Alabama and Racist Voter Suppression LOL

That $11 million figure cited is the anticipated savings across all cuts proposed. The cost savings of shutting the DMV offices is a small fraction of that... $100,000 savings:

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/10/after_bentley_lost_budget_figh.html

 

Thank you.

According to the state they are closing 31 locations. Combined those 31 locations account for less than 5% of all Alabama license transactions.

I do not know if there is racism involved, but on the surface closing 31 locations that account for less than 5% of all license traffic seems reasonable to me.

 

Which again is what the Governor is reporting to justify the closing. But it seems worthwhile to look deeper... ask whether the closings unfairly impact one group of voters more than others, and whether the cost savings justify the impact on voting.

What is the % of people that register and vote? What % of African Americans register and vote? What % of African Americans live in the areas served by the offices closed? What % of the economically disadvantaged are impacted?

Its easy to guess that people that live in wealthier areas frequent DMV offices significantly more than poorer areas. So basing office closures simply on "traffic" seems by its very nature to favor the wealthy.

Its clear more should be done to encourage voting... and if you push for people to have identification available at DMVs to be able to register to vote, it seems wrong to limit access, regardless of "traffic." Especially at such small cost.

 

I don't see that 5% number anywhere. Also 100,000 of 11000000 is .9%. Hurting 5% of the population for a .9% cost savings doesn't sounds that efficient.

 

The state of Alabama has less people than the greater Houston area.

They should just close out everything and force all of them into the city. More efficient and great for business.

 

33 now, 8 more later. 41 out 45 to be closed by next year. All for saving ~15M next year? Where is their priority?

 

So I've done some research on this.

1) You don't need a driver's license to vote under Alabama law, you need a photo ID. The state is not closing county registrar offices and anyone without a photo id can go to the registrar to get a photo ID made.

2) While this does impact predominantly black counties, it also impacts large populations of rural whites who would traditionally vote Republican.

3) The busiest location accounted for 2000 total transactions in an entire year, not just new ids.

4) These were part time locations anyway, created when there was a budget surplus to reach rural areas for easily.

5) The governor has already extended a measure to allow them to continue to be open, something like once a week.

6) If it is just for a renewal of a license, in Alabama you don't even need to go to the DMV for this. Apparently any local judge office can do it.

So with all that, while it's not ideal to close so many dmv locations, it doesn't seem like it's as big of a problem as previously reported. I don't know how many county registrar offices there are, but if those are easily accessible, or at least as easy as the DMV, that seems perfectly reasonable to me.

 

So essentially much ado about nothing, sounds like the typical race baiting BS post we've come to expect from some. When will they learn to pick their battles?

 

Subtle racism... Let's be honest here. If Alabama's legislature or executive branch were enacting racist policies in the year 2015, they would attempt to do it as subtly as possible. It's not going to be shout in your face overt racism, not in today's climate.
Maybe in the 1950's.

 

tl;dr solution - Maybe Alabama shouldn't pass voter "id" (suppression) laws to combat the effectively nonexistent threat of election fraud.

 

And if blacks were trying to allege racism they would disregard alternate, rational motives and evidence, trivialize the hardships to other social groups and claim it's subtle or covert.

 

lol this...some folks around here are just itching to cry "racism!" as much as they can.

 

alright bigotexxx, go call some black people lazy.

 

Yeah, sort of funny that he claims it lacks context. It's Alabama, that's plenty of context. How about some more context. Of the eleven former states of the Confederacy, eight of them now require a photo ID to vote. How coincidental.

 

"Over the last two years, the counties issued voter ID cards to 2,177 people, with 1,546 of those issued in the Black Belt counties. Both state officials and legislators say that’s a sign most people are using driver’s licenses to vote."

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com...savings-dl-office-moves-could-small/73678728/

It affects 0.5% of the general voting population, but 2.1% of the black voting population. That's 4 times more, at a minimum.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com...savings-dl-office-moves-could-small/73678728/

OK, so part-time locations are not really important, but you're heartened by the extension of part-time locations.

Sure, local judges will be happy to process 1000 or so ID's a year, in addition to their current full-time work loads.

 

btw, those part time locations are not set in stone... nor are they once a week (they are looking at perhaps once a month).

 

This affects Texas in what way????

 

LOL.

news outside the US... "How does this affect the US???"

News within the US... "How does this affect Texas???"

you're ridiculous.