What we know (what we’ve always known) is that this “commission” is a sham and will be used to massage Trump’s ego about his ridiculous accusations of “voter fraud” and make it harder for Democratic-leaning voters to vote in future elections.
TPM is doing the right thing by always calling this the “bogus voter fraud commission”, because that’s what it is. It’s a naked political attempt to impose voting restrictions that push non-Republican voters out of the voting booth. There is nothing more anti-American that blocking the right to vote…representation is the kernel that started this nation. Every American should be incensed by the Republican’s desires to create an effective monarchy of Republican rule.
I know there is a lot of slime to keep track of on the bogus voter fraud commission, but John Lott’s background is worth mentioning.
The final witness on the first panel is John Lott, a conservative writer and gun rights advocate who has suggested “massive” voter fraud may have turned elections in North Carolina, Minnesota and elsewhere.
Lott has been the #1 source of “academic” support for the claim that more guns makes us safer. His work in that area, however, has been sloppy at best, and can accurately be described as fraudulent.
Here’s just one source giving a detailed background on Lott. Don’t miss the part where he creates a student sock puppet who praises and defends the work and teaching of the great John Lott.
https://www.armedwithreason.com/shooting-down-the-gun-lobbys-favorite-academic-a-lott-of-lies/
I’ve written before that the way to hamstring this panel is to force them to confront a clear path for voter fraud that they don’t want to address: wealthy people with property in multiple states and/or localities. What’s to stop them from registering and voting in multiple elections and multiple times, with each vote seeming 100% valid to the local jurisdiction?
Any answer they give to deflect also applies to any area of focus they want to use to justify restricting voting.
Yeah those updated election laws that want to match your name and signature exactly as it appears on your voter registration. I registered to vote in 1979 and my signature now doesn’t match my signature then-example of something that happens to all sexes- old age. Another one is the hoops one has to go through if you are a woman or a man who changed their last name when you got married. They questioned my then 80 year old mother back in 2008 because she registered to vote before she got married and used her middle name initial and now uses her maiden name as her middle initial. And yet she has voted lo these 59 years with out a problem.
What We Know About Next Week’s Bogus Voter Fraud Commission: It is a lie, built upon an even bigger lie, designed to arrive at an even bigger set of lying conclusions.
A) they don’t have to be rich to do this and B) Kobach already found two couples that did this in Kansas. So he has first hand knowledge of this.
What deeply concerns me is that the federal government is getting involved in what has always been the prerogative of each state to decide their voting regulations. This is a huge victory for the Right’s (and ALEC’s) drive to limit the voting of citizens they don’t want to vote, i.e. Democratic voters.
The very existence of this “commission” goes a long way to inculcate the lie of voter fraud into the national psyche. This is extremely serious and not to be taken lightly. It is NOT just about assuaging Trump’s obsession about losing the popular vote.
The computer scientists who were picked aren’t entirely bogus, but they’re not as close to the issue as some others. And of course a woman pretty much invented the voting-machine security field…
And, drum roll please, both couples were - yep, Rethuglicans. But iokiyar!
“It’s like, destroy this before it even has a chance to do anything”
He got that part right… we need to take his advice even though he didn’t mean it the way I’m suggesting…
…another Trump era CDCP
Committees that Do what they Claim to Prevent…
or something like that…
…the EPA is another notable example.
The House Collusion Cover-up Committee is another.
How much is this scam costing us?
Is Kansas paying Kobach for this?