Florida Republicans come clean and admit to suppressing Dem votes

"Both sides" you say, and yet no proof (sorry, but an anecdote from some polling place doesn't cut it). Show me something from, say, the last 40 years, that shows Dems suppressing votes from Republicans. Show me the laws they attempted to pass that disenfranchises the wealthy, white folks. Because I haven't seen it yet.

 

Hmmm. We're on page 2 of this thread and so far all we've got from the wingnuterati are vague, unsupported assertions of Democratic voter suppression and the magical ass assuring us that his friends saw something at the polls in Houston, with no details.

I wonder if things will improve by page 3.

 

I vote no, but could be suppressed with the right incentive.

 

Indeed the states that suppressed had Republican legislatures/governors. I had not seen an example where a Democratic legislature/governor used similar tactics.

The phrase "both sides do it" is used a lot (and can certainly be used in the cases of gerrymandering, I think), but with the voter suppression thing this past election season, it was clear one side was doing it but the other wasn't. I'd love to see a counterexample because I'm one of the few people these days that enjoys knowing if my opinion/knowledge is correct or not.

 

Exactly. Robert Caro's LBJ books have done an excellent job at arguing Johnson committed vote fraud in order to be elected to the Senate for the first time, by employing jefes along the border, counting the votes of dead people and recording voter rolls in one handwriting, etc.

Major makes a good point: the type of vote rigging that allowed Johnson to be elected to the Senate over Coke Stevenson was certainly callous and opportunistic. However, it wasn't sinister. Tactics like that point to the poisoning drive for personal power and influence. It may have hurt citizens whose votes were diminished, but they weren't prevented from voting in the first place.

Rick Scott's actions, while callous and opportunistic, were also sinister. He wasn't up for reelection this November, so he couldn't point to political survival as the reason for his actions. Instead, he sought to make it harder for a specific group of people (and, by extension, everybody in his state) to exercise their FUNDAMENTAL, GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to vote.

 

Not too sympathetic to someone who only wants to vote if a) they get a ride and b) it's a social outing. The rest, as you say, found another way to vote. If somone holds their own right to vote as valuable, they will find a way. If someone else holds their right to vote as valuable they will conspire to find a way to either make it easier or harder to vote. If one is corrupt, so is the other in my opinion... or they are both just part of the game.

I gave the well-known example from 1960 and a newer one from 2012 which shows a warming corruption and advice about succeeding with voter fraud from a Democratic operative.

 

Both you and GladiatorRowdy seem to have a profound case of selective reading.... I posted a video from 2012.

 

It's not 2013 yet; what do you want? :grin:

 

That' "vague, unsupported assertions" are pretty unanimously supported by historians. It was the 60s after-all and the skepticism and means of inquiry were still in infancy.

Sorry if that bursts your bubble....

 

False equivalency seems to be the solution to cognitive dissonance for you folks.

Busted. Just admit that you must do your suppression is a less public way for it not to be counter productive.

Happily the folks who were made to stand for six hours to vote will probably remain very committed voters for years. Too bad for your side.

 

You seem to have a profound case of selective thinking. Voter fraud =/= Vote suppression.

We're not talking about casting fraudulent votes (I will concede that there has been evidence of BOTH sides doing that). We're talking about lawmakers conspiring to create obstacles to prevent LEGITIMATE votes from being cast.

 

So to be clear, you think a poor person being forced to wait 9 hours in line to vote is a reasonable expectation?

 

50+ year old examples of vote fraud are not relevant to contemporary discussions of voter suppression, unless your asserting a pattern of behavior by Democrats that has carried into modern elections. If that's what you're doing, please post evidence of this pattern of vote fraud by Democrats.

 

Conservatives do not necessarily equal Republicans.

I consider myself a fiscal and constitutional conservative, but not a Republican. I did not vote for a Republican, though that had more to do with living in Texas and being able to actually vote for who I wanted to, without "giving" my vote up to a guy I didn't want to win.

Basically I didn't vote for a Republican, but I consider myself a conservative.

 

Not if others have to do it, too. How is that unfair?

 

I know that but typically neither the topic nor the discussion stays on a narrow track. Here's what the OP said:

"To actually subvert democracy to win elections is tantamount to treason in a way. "

This does not seem to be only talking about voter suppression....

I would also add that the law only "suppresses" voting in that it limits the voting window as it were. That voting window is pretty big now and always has been.

 

you didn't respond to anything else I posted.

But as for the video you posted it wasn't a case of Democrats trying to suppress the vote or really even go out and commit voter fraud. It was a case of entrapment where a guy comes to someone with a way to commit voter fraud. Initially the guy didn't want to do it, but after being hounded he talks about how to do the voter fraud.

It isn't in any way comparable to Republican officials using statewide organizations in order to suppress the vote of people based on their vote. They've admitted they did it and it was an organized attempt they came up with on their own, not they were entrapped into agreeing to do for someone else.

 

Are really not clear? Voting for citizens should be as easy as possible. If there are two citizens who both have to do the same thing to vote, it might be fair. But if one citizen has infants waiting on them to be fed, has a job they have to put in hours every day of the week to complete, and the other citizen has a nanny to wait on their children, can arrange their hours to suit them anytime they choose.

Then making both of those people wait nine hours to vote on a day when the voter with the family who has to work particular hours that isn't really fair. Or do you feel that it is?

 

Interesting. So I assume if everyone had to pay $1000 to vote, you'd also think that's reasonable? After all, everyone has to do it, right?

 

well I did but indirectly, I admit.

I'm not hung up on the term suppression. I responded to the OP's suggestion of treason for rigging the vote of which voter suppression is but one means. I cited two pieces of evidence separated by some 50+ years that involve Democrats and you nitpick them. Yeah, the one guy was kind of entrapped but he started offering constructive suggestions about how to pull it off and get away with it instead of JUST WALKING AWAY. Others nitpick the Mayor Daley stuff because we don't have Tweets on it.

All these operatives try to shape elections. It's the way the game is played. You only call it criminal when the other side does it....