Florida Republicans come clean and admit to suppressing Dem votes

So now we are adding conspiracies to the pile as evidenced by the use of the plural of obstacle. What else have you imagined?

 

It isn't an imagined conspiracy. It is what the Republicans have admitted. You're so far out of it. It's hilarious.

 

You're humiliating FranchiseBlade -- I'm loving it

He does frequently imagine things, as I truly believe his very strong bias leads him to dream up facts and falsehoods. I've seen this for years from him. He's not thinking deeply about this, but letting his knee-jerk reactions and shallow thinking dictate his beliefs and logic.

 

Not just blacks. All minorities have felt some sort of racism/slight in their lives because of race. The more Republicans come off as being a party for white people, the less relevant they become. And this type of stigma last a long time.

While certainly less relevant in regional voting, where voter participation is relatively small, it's quite problematic for national elects.

 

They have admitted targeting a demographic group. That's what political operatives seek to accomplish for positive or negative.

You keep trying to slime all this sleazy racism insinuation all over the matter. It's about demographics not race-hating.

That is what the Republicans have admitted to, not your sordid twist on events.

 

I'm not trying to slime anything. Republicans admitted targeting black voters. That is what they've admitted to.

You're the only one who tries to say anything different. The fact that they've admitted it, and you are trying not to take them at their word is very telling.

 

I don't understand. They targeted people based on their skin colour, so how is that not about race?

You can present the argument that black voters are more likely to vote Obama so therefore it is about demographics...

So what you're saying is... they are making a generalisation that if you are black you are likely an Obama voter and that it is beneficial to suppress your vote.

Judging how an individual will behave based on the colour of their skin and punishing/disenfranchising them for it is the very definition of racism.

And no matter how loudly you protest, that's not something people who've been at the receiving end of will ever forget. And you can bet, that when other minorities find out about it, they're going to identify with this and it's going to increase the GOP's problems in relation to convincing non-whites to vote for them.

Personally, I'm glad that the GOP are filled with people like you who will try to lay the blame anywhere else rather than man up, take responsibility and try to fix deep, systemic failures within your party. It only hastens the time when you will be consigned to watch from the sidelines as the future of the world and country is shaped without the GOP's malignant interference.

 

Nuance. Something can be about race and not be hate-filled. That's what I've been championing here. These guys weren't making a generalization, they were making a law so they went after a voting demographic in the best way they could figure out. Race was a secondary factor at best. They took away a curious voting opportunity that was, indeed, installed to favor one party-- the Democrats.

Look at all the language: deny blacks the right to vote, et al. The comparison to Jim Crow laws and Literacy Tests. All this particular law did was to "cut" all people's voting opportunity from some 90 hours to 80 hours. And they want to insinuate TREASON?

It's just PC run amok and hateful in and of itself.

I guess I operate under a different understanding of racism than you do. For example, wanting to preserve the Sunday voting privilege is in and of itself racist because it was designed to cater to one race.

I have not laid the blame anywhere else. We just have different explanations. Yours is equally politically-motivated. Mine sees this as a leveling of the playing field. There is no reason for these special voting privileges. There is and always has been plenty of opportunity to vote.

 

WIth comparisons and/or analogies to rape and to Literacy Tests and language about DENYING blacks the right to vote... you want to try and claim that you are not trying to slime anything?

 

This is idiotic. Encouraging people to vote and supporting them to do so, especially the less well off is one of the most important functions of democracy.

Your attempts to spin it otherwise reek not just of desperation but of how low you will sink and of what principles you won't abandon in your partisan quest.

People shouldn't have to stand in line for 6+ hours to vote. The MAXIMUM anyone should have to stand in line should be one hour, if that. It's the responsibility of the local government to make sure this happens.

 

Well, at least you can now admit that it was about race.

the reason for the comparison to Jim Crow laws is because those were laws that were designed specifically to suppress the black vote, JUST LIKE THIS LAW.

If you pass a law that discriminates against black people, it doesn't matter if you have "hate" for black people or not, it is still a racist law.

 

Once again, you're denying reality. Jim Crow laws would allow anyone including blacks to vote if they passed a bogus literacy test, or paid a poll tax, or owned land etc. Jim Crow laws made the claim that the requirements were the same for all races. That's the exact thing your doing here.

Your doing that, yet Republicans have admitted they made this law to suppress specifically black people from voting.

Watch the video I posted earlier. Early voting was put in place after polls closed on election day while people were in line. That prevented them from voting.

Your claim that I making it out like the Republicans were hate filled bigots is hilarious. I've said specifically on more than one post in this thread, they weren't suppressing black votes because they hate black voters, but because black voters would be voting Democrat.

You've really sunk deep.

 

Why is encouraging any particular segment of voters "one of the most important functions of democracy?" That is an odd statement and one the reeks of your partisanship.

Affording all qualified ample opportunity to vote is the basic responsibility and that is still fulfilled-- some 80 hours of voting time. Whose fault is it if someone waits until Election Day and predictably are disappointed by the waits in line?

Maybe you could drum up a Democratic bumper sticker "Delivered in 60 minutes or it's free!"

 

Encouraging ALL segments of voters is, in my opinion, one of the more important things we should strive to do. Reducing access to the polls, especially in places where people were still waiting in line to vote at 9 p.m. on election day, is simply wrong. It is execrable to do so in a deliberate effort to reduce the number of people of a given race who vote.

How exactly does REDUCING that number from 90 to 80 make sense unless you are a biased partisan looking to reduce the number of people of a certain race who vote? That is a racist policy and you are defending it, giddy, sickening.

Maybe we should strive to make sure that anyone who wants to vote can do so at any reasonable time leading up to election day and that they never have to stand in line for more than an hour. That certainly makes sense to me, but then again I would never defend a racist policy like you have in this thread.

 

No one is being denied the right to vote by this law. The voting hours have been shaved from ~90 to 80 or so. All voters have the same requirements put upon them: age, citizenship, registration... voting opportunity! It's exactly the same for everyone.

OH well, I was thrown off by your analgies to rape and literacy tests...:grin:

 

The voting hours were shaved IN AN ATTEMPT TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF BLACK PEOPLE WHO VOTE!

The literacy test analogy is an apt one. Nominally, the test applied to everyone equally, in practice, it was a device used to suppress the black vote, JUST LIKE THIS ONE!

 

Agreed, but what I'm saying is that if churches can call in buses to go directly to polling stations, they could also place tables of absentee ballot registration plus a helper several weeks in advance.

With a fix on an organizational level, these blatant attempts to block black voting would be less effective.

 

Literacy tests were YEA/NAY. End of discussion. What test is applied here? None.

Voting is something like Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and finally Tuesday. Sunday is a day of rest.

 

The same was true of literacy tests. The requirements were the same for all voters (at least that was the premise). The claim was that having to take a literacy test was the same for all potential voters.

That's the same for this. But like with the literacy tests they could keep some people from voting. If an elderly black voter who needed the help of the church to bus them to the polls and wait with them while they voted, but that option on a Sunday was taken from them, it prevents certain voters from voting.

It's not different than if a voter failed the literacy test.