see a scenario where Romney wins without a victory in Florida, which offers 29 electoral votes. — Obama-Romney race is focused on 7 states – SFGat
THE GOO-GOO SYNDROME: Paul Weyrich, father of the right-wing movement and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and various other groups tells his flock that he doesn’t want people to vote. Here’s the problem with fundies in politics:
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Which of the 7 states above have Voter ID laws?
via: NCSL
Mike Turzai: “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, DONE.” Watch:
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Here is how the Justice Department explains Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: “…a nationwide prohibition against voting practices and procedures, including redistricting plans and at-large election systems, poll worker hiring, and voter registration procedures, that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group. It prohibits not only election-related practices and procedures that are intended to be racially discriminatory, but also those that are shown to have a racially discriminatory impact.”
RNC Platform Formally Backs Voter ID Laws — The GOP platform committee adopted language on Tuesday supporting states that have passed voter ID and proof of citizenship laws. The citizenship amendment, proposed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), would support laws that make voters prove their citizenship before they are allowed on the voter rolls.
Voter ID laws: Why do minorities lack ID to show at the polls? – Slate Magazine — Because a lot of minorities don’t have much use for them. The most common voter ID is a driver’s license, and minorities are less likely to drive… Minorities are less likely to have driver’s licenses because they are more likely to be poor and to live in urban areas. If you can’t afford a car, or if you don’t need one because you take the bus or subway, you are less likely to have a driver’s license. Students are less likely to have driver’s licenses for the same reasons (plus the fact that they can sometimes rely on student IDs, and may just have not gotten around to getting a driver’s license yet). [...] Of course, minority voters aren’t the only group likely to be disenfranchised. Seniors, for example, are also less likely to drive. Academic studies suggest that voter ID laws do probably reduce turnout, both among Democrats and Republicans, but not by more than about 2 percent.
“… What makes the voter ID law special is that they propose to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. We have empirical data proving that essentially no one is showing up to the polls and impersonating a legally registered voter. Runaway slave laws were racist and wrong, but at least there occasionally was a runaway slave!” — Bill Maher, from his Friday night monologue, via: Daily Kos
The Real Cost of Voter Id Laws — In 2011, Republicans have advanced photo ID legislation in at least 35 states. The report concluded that if these 35 states enact a photo ID law, they collectively will spend at least $276 million, and possibly as much as $828 million, in the first four years alone. At a time when states are experiencing huge budget shortfalls, it would be an enormous waste to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to disenfranchise voters.
“Cockblock the vote”/ “Paid for by people who want Romney to win”
‘There’s a conspiracy among those who want to steal the election,’ says Jennifer Granholm — In Texas, a gun permit is a valid voter ID, but a university ID is not. Wait, what? Jennifer Granholm says the system of catch-22s and unconstitutional fees being enacted by Republicans who claim to be fighting voter fraud is having a very real effect on real people whose votes are being suppressed. “By using this pretense of voter fraud and the weapon of voter ID laws, the Republicans are systematically snatching away people’s rights,” Granholm says.
The Startling Urban Dynamic in Pennsylvania’s Voter ID Law
Something big is happening in Philadelphia ahead of this fall’s presidential election – the first in the state since a stringent new Voter ID law was passed earlier this year – although people there concerned about it are having a maddeningly hard time putting their finger on the precise size of the problem. The city has just over 1 million registered voters. About 800,000 of them are considered “active.” […]
The Pennsylvania Department of State recently released two lists of the Pennsylvania residents whose state IDs have expired since last November (and thus can’t be used to verify their identity at the polls this fall), as well as a list of the active voters whose names don’t match up with the PennDOT database as currently having an ID. This second list is terribly sloppy (one database spells names like McCormack as “Mc Cormack,” and there’s all kinds of chaos with hyphens and apostrophes). But nonetheless, the best official data available suggests that as many as 280,000 voters in Philadelphia may need to get an ID between now and November to have their votes counted.
“Nearly 500,000 eligible voters in 10 states with restrictive voter ID laws live in households without vehicles and reside at least 10 miles from an ID-issuing office open more than two days a week, a new Brennan Center for Justice study found. Because many of these voters may not have driver’s licenses — and nearly all live in rural areas with dwindling public transportation options — it could be significantly harder for them to get an ID and cast a ballot. The Brennan Center’s study undercuts the claim by many politicians in restrictive ID states that eligible voters can easily obtain a free ID to vote. A federal court considered this issue last week during a trial over Texas’s voter ID law, and Pennsylvania’s ID law will go before a state judge next Wednesday…. The Center’s research shows 1 in 10 eligible voters lack the necessary government-issued photo ID required by new restrictive voter ID laws, including 25 percent of African-Americans and 18 percent of Americans over 65.” — Study: 500,000 Americans Could Face Significant Challenges to Obtain Photo ID to Vote | Brennan Center for Justice
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