Obama campaign working to counter new voter ID laws
By Amy Gardner,
President Obama’s reelection campaign launched a national drive Friday to counter new restrictive voter-access laws, which advisers said threaten his electoral chances in November.Organizers will fan out in key swing states this weekend to teach volunteers and voters how to navigate a series of laws passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures imposing stricter identification requirements, limiting early voting and making it harder to organize voter-registration drives.
It is the beginning of a months-long effort, campaign officials said, to combat what they described as a Republican effort to stifle voting among young people and minorities, two groups that traditionally tend to vote Democratic.
Republicans say the new laws are needed to protect against voter fraud and help make elections fairer.
The Obama campaign’s “weekend of action” is part of a field effort that in 2008 helped identify, register and turn out millions of new voters. Those new voters gave Obama wins in unlikely places, including North Carolina and Virginia, where young and minority voters helped make the difference. Turning out those voters again this year is key to the president’s reelection strategy, but it is also more challenging this year in part because of the new voting laws.
“Over the past century, we expanded this fundamental right, making sure no one’s race, gender or economic status is ever used to deny this fundamental right,” said campaign strategist Michael Blake in a call with reporters Friday afternoon.
“Unfortunately,” he added, “Republican-controlled legislatures in many states have been taking us backward, not forward.”
In 2011, more than 30 states debated changes to their voting laws. A dozen passed more restrictive rules requiring voters to present state-issued photo IDs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, although Democratic governors in four states vetoed them. Florida and Ohio cut the number of days for early voting by nearly half, and Florida lawmakers reversed rules that had made it easier for former felons to vote.
On Friday, Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) signed the latest — a new voter-ID bill. Virginia already required voters to present valid identification at the polls, but those who didn’t have it were allowed to sign an affidavit pledging that they were who they said they were. Now, voters can present a wider range of valid identifications, but the affidavit option is gone, and voters without legal identification must vote provisionally and prove later that their vote should count.
Republicans in several states have said the new laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud and make elections fairer. In a statement Friday, McDonnell praised his state’s new law for “helping to further prevent voter fraud and ensuring Virginians that they can have faith that votes have not been fraudulently cast.”
But as governor of a critical swing state with a large swath of moderate voters, McDonnell is cognizant of the possibility that the law may be seen as a vehicle for voter suppression. Earlier this year, he unsuccessfully lobbied fellow Republicans in the legislature to allow for a signature comparison for voters with no ID. And on Friday, he issued an executive order calling on the state elections board to issue a registration ID to all voters so that “on election day this year, every Virginia voter will have at least one valid ID.”
Voting rights groups and Democrats, meanwhile, have decried these measures as deliberate attempts to suppress voters and swing elections. They say there have been few cases of voter fraud, given the millions of ballots cast and compared to the high number of poor and minority voters who will be affected. Some of these groups have brought lawsuits against some of the new legislation.
Twenty-five percent of African American voters do not have a valid government-issued photo ID, compared with 8 percent of whites, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school. The report also found that 15 percent of voters earning less than $35,000 per year do not have such an ID.
According to Project Vote, a voting-rights advocacy group, about 15,000 people voted without identification in Virginia in 2008.
A centerpiece of Obama’s new effort is a Web site, www.gottavote.org, that helps voters register and understand the voting requirements in their state. The site — and its Spanish-language version, votemostodos.org — also urges viewers to sign up to volunteer and solicits lawyers to help with voter-protection efforts.
The campaign will hold hundreds of events in key battlegrounds Saturday and Sunday. In the Washington region, mostly in the Virginia suburbs, there were 38 voter-registration events scheduled between Friday and Sunday.
A particular emphasis will be placed on training volunteers who will be deployed through the summer and fall to continue the education and registration effort directly with voters.
Staff writer Krissah Thompson contributed to this report.
WHEN DO YOU HEAR A POLITICIANS TALK
ABOUT ELECTIONS WITHOUT MENTIONING THE
“LATINO VOTE”? NO ONE TOLD THESE POLS THAT JUST BECAUSE LA RAZA BREAK ANY AND
ALL LAWS AND ORDINANCES IN THIS NATION, IT’S ACCEPTABLE TO GO OUT AND ILLEGALLY
VOTE AS WELL?
*
THERE IS NOT A DEM, FROM OBAMA DOWN,
WHO IS NOT HISPANDERING FOR THE ILLEGALS’ VOTES, AND PROMISING THEM AMNESTY,
DREAM ACTS, NO E-VERIFY, OUR JOBS, OR AT LEAST, CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT!
*
http://www.ALIPAC.us
Republicans on the House Administration Committee want to
shore up voter registration rules in the wake of a Colorado study that found as
many as 5,000 non-citizens in the state took part in last year’s election.
Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), the
panel’s chairman, called the study “a disturbing wake-up call” that should
cause every state to review its safeguards to prevent illegal voting.
“We simply cannot have an electoral
system that allows thousands of non-citizens to violate the law and vote in our
elections. We must do more to protect the integrity of our electoral
processes,” Harper added.
Colorado Secretary of State Scott
Gessler, a Republican, told the panel that his department’s study identified
nearly 12,000 people who were not citizens but were still registered to vote in
Colorado.
Of those non-citizen registered
voters, nearly 5,000 took part in the 2010 general election in which Democratic
Sen. Michael Bennet narrowly defeated Republican John Buck.
*
March 31, 2011
Debbie Siegelbaum
The Hill
Colorado conducted the study by
comparing the state’s voter registration database with driver’s license
records.
“We know we have a problem here. We
don’t know the size of it,” Gessler said in testimony to Administration’s
Elections subcommittee.
Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas)
raised doubts about the reporting, noting that the study itself said it was
based on inconclusive data and that it was “impossible to provide precise
numbers” on how many people who were registered to vote in the state were not
citizens.
Gonzalez asked Gessler, a former
prosecutor, if he would have pursued a court case on such evidence.
Gessler responded that the goal of
the study was to expose voter registration issues and pursue administrative
avenues to resolve them.
“We don’t have a screen for
citizenship on the front end when people register to vote,” he said.
GOP says 5,000 non-citizens voting
in Colorado a 'wake-up call' for states
By Debbie Siegelbaum - 03/31/11
01:23 PM ET
The Hill
Republicans on the House
Administration Committee want to shore up voter registration rules in the wake
of a Colorado study that found as many as 5,000 non-citizens in the state took
part in last year’s election.
Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), the
panel’s chairman, called the study “a disturbing wake-up call” that should
cause every state to review its safeguards to prevent illegal voting. “We simply cannot have an electoral system that allows thousands of non-citizens to violate the law and vote in our elections. We must do more to protect the integrity of our electoral processes,” Harper added.
Colorado Secretary of State Scott
Gessler, a Republican, told the panel that his department’s study identified
nearly 12,000 people who were not citizens but were still registered to vote in
Colorado.
Of those non-citizen registered
voters, nearly 5,000 took part in the 2010 general election in which Democratic
Sen. Michael Bennet narrowly defeated Republican John Buck.
Colorado conducted the study by
comparing the state’s voter registration database with driver’s license
records.
“We know we have a problem here. We
don’t know the size of it,” Gessler said in testimony to Administration’s
Elections subcommittee.
He told Harper that Colorado would
look to create a registration system that would allow his department to ask
that some people provide proof of their citizenship in writing.
Gonzalez asked Gessler, a former
prosecutor, if he would have pursued a court case on such evidence.
Gessler responded that the goal of
the study was to expose voter registration issues and pursue administrative
avenues to resolve them. “We don’t have a screen for citizenship on the front end when people register to vote,” he said.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/153079-gop-says-5000-non-citizens-voting-in-colorado-a-wake-up-call-for-states?page=2#comments
*
Friends of ALIPAC,
Many of you will remember that
ALIPAC went on national television as the first guest of Election Day 2010 on
Fox News to warn the nation that illegal aliens would be voting in large
numbers. Since that time, we have contended that illegal alien voters helped stall the American public's political revolution, especially west of the Mississippi river in places like Nevada and Colorado.
Now, even more solid evidence is
emerging to back our claims.
The article we have for you to
distribute is ground breaking and shocking. A new study in Colorado says that a comparison between voter registration data and driver license data indicates the following concerns.
First they find that 12,000 non US
Citizens or many more have committed the felony of registering to vote in
Colorado!
Second, they found that at least
5,000 non citizens and illegal aliens, perhaps many more, committed the felony
of voting in the 2010 elections!
Each non citizen and illegal alien
who votes in an election has stolen the voice of an American citizen!
This outrage must be addressed
immediately as the entire credibility of US Elections have now been cast into
doubt.
Please read, and distribute the
article below. Every member of Congress and each member of your state's local
governments must receive copies.
If you do not respond to our
request to forward this article to ALL AMERICAN LAWMAKERS, then please take out
a piece of paper and write your name on it and a small note explaining that you
surrender your nation to illegal alien invaders today.
For those of you willing to take an
hour to help save your nation, grab this article and run with it! We will be
counting on our homepage how many of you respond and how many people read this
article!
Article to post, forward, report,
circulate, etc...
http://www.alipac.us/article-6198-thread-1-0.html
*
LOS ANGELES MAYOR
ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA IS A MEMBER OF M.E.Ch.A. – HE IS ALSO OBAMA’S GET OUT THE
ILLEGALS’ VOTES FOR MEX-OCCUPIED LOS ANGELES – MEX GANG CAPITAL OF AMERICA!
Agendas of MEChA, La
Raza, MALDEF, and Southwest Voter Registration Projects These are transcripts
of live, recorded statements by elected U.S. politicians, college professors,
and pro-illegal alien activists whose objective is to take control of our
country "by vote if possible and violence if necessary!"
*
CONGRESSMAN JOE BACA:
“That we increase our
numbers at every level.” JOE BACA
“Through love of
having children, we are going to take over.”
AUGUSTIN CEBADA, BROWN BERETS, THE LA RAZA FASCIST PARTY
THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES ALONE
PUTS OUT $600 MILLION PER YEAR IN WELFARE TO ILLEGALS, MOST OF THIS TO PAY THE
MEXICAN WOMEN THAT HOP OUR BORDERS TO GIVE BIRTH TO THEIR ANCHOR BABIES, AND
THEN COLLECT 18 YEARS OF WELFARE. THIS CHILDREN BORN IN OUR BORDERS WILL STILL
ALSO BE CITIZENS OF MEXICO!
*
This story was first broken on the
Wake Up America Talk Show "A Minuteman Project Chapter" Hosted by
Steve Eichler.
Go to: WWW.Wakeupamericausa.com
A Mexican clan of document forgers
operates in 33 states, including Illinois. In Chicago, their annual take is
around $2.5 million, and their main collaborators are gang members. Los Angeles
- In 1848 what came to be called the Gold Rush started. People came to
California from all over the world to seek their fortunes. The idea of getting
rich without much effort was the main reason they left their countries and
headed for the promised land to seek the precious metal. And so did Pedro
Castorena-Ibarra and Manuel Leija-Sánchez, albeit 138 years later. In 1987 they
found their goldmine in California. At that time the United States Congress had
just passed a law giving amnesty to the undocumented who were living in the
country.
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