Even though the North Carolina legislature has adjourned, they haven't lost their place in the national spotlight. The editorial board of the New York Times takes yet another look at the General Assembly's antics in a blog post from this weekend entitled "North Carolina: First in Voter Suppression":
"Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina didn’t like our recent editorial that criticized the state for abandoning its traditions of racial equality, strong public schools, and economic fairness. He wrote a letter to the editor saying he was leading the state to a 'powerful comeback.'
"That’s demonstrably untrue when it comes to the economy and the schools. But as yesterday’s events in the state capital showed, one thing is making a comeback: an old habit of suppressing the votes of minorities, young people and the poor, all in the hopes of preserving Republican power."
You can read the full blog post here.
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20 comments:
NYT hasn't endorsed a Republican for President since Eisenhower. Their editorial board is almost as pathetically irrelevant as the O's.
whatever
And we should care about what shrill little liberals from a different state care?
Sounds to me like the Charlotte Observer staff spends too much time reading the New York Times!
I don't get what the big deal is about the government issued ID. You have to have them to take a G.E.D. test. Is our education system discriminating against "minorities, young people and the poor"?
The column sells the part what not allowed as ID, but doesn't mention on what is allowed and how the state will provide free IDs to people that need them. I apperciate the Observer sharing this from the NY Times, even if the column is overly bias.
A quiet thought - I'm guessing this "opinion" is regarding the requirement for everyone to show photo identification when votinging. I'm not sure how applying the new law to everyone is discriminatiory in any way. If so, then requiring a photo ID when making a payment by credit card is discriminatory, or requiring a photo ID to purhcase cigarettes or alcohol is discriminatory, or even to enter a night club. Just a quiet thought. I am asked to show my photo ID many times a week and never consider it discrimination in any form.
So the tea partiers are all about freedom, rights, and less government rules...until they aren't. Show me the documented evidence that we're experiencing consequential voter fraud in this state to any degree that affects the outcome of an election and maybe I'll get concerned. Until then, all the teabagging do-gooders can get off my lawn!
And before someone accuses me of being a "libtard," I'm a Jesse Helms Republican, who wonders what the heck happened to my party.
OK, one more time, here's why the recent changes to voter ID are discriminatory (since a lot of people don't seem to get it). It's a numbers game: the Republicans know that by throwing up hurdles to students, the non-driving (overwhelmingly poor and minority) and the elderly, they're pushing them to simply not vote at all. Some might not get the info that they couldn't vote like they have in the past until election day, when it'll be too late. Some simply won't go to the trouble of getting a new form of ID just to vote with. All will find increased confusion and hassle come next election. Now this might be a pill worth swallowing if voter fraud were actually an issue that needed dealing with, but it simply, and demonstrably, is not and has not been in any sort of systemic way anywhere in the country. So why do it at all if you're the Republicans. You do it to water down the voting pool. To cut down on the numbers of students and black folks who'll run the gauntlet successfully and get their votes in during the needlessly shortened voting period. It's gaming the system, just not badly enough for people to end up in jail for it. It doesn't flat out rig elections, but it makes it really easy for voters they think will agree with them and adds more (sometimes much more) hassles for those they expect won't. It's contrary to the spirit of the law, of American inclusiveness towards its voting-eligible citizenry, and the concept of one man, one vote. And all to correct an imaginary problem. And bottom line, it's gamesmanship by a party who knows they can no longer win the hearts and minds of its state, so it's trying every trick in the book to take them instead. Hope that clears it up a little for some of you.
Jason, and anyone else who thinks Fox is news:
The reason that photo ID is discriminatory to people of color.
Many people of color who were born before 1960 were born at home, and have no birth certificate. Without it they cannot get the government ID.
The 15th amendment gave them the right to vote and now the Republicans have taken it away.
I believe that you KNOW that this new law is a blatant attempt to rig future elections and you just don't care because it isn't YOU whose rights are being denied.
Telamon, you may not be a "libtard", but you sure are a homophobic, digusting human being, who uses a term for perverted acts to describe people. Jesse Helms would be proud.
Are you any kin to Bobby Padgett?
CO is a liberal paper.
I hope one day that some rich guy starts a newspaper operation in the Charlotte and the Raliegh area that is not so tilted toward the left.
