Caught On Tape: Poll Watcher Intimidates Black Voter in Florida, Witness Steps in To Protect the Man’s Vote

It was practically written in the stars that the Republicans were going to win the election on Tuesday. All the Republican voters had to do was turn out, and may of them did. What I find wholly pathetic, however, was the inability of the Republicans to win without the specter of foul play hanging over their head. What started with 40,000 missing voter registration forms in Georgia, or flyers out in Kentucky, now turns its attention towards Florida, where foul play appears to have been caught on film.

The relationship between Florida and election BS doesn’t need reinforcing; following 2000, it should be obvious that there are Banana Republicans capable of running cleaner elections. It should be no surprise that Florida, then, is once more is back in the spotlight after questionable behavior on Tuesday. Broward County, a strong Democrat county that could have carried Crist to victory with a strong turn out, is the epicenter this time.

A number of issues in Broward came to Crist’s attention on Tuesday: there were issues with the voting machines, including malfunctions, and voters being sent to different polling locations. In at least one situation, a polling location was not operational for over an hour on Tuesday morning, which prevented voters from casting ballots before work. Crist filed an emergency motion to keep those polls open at least another hour, but despite ample evidence and large number of voters, a Circuit Court judge denied Crist’s requests. While those in line at 7 PM ET were allowed to cast their ballots, nobody else was able to go back in line, even if they had to previously leave or had been given bad info regarding their polling location.

And there were instances of poll workers giving bad information. Izak Pratt of Miami-Dade county noticed just such an incident; the man, who was Black, had his US passport as his identification. According to Pratt’s testimony in a piece for the Gaily Grind, the poll worker told the man that he needed a driver’s licenses with his current home address on it to vote. Eventually, the man gave up, and Pratt interviewed the man as he was walking out:

Flabbergasted and speechless, I stopped the man and asked him if his passport was expired. The gentleman pulled out his passport and showed it to me, it was valid with a signature and clearly had the gentleman’s face on it. I went back inside the polling station and told the poll workers that it was not a legally acceptable reason to deny somebody the right to vote if they presented a valid US passport. 

The poll worker said that the gentlemen could not vote because the passport did not have his “home address on it”. That is when I asked to speak with the supervisor of the polling station. The supervisor came over and told me the exact same thing. I pulled out my phone and showed her that she was mistaken and that the law clearly states that a US passport is a valid form of identification in order to be allowed to vote. The supervisor said that she would have to call the elections department to get clarification, but I told her that I conducted a simple Google search to show her all the acceptable forms of ID which are allowed to vote in the state of Florida. She did look them up and after consulting with two poll workers, finally relented and let the man vote. 

The gentleman came up to me and told me, as he shook my hand, “Thank you for protecting my right to vote”

Pratt returned for a confrontation that he captured on film with the poll workers and the supervisor. The supervisor maintained that it was just a misunderstanding and a “clerical error.” Pratt posted the confrontation on his Facebook page:

Pratt also attempted to speak with another poll worker outside of the polling station, but was told to leave. Why? Because he was “intimidating the voters.” I’m sure they know all about that, huh?

The sad thing about this is that the GOP would likely have still won without all of this chicanery. It seems like there was a concerted effort to attack voter turn out, and who knows how many “clerical errors” played out on Tuesday as a result.

WATCH:

We Just Witnessed One of the Saddest Days for Democracy We’ve Seen in Decades

Since election night Republicans have been on cloud nine. They’re walking around like a proud peacock strutting its feathers for all the world to see. And all I’ve seen or heard from many conservatives is how this election was a “clear message from the American people” and that “it showed just how powerful democracy can be.”

That’s all bullshit.

This election was one of the saddest days for democracy in quite some time. Not because Republicans won so many elections, but because voter turnout was abysmal.

Take this chart, for example, that shows we just had the lowest voter turnout this election than during any other midterm election year since 1982 (that’s as far back as the chart goes). Not just that, but turnout was down in 40 states.

