Suppressing the Vote

Republicans want to stay in power. To do that they must make sure that the 'wrong kind of people' don't vote. Salon has an extensive discussion of six states that are trying to suppress the votes of the 'wrong' kind of people.

Across the country, they will have to contend with Republican-sponsored schemes to limit voting. In a series of laws passed since the 2004 elections, Republican legislators and officials have come up with measures to suppress the turnout of traditional Democratic voting blocs. This fall the favored GOP techniques are new photo I.D. laws, the criminalizing of voter registration drives, and database purges that have disqualified up to 40 percent of newly registered voters from voting

Arizona: The only state in the union that requires one to prove they are a citizen in order to vote. Could you easily prove you are a citizen?

Indiana:

when she learned that the state required a state-issued photo I.D. to vote, her husband drove her down to the delay-plagued Bureau of Motor Vehicles to get a photo I.D. On her first visit, she brought her Social Security card, her voter registration card, two bills and a credit card, but that wasn't good enough. She had to return three more times, with BMV drones telling her successively she needed a copy of her birth certificate, then a $28 state-certified birth certificate from Massachusetts, and finally a marriage certificate because her birth certificate listed only her maiden name -

Ohio:

the law that took effect in May allows the state to pursue felony prosecutions of workers for voter registration groups who turn in registration cards past a 10-day deadline. They face up to 12 months in prison and a $2,500 fine

California:

43 percent of all new registered voters in her huge county were being disqualified

because their social security number or drivers license numbers don't match up with a voter registration database. Is that the voters fault or the person that maintains the database?

Other states include Florida (what a surprise) where fines for violations are now so stiff that they forced the League of Women Voters to suspend its voter drives in the state for the first time in nearly 70 years and Missouri Republicans are promoting "mass disenfranchisement" because African-American voters turned out in large numbers in 2004 and are expected to turn out again this fall because Republican Gov. Matt Blunt cut 100,000 people from Medicaid.

Democracy is being promoted in Iraq and demoted in the USA.