8 Insidious Attacks on Our Democracy That You Don't Know About

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/8-insidious-attacks-our-democracy-you-dont-know-about?page=0%2C1



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1. The Latest Voter Suppression Catalog: North Carolina.

Until the Republicans took control of the governor’s mansion and Legislature in 2012, North Carolina pioneered some of the most progressive election laws in the South. Since then, the GOP has ressurrected the ghost of Jim Crow, narrowing options to register, to vote early, and to obtain a ballot on Election Day. Bill Moyers noted these abuses in a detailed report this month, but even he didn’t recite everything that’s gotten worse.

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2. And Now Early Voting Is UnAmerican, GOP Hacks Argue.

In recent elections, much of the GOP’s focus has been on enacting tougher voter ID laws so presumed Democrats would have a harder time and give up on voting. But it’s turned out that many targeted voting blocks—people of color, students, the poor, some elderly—figured out how to get required IDs and voted early, especially in the states offering that option. Now, the new twist among Republican intellectuals is arguing that voting early is bad for the democratic process, because candidates can’t control their end-of-campaign messaging and voters won’t benefit from last-minute debates. This is anti-democratic propoganda at its worst, as there is ample documentation that voters not only prefer convenient options, but early voting raises turnout in lower-profile contests.

3. Proof of Citizenship on Paper, Not By Sworn Oath

Not everyone has their birth certificate or passport. That fact is being manipulated by Republicans in a growing number of states—Arizona, Kansas and now Georgia—to create yet another barrier for getting on voter rolls: documented proof of citizenship. Until a few years ago when Arizona added this new proof to its registration forms, would-be voters—like everywhere in the country—would sign a legal oath, under criminal penalty, that their information including U.S. citizenship was correct. That declaration wasn’t good enough for Arizona’s GOP, which has been fighting in federal court to add paper proof to the federal registration form.

4. Their Newest Immigration Reform: Let Millions Stay But Not Vote

Republicans know that they are a party of older, mostly white and wealthier Americans in a country where that demographic is becoming a minority. So taking their citizenship fixation a step further, the latest idea to emerge among House Republican on immigration reform is to let the 11 million undocumented Latinos to legally stay in the U.S., but only allow children born here—so-called Dreamers—apply for citizenship. That twisted logic allows them to try to claim the GOP is not an anti-immigrant party, but what they’re not saying in public is that legal second-class status sustains their electoral edge in states like Arizona and Texas. It’s another version of gerrymandering—drawing district lines to ensure that one party has the majority. The Senate-passed immigration reform bill postpones citizenship for a dozen years—which is bad enough.

[Mnemosyne]

1. K&R for more visibility. nt

[marmar]

2. k/r

[CanSocDem]

3. ...or care about, apparently. (eom)