Even a survey done by Gallup showed that voter interest this year, especially with those classifying themselves as independents, was drastically down from previous years. In fact, when it came to independent voters, only 41 percent said they were definitely going to vote. That’s down from 60 percent in 2010.

Now some people might say to themselves, “Well, those could be flawed results. You’re just mad that Democrats lost and now you’re trying to make it seem better for your side!” You’re right, any poll or survey has the potential to be extremely flawed. But then I’d simply encourage those folks to do a quick Google search for “low voter turnout 2014″ and see the plethora of articles from South Carolina, New Jersey, Hawaii, California, Texas, Vermont, Indiana and a whole host of other states reporting embarrassingly low voter turnout.

This election wasn’t some kind of “celebration of democracy,” it was the mourning of it. Millions of Americans have become so frustrated with our government that they didn’t even try to vote. To them, what was the point?

Kansas Just Created a Second Class of Voters Who Won’t Be Allowed to Cast Ballots in Some Elections!

Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State for Kansas, has decided to move forward with his two-tiered voting system, reports Right Wing Watch. Kobach’s byzantine plan is a massive headache for anyone trying to understand how it works, and is as inelegant as it is bureaucratic — which is par for the course when dealing with Republicans.

By Kobach’s new system, those citizens who registered with a federal voter registration form but didn’t meet the state’s strict citizen definition would still be allowed to vote in federal elections, but barred from voting in state elections. At time he proposed it, Kobach said that it was a “contingency plan”, in the event that the state lost a lawsuit that sought to require “the federal form used in Kansas to include the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirement.” Kobach has since won that lawsuit, but the decision has nevertheless been stayed via appeal, forcing Kobach to go ahead with the two-tiered system that he had planned.

Kobach’s system is a complicated one that appears to require two different forms — a state and a federal form. The federal form is used as a “proof-of-citizenship” requirement, although only one requires citizenship. As Right Wing Watch noted in 2013:

Kobach has been struggling to implement a new law that he backed requiring voters to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote. As a result of the law, over 17,000 Kansans who registered to vote using a federal form (which doesn’t require proof of citizenship) or used a state form but couldn’t dig up a birth certificate have had their voter registration suspended.
. . .The Eagle explains that if the plan moves forward, Kansas voters will be sorted into three categories, each with separate voting rights. Those who provide proof of citizenship with either a state or federal form will be allowed to vote in all elections. Those who register with a federal form and don’t provide supplemental citizenship proof will be allowed to vote just in federal elections. Meanwhile, Kansans who use the state voter registration form but don’t provide proof of citizenship will remain unable to vote at all.

According to Kobach, the good news is that fewer than 100 Kansas citizens who registered with the form but didn’t give proper proof of citizenship would be given full provisional ballots during the primary elections held on August 5. However, only the votes they cast in the federal election will matter. The bad news, that Kobach seems to be conveniently ignoring, is that 18,000 Kansas citizens who registered with the state form but can’t provide the proper documentation will be barred from voting in either election.

Still, Kobach insists that there’s no disenfranchisement. It’s only 18,000 voters, after all. Imagine how many cases of voter fraud this is going to stop — two, maybe three? It’s totally worth the 18,000 disenfranchised voters. They were probably going to waste their vote on a Democrat anyway.

GOP candidate runs into voter-ID problem in Arkansas

When voting-rights advocates complain about voter-ID laws as an unnecessary suppression policy, the right generally responds with rhetoric that might seem sensible: “everyone” already carries identification, so these laws are no big deal and the left’s concerns are exaggerated.

Evidence to the contrary is fairly common, and once in a while, even amusing.

Asa Hutchinson, who won the Republican nomination in the race for Arkansas governor Tuesday, forgot his ID when he went to the polls, despite backing the state’s new voter ID law, according to the Associated Press.

Christian Olson, a spokesman for the Republican candidate, told the AP that Hutchinson believed the situation was a “little bit of an inconvenience” and that a staffer retrieved his ID so he could cast a ballot. Olson said the former congressman still believes voters should be required to show an ID.

