Discussion: Five Common Voter Suppression Tactics To Watch Out For

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Discussion for article #229647

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…and openly armed ‘monitors’ circling polling places…

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Some sides try to depress voting by telling the electorate that polls show a certain race is already over, or that one candidate or the other is so far ahead that one more vote won’t matter. The truth is, every vote counts — as shown by many close elections in the past.

Isn’t this what the bloviators and cable news punditocracy have in essence been doing for weeks now??? The all out pervasiveness of this tactic isn’t restricted to election day. Political operatives in the media with the help of a very well-paid but subservient class of ‘journalists’, have been doing this exact thing for weeks. And it has been very intentional in a way that serves the corporate interests. The real news would be if you ever got them to report on their own bias as ‘experts’…Now that would be a first. Too bad that’ll never happen.

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I thought gerrymandering was antithetical to the democratic process until voter suppression became the hot new thing for thwarting the Will of the People.

If you are a politician and you are actively working to prevent people from voting, please be alerted to this fact: Democracy is like karma. It doesn’t work fast, but it does eventually get around to making things right.

Any gains bought by voter suppression tomorrow will be paid for in 2016 with interest.

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they keep they being the chicken shit republicons who know full and well that the more people who vote the tougher it is for them to win elections especially when your count minority voters …who wont be a minority too much longer …so they will use any underhanded decietful thing they can think off to turn voters from the polls …it didnt seem to work in fla …that what happens when ya piss people off…the time will come when they wont know what hit them election day …then you will.hear more whineing moanin and bitchin about how unfair the election is for poor white christian folks

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Let’s stop pretending that anyone but Republicans and their enablers are doing these things. The Right loves to say that they welcome everyone, but as soon as election season starts, they want to focus on voter fraud in minority communities. True the Vote wanted to go into predominantly minority neighborhoods and challenge voters they didn’t know. I have always found it funny that people who imply a fear of other people would want to go into their communities and blindly start accusing them of committing crimes.

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The “DO NOT VOTE” message is what cable media has been telling Democrats for weeks now.

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Funny, I just got a phone call urging me not to vote. It was sent from an “unknown” number.

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Gerrymandering gets you the State House and the House of Representatives; voter suppression gets you the Senate and the Governorship / Presidency.

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I have to think, though, that the reaction that most people would have to a telephone call telling them not to vote would be to do just the opposite – make a point of getting to the polls. Especially if it were worded the way this article referred to: “Do what you did in 2010 – stay home!”

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What about refusing to file registration cards?

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Or anonymous complaints to the registrar that your house is serving as the address for 45 bogus registrants, so they declare the whole house invalid?

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Or bullshit notices sent to houses in minority areas responding “respond to this or we’ll assume you no longer live there and thus de-register you”.

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Another common tactic which this article completely misses: understaffing in poor/democratic-leaning locations. Nobody would want to spend five hours in line to vote, but for many people where taking time off of work is difficult, long waits means no voting.

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I got calls from the Michigan Republican Committee for weeks asking me if I wanted an absentee ballot. How I got on their list, I’ll never know. But if I wanted an absentee ballot, I sure as hell wouldn’t get it from those assholes. I’d go to my City Clerk’s office like everyone else and make the formal request. My landline phone ringing from campaigns hasn’t gotten so annoying, I just won’t answer it until after the election. Kind of shitty though…I missed two important calls in the last week I should have taken. Either way, I’m listed as a strong Democratic vote that shows up in all pre- and post election data…so they know before they call who they’re dealing with. And oh hell yes, I plan on voting!! And rounding up a neighbor or two and taking them to the polls.

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The fact is, only one side routinely engages in these tactics, and it isn’t the Democrats.

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When the leader of ISIS compliments GOP voter suppression techniques…