{"id":5871,"date":"2008-04-05T15:07:43","date_gmt":"2008-04-05T22:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=5871"},"modified":"2008-10-11T16:17:16","modified_gmt":"2008-10-11T23:17:16","slug":"the-republican-war-on-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=5871","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The Republican War On Voting&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Guest Blogged by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hotpotatomash.com\">Alan Breslauer<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Art Levine at <em>The American Prospect<\/em> has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prospect.org\/cs\/articles?article=the_republican_war_on_voting\">new must read piece<\/a> titled, &#8220;The Republican War on Voting: Using the Department of Justice, friendly governors, and its usual propaganda outlets, the GOP has propagated the myth of voter fraud to purge the rolls of non-Republicans.&#8221;\u009d Here&#8217;s a small taste of it&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">&#8220;Sharrard&#8217;s cautionary tone was a response to the Republican Party&#8217;s ongoing nationwide campaign to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/archive\/2007\/07\/01\/2218\/\">suppress<\/a> the low-income minority vote by propagating the <a href=\"http:\/\/truthaboutfraud.org\/\">myth<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sourcewatch.org\/index.php?title=Bush_administration_phony_%27voter_fraud%27\">voter fraud<\/a>. Using <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tompaine.com\/articles\/2007\/06\/11\/out_to_get_acorn.php\">various tactics<\/a> &#8212; including media smears, bogus lawsuits, restrictive new voting laws and policies, and flimsy prosecutions &#8212; Republican operatives, election officials, and the GOP-controlled Justice Department have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brennancenter.org\/content\/resource\/cast_out_new_voter_suppression_strategies_2006_and_beyond\">limited<\/a> voting access and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ombwatch.org\/article\/articleview\/3893\/1\/490?TopicID=1\">gone after<\/a> voter-registration groups such as ACORN&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unfortunately, progressives have tended to pay more attention to Election Day dirty tricks and to electronic voting machines than to a more systemic threat: the Republican campaign to suppress the votes of low-income, young, and minority voters through restrictive legislation and rulings, all based on the mythic specter of voter fraud&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unfortunately, the public hasn&#8217;t heard just how nonexistent the voter fraud epidemic actually is. While progressives have successfully challenged some of the most restrictive laws in court, they&#8217;re still playing catch-up when it comes to combating the glib sound bites of voter-fraud alarmists. Republicans and the Bush Justice Department have cloaked their schemes under such noble-sounding concepts as &#8220;ballot integrity.&#8221; The GOP&#8217;s vote-suppression playbook features everything from phony lawsuits to questionable investigations to authoritative-seeming reports, all with the aim of promoting restrictive laws.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Levine also draws quite a bit (and links to some) of <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/ACVR\">The BRAD BLOG&#8217;s years-long expos\u00e9 coverage<\/a> of high-ranking Republican vote-suppression cappo Mark F. &#8220;Thor&#8221; Hearne and his GOP front-group &#8220;American Center for Voting Rights&#8221; elsewhere in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prospect.org\/cs\/articles?article=the_republican_war_on_voting\">his detailed report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In related news, John Tanner, the man in charge of the Justice Department&#8217;s efforts to disenfranchise millions of voters until he was forced to resign after <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?cat=321\">The BRAD BLOG captured and exposed<\/a> him making crazy offensive comments on video (see below), <a href=\"http:\/\/markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com\/2008\/04\/election-thief-advising-al-state.html\">has a new job<\/a>, apparently. Tanner is reportedly now a fellow with the <a href=\"http:\/\/ali.state.al.us\/index.html\">Alabama Law Institute<\/a> &#8211; which provides the Legislature with legal expertise in drafting and revising laws.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><center><object width=\"360\" height=\"300\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/SMsg5m1qZQA&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0x234900&#038;color2=0x4e9e00&#038;hl=en\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/SMsg5m1qZQA&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0x234900&#038;color2=0x4e9e00&#038;hl=en\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" width=\"360\" height=\"300\"><\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer Art Levine at The American Prospect has a new must read piece titled, &#8220;The Republican War on Voting: Using the Department of Justice, friendly governors, and its usual propaganda outlets, the GOP has propagated the myth of voter fraud to purge the rolls of non-Republicans.&#8221;\u009d Here&#8217;s a small taste of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[393,91,223,122,106,321,172,280,156,243],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acorn","category-acvr","category-dept-of-justice","category-election-2008","category-election-fraud","category-john-tanner","category-photo-id-laws","category-vote-caging","category-voter-id","category-voter-registration","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5871"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=5871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}