The larger takeaway from this should be obvious.

As the Arkansas Times’ Max Brantley explained, “Such an episode is an all-too-human reminder of how the law can be an impediment to the franchise. Hutchinson is a successful lawyer with an entourage and the day off to politic. He was going to get a ballot cast yesterday. The hourly factory worker trying to cast a ballot in the midst of a long commute to work who left his license back at the house? He might have a harder time setting things right. Never mind those who don’t have a valid ID at all and no ready means to get to the county clerk’s office to get one.”

Indeed, in this case, the gubernatorial candidate – the one who supports blocking voters from participating in their own democracy unless they show identification they never had to produce before in order to cast a ballot – dispatched an aide to go back to his law office to fetch his ID.

Ask yourself: how many voters usually go to their local precinct with paid staffers in tow?

What’s more, as Republicans impose new voter-ID requirements in states nationwide, all to address a fraud problem that doesn’t exist in reality, problems become more common.

In North Carolina recently, the new voting restrictions caused quite a bit of confusion. Not long beforehand, Texas’ state attorney general was temporarily disenfranchised by his own voter-ID law.

We’ve seen a judge nearly blocked from voting because the name on her ID didn’t match closely enough with the name on the voting rolls, and we’ve seen a former U.S. Speaker of the House get turned down for a voter ID.

None of this is necessary. Voter-ID laws, which have struggled recently in the courts, are a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, and creating new problems that didn’t used to exist.

In Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson was able to finally vote after one of his employees gave him a hand, and he went on to easily win his gubernatorial primary. But the fact that he was delayed from casting a ballot should have given him new insights into what might happen to others – most of whom don’t cast ballots while surrounded by aides.

Colin Powell Condemns GOP For Voter Suppression, Points Out Voter Fraud Doesn’t Exist

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is somewhat upset with the GOP, as evidenced by his remarks during a recent speech at the CEO Forum in Raleigh, North Carolina. Just moments after Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) gave the opening remarks, Powell, as the keynote speaker, attacked a bill recently passed by the North Carolina legislature and signed by McCrory that includes broad, sweeping voting “reforms” that aim to disenfranchise voters that are typically Democratic, all under the guise of preventing voter fraud.

As Raw Story reported, “In what appeared to be a direct rebuke of the Governor’s claim that such fraud is widespread but difficult to detect, Powell said ‘You can say what you like, but there is no voter fraud. How can it be widespread and undetected?’”

Here’s more:

Powell ridiculed the notion that IDs are needed because of rampant election fraud.

“What has come out of the legislature is that fraud is widespread and undetected,” he said. “How is fraud widespread if it’s undetected? How can it be undetected if it’s widespread?”

The moderate Republican, who worked under former President George W. Bush, said the law will ultimately hurt the GOP by pushing key groups of voters away. (Source)

And Colin Powell isn’t unique as a Republican calling these laws out for what they truly are — nor are Democrats alone in the fight against voter suppression. From Politico: 

Republicans lawmakers who backed the measure said it was meant to prevent voter fraud, which they allege is both rampant and undetected in North Carolina. Independent voting rights groups joined Democrats and libertarians in suggesting the true goal was to suppress voter turnout, especially among traditional Democratic constituencies such as blacks, the young, the elderly and the poor.
“It is a trampling on the blood, sweat and tears of the martyrs – black and white – who fought for voting rights in this country,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the NAACP, which is pressing its own legal challenge. “It puts McCrory on the wrong side of history.”

The push for suppressive policies is happening across the country in a blatant attempt by certain factions within the GOP to disenfranchise voters that don’t hold to their regressive ideology. And it’s coordinated — they know exactly what they’re doing. If you want to combat their attempts to stop Democratic and leftist constituencies from voting, please call your state representatives and ask them what they plan to do in order to ensure everyone’s equal right to vote. Also, make sure that you are aware of the laws in your state and prepared for the 2014 election periods well in advance; procrastination is the friend of those who would rather have you stay home on election day.