It would probably put the CO out of business in a hurry.
American University put it best in this report:
http://www.american.edu/spa/cdem/upload/csae080109.pdf
Voter ID was one thing, but the other measures in the voter bill are heinous. It is undemocratic. Just how was helping high school kids register to vote contributing to voter fraud? How was voting on Sunday contributing to voter fraud? The Republicans won big in 2010 and 2012. Why do they think they have to rig the system? Why are they afraid of competition?
Voter ID was one thing, but the other measures in the voter bill are heinous. It is undemocratic. Just how was helping high school kids register to vote contributing to voter fraud? How was voting on Sunday contributing to voter fraud? The Republicans won big in 2010 and 2012. Why do they think they have to rig the system? Why are they afraid of competition?
There is no evidence of voter registration fraud whatsoever except the rare, undocumented anecdote trumpeted on right-wing web sites. Even the Bush Administration couldn't find it, and they appointed a commission to look.
But there's been ample evidence of absentee ballot fraud, for example the 60,000 mostly urban votes rejected (some say "lost") by Kathleen Harris in the 2000 election that would easily have sent Gore over the top in that state, and would have spared us the 2-term calamities of Bush II.
And then there's rigging of electronic voting machines, whose source code is prohibited by law from being examined by independent observers (they claim "propriatary reasons"). These machines don't produce a paper trail, unlike every ATM machine in the country. Who got those restrictions enacted, over the objections of fair election advocates? Why, Republicans in Congress during Bush II's second term, of course. Who makes most of the voting machines used in this country? Diebold - whose CEO was a top Bush fundraiser and who once bragged he'd "deliver the state of Ohio to George W. Bush". And so he apparently did, in '04.
In other words, the only voter fraud that's actually likely taking place in this country is created by GOP operatives to benefit GOP candidates. What they're trying to do with voter registration is simply limit the number of likely Democratic votes. Shocking, I know.
Guess scorched-earth redistricting wasn't enough to help them secure what they hope is a permanent majority in the U.S. Congress and state legislatures. This is just part of an ongoing process to "win" elections at any cost.
Sorry Jim Nance, but any newspaper that regularly publishes propaganda pieces by the likes of Charles Krauthammer and Cal Thomas, and the editorial cartoons of Michael Ramirez (the cartoon equivalent of FOX News), along with more moderate conservative voices like David Brooks, cannot be termed a "liberal paper". But since you're unlikely to subscribe with that viewpoint, perhaps you weren't aware those guys get featured prominently.
As for the Observer's own editorial staff, their positions are typically standing on the moral and ethical high ground, and backed up by solid evidence and historical precedent. It's not surprising that those positions are often diametrically opposed to conservative views as espoused by today's Republican Party.
Here we go again...the Observer looking for their big brothers of Liberalism...the NY Times...to validate their left wing propaganda.
The NC GOP has done a great job and put in a lot of hard work doing exactly what they promised the voters of NC they would do...reverse 100 years of Democrat corruption and incompetency. Do you know where Anthony Weiner got the name "Carlos Danger" from? Our own Mike Sleezly used it!
The Observer may have eliminated most of the contrary comments on their propaganda from people who won't use Facebook to delude themselves that their readership and the people of NC suddenly agree with them. But I think the hard working people of NC...those who can't take Mondays off to intentionally get arrested to get a headline from the liberal media....would much rather make North Carolina more like Texas, Indiana, and even Wisconsin than they would continue the path the NY Times and Charlotte Observer want us to take....a path down the road to NY, California and Detroit.
Where in the h*** do the carpetbaggin' Yankees from the NYT get the gall to tell us how to run our state? We have a federal and state constitution to do that. Tuck your yankee tail and run NYT...
@Matt and @Archiguy's posts are the most well written, informative and dead accurate posts that I've read anywhere. Anyone who does not believe what they are informing you of has drunk the cool-aid of mass media and the various shill foundations of the uber-wealthy. When did Americans become so feeble minded and incapable of intelligent thought and reasoning? The collective stupidity of many Americans is astounding to me. Why are you so adamant to act in direct conflict of your own best interests? We're dying a slow. painful death here because of this.
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