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Dirtbag Ohio Secretary of State Gets Blasted for Cutting Early Voting

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd grilled Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted on his recent decision to cut early voting, and it is truly a joy to behold. Photo: Screen grab.

On MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown, Chuck Todd grilled Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted on his recent decision to cut early voting, and it is truly a joy to behold. A flustered-looking Husted insists that he did no such thing, and that Ohio offers far more chances to vote than other states, but Todd calls him on his bold-faced lies.

For those who don’t follow politics in the state of Ohio, let’s flash back to February when Husted cut early voting on Sundays and weekday evenings, leaving voters with only two Saturdays for casting early ballots. In his press release, Husted wrote:

“In 2014, absentee voters will have the option of voting in person for four weeks, or they can vote without ever leaving home by completing the absentee ballot request form we will be sending all voters. Our goal is to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat and to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity in the voting process no matter which method they choose.”

Alas, the press release — actually all of Husted’s press releases — have mysteriously vanished into thin air. Maybe that has something to do with the lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — along with National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the League of Women Voters of Ohio, and several African-American churches — just filed on his sorry, lying @ss.

Sybil Edwards-McNabb, president of the Ohio Conference of the NAACP, states for theACLU’s press release:

“Together these cuts will impact tens of thousands of low-income voters, elderly voters, student voters and African-American voters who turn to early in-person voting as their best option for casting a ballot.”

The press release adds that over 157,000 Ohio residents voted on the days being cut in the 2012 election.

John Husted doubles down on his early voting lies.

Kansas Secretary of State: ‘Those Darn Widows and Aliens are to Blame for Voter Fraud’

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach thinks widows are to blame for the ‘epidemic’ of voter fraud he is trying to stop with Kansas’ strict voter ID laws. Joining radio host Joyce Kaufman at a recent event hosted by the anti-immigrant group FAIR, Kobach explained how widows and aliens are mucking up the voter process.

“I can’t imagine how many widows are voting for their dead husbands in communities like I lived in,” Kaufman said to Kobach, sending him on a rant about voter abuses.

“Yeah, it happens all the time,” Kobach said, pointing out that there are really three kind of frauders. First, he said are the people who die and stay on the rolls (presumably so their wives can continue voting on their behalf), those that move and enroll to vote in two states, and “aliens.”

These “aliens”, he stressed are “people who were never entitled to vote in the first place.”

In fact, according to the Brennan Center for Justice the types of fraud Kobach is claiming, and in fact all voter fraud, is extremely rare not only in Kansas but around the US. Many of the problems that are claimed to be fraud, they add, are not intentional deception at all, but administrative and voter mistakes.

The NYU based center also points out that requiring identification to vote does not solve the practically non-existent problem of fraud, but it does turn away minorities, something Kobach vehemently denies is fact.

“I think it’s outrageous the argument some make that it hurts minorities. It’s almost a racist argument!,” Kobach said, claiming those who think that are bigoted, not him. “You’re telling me that because of a person’s skin color, he’s less able to find his birth certificate? That’s just crazy to make that argument.”

The Democracy Restoration Act: Preventing a Lifetime Punishment

Tayna Fogle is a mother of two, grandmother of six, a leader in her community, and a powerful example of how difficult it is for citizens to regain their voting rights.

Two decades ago, Tayna served a sentence for a non-violent drug offense and writing overdrawn checks. Today Tayna has turned her life around and in her own words is "giv[ing] back to my community now, talking to organizations . . . talking to kids to make sure they don't make the same kinds of mistakes I did."

Tayna lives in Kentucky, one of three states that permanently disfranchises individuals with a felony conviction; the other two states are Florida and Iowa. The rest of the states have a variety of disqualifying standards and restoration procedures, including different rules for whether you can vote on probation or parole or after restitution of fines.

Making matters worse, many criminal disfranchisement laws proliferated during the Jim Crow era and were intended to bar minorities from voting. The impact of these laws continues today. Nationwide one in 13 African Americans of voting age have lost the right to vote. In turn, this has impacted the families and communities of those who are disfranchised by reducing their collective political voice.

Florida and Kentucky have the highest disfranchisement rate of African Americans in the country at 23 and 22 percent, and over half a million individuals are permanently denied the right to vote in these two states alone. Nationwide approximately 4.4 million people have been released from prison and are living and working in the community but are unable to vote.

The only way for Tayna to get her voting rights restored was to receive an individual pardon from the governor. This is no easy task – a mere 2 percent have had their voting rights restored by pardon in her state. Absent automatic restoration of voting rights, the process for having rights restored has varied from one political administration to another.

The odds that Tayna would be able to have her rights restored were slim under a previous administration, but her endless persistence paid off. After going through the pardon process twice – including the burdensome process of writing an essay, providing three character references, and paying a fee – Tayna achieved the rare feat of regaining the right to vote. Despite her victory, Tayna remains concerned about why she had to fight so hard to regain her voting rights. "I never have figured out what committing a crime has to do with being able to vote," she said. "We have to pay for that same crime twice – but with a life sentence."

Many deserving and eligible citizens have not been so fortunate. Tayna's success is unique, but the loss of voting rights through vastly different and confusing disfranchisement laws is not.

Yesterday, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced a critical bill that would fix this problem by establishing a uniform standard for voting in federal elections. The Democracy Restoration Act would eliminate the confusion caused by the current patchwork of state laws; streamline election administration; ensure that probationers never lose their right to vote in federal elections; and notify people about their right to vote in federal elections when they are leaving prison, sentenced to probation, or convicted of a misdemeanor.

By continuing to deny Americans the right to vote based on a past criminal conviction, the government endorses a system that expects these citizens to contribute to the community but denies them participation in our democracy. That is why the Democracy Restoration Act is supported by a very broad range of faith, law enforcement, and civil rights organizations. It's also why the easing of disfranchisement laws has received strong bipartisan support in many states.

Tayna Fogle has made the most out of her rare second chance, and millions of other American citizens deserve the opportunity to do the same through the Democracy Restoration Act's fair and uniform nationwide process.