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U.S. Curtails Federal Election Observers (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune:
Federal election observers can only be sent to five states in this year's U.S. presidential election, among the smallest deployments since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to end racial discrimination at the ballot box. The plan, confirmed in a U.S. Department of Justice fact sheet seen by Reuters, reflects changes brought about by the Supreme Court's 2013 decision to strike down parts of the Act...
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Friday the Justice Department's ability to deploy election observers had been "severely curtailed" by the Supreme Court's decision... Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project, said federal observers are especially needed this year because 17 states have tightened restrictions on voting since the last presidential election.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Friday the Justice Department's ability to deploy election observers had been "severely curtailed" by the Supreme Court's decision... Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project, said federal observers are especially needed this year because 17 states have tightened restrictions on voting since the last presidential election.
they lost no ability to send people to watch, they just lost the ability to take over and boss the local people around
When the government fails to help, we have to help ourselves. So get out your cameras and keep them rolling. On the other hand, the electronic machines with no paper printout kinda makes the issue moot. Too bad there is insufficient demand for real paper ballots. We never will really know the true count, mostly due to lack of interest.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
(1) what have they got to hide by not being transparent ?
(2) who gains by restricting observers ?
swing low
If you have nothing to hide you shouldn't mind severe scrutiny and observation!
Right? Isn't that how it works?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
and yet, it is the in the GOP areas that the observers are being denied.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
(1) what have they got to hide by not being transparent ?
(2) who gains by restricting observers ?
At a guess, from recent political decisions (disjoint from the election), it will benefit Republicans. Indirectly, that means Trump. I'm not suggesting that Trump has anything to do with this, only Republicans in general.
Voter restrictions of various stripe tend to affect poor and minorities more than other groups. Those groups typically vote Democratic.
This election there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, lots of voter fraud, but nothing will be done about the election results. The people in charge will publish boilerplate politically correct statements about things being "regrettable", no one will take responsibility or blame, everyone will promise to fix the problems for the next election, and the issues will be dropped.
Such as the Democratic primary voter fraud (unrelated to Hillary or her campaign).
I remember 8 years ago, people wanting to vote fro Ron Paul in my state were told that he'd dropped out of the race (this was for the actual election).
Then some town published vote tallys showing 0 votes for Ron Paul, seven people called in and complained that they had voted for Ron Paul, the town released a statement saying "oops, it was a typo, the correct number is seven".
There's a ton of voter fraud in the US, and the only reason it stays anywhere near fair is because the winner wins by more than the margin of fraud.
At least, statistically that seems like it's *probably* the case...
First, remove federal observers so any irregularities go unreported.
Second, make sure there is no paper trail.
Third, the fewer votes counted, the more likely Republicans will win. The more votes are counted, the more likely Democrats are to win. With the polls this close, it doesn’t take much cheating to ensure Trump wins The White House.
Remember, every Republican president after Ike has cheated to win, and this time will be no exception. Thanks, John Roberts! Clearly racism is gone in your white world, and we can just throw the Voting Rights Act on the trashheap of history.
Maybe your post got modded down because you didn't provide any proof of what you said is true or not.
Was it a rant or was it the truth?
Back it up with something.
[quote]In Sandoval County, New Mexico, federal observer reports showed that Native-American voters had difficulty getting voting information in their native languages during the decade between 1994 and 2004, according to a 2011 court order in a case the United States brought against the county.[/quote]
To me "Native-American" means that this person descends from a people that lived on the land now known as America before it became known as America. America has since the beginning been a place where English has been spoken. Any place that is now America is a place that has been speaking English for decades, if not centuries. In America the road signs are in English, the schools teach English, television and radio broadcasts are in English. Every product sold in America will have English labels, manuals, etc. While I'm certain that certain local newspapers might be in some language other than English the regional and national ones are in English. Someone not capable of reading and/or speaking English will be largely ignorant of what is going on in the world unless someone is there to translate for them.
I find it very difficult to believe that someone that has lived in America for so long has failed to grasp enough of the English language to perform as simple of a task as to identify the people they wish to vote for on an English language ballot. Even so, there should be someone they trust available to translate for them. If neither are true then can someone explain how they would even know who to vote for? Or, even know an election was happening?
I have to wonder what language these Americans were speaking while living inside America for so long? What sort of a bubble did they live in where they isolated themselves so much from the American culture that they did not care to learn the language and yet connected enough to the nation at large that they cared enough to vote at all?
I call bullshit on this.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
They have imported MILLIONS of people into the US and put them onto various government benefits programs, and in places like California have given them driver's licenses and also put in place "motor voter" systems, while they have blocked all efforts to look for vote fraud under the banner of "civil rights". Every vote by an eneligible voter displaces the vote of a person whose vote was supposed to matter. It's easy to say "there's no evidence of fraud" when you work very hard to not look for any and use government to block attemtps to look for it.
They refused to prosecute BlackPanthers who showed up at the polls in paramilitary uniforms and armed with billy clubs. If ANY other group in America showed up at the polls with weapons and in paramilitary uniforms to intimidate people, they would have gone to prison.
They destroyed e-mail that were required by law to be preserved as government records as the State Dept, the IRS, and other agencies, thus setting a string of precedents about destroying evidence about Federal government policies and slective enforcement of law. Hillary's e-mails were only the tip of the iceberg. The IRS servers were in government custody when they were degaused while the IRS commissioner smirked his way through a congressional hearing, which is why congress is currently considering impeachment hearings for him. The only thing that may save him is that he will be gone in a few months anyway.
They have used justice department to sue states that try to ID voters with the bogus claim that minorities are incapable of getting photo IDs..... which is silly given that you need photo ID to ride on a plane, drive a car, or buy beer and this will only increase in response to terrorism. The last time I looked, minorities were having no more trouble buying beer than whites.
They have used Justice Department to sue states that try to look for voter fraud, and to bury actual cases that are forced upon them by the states. In 2013 just one county in Virginia (hardly ground zero for illegal immigration) discovered that several hundred illegals had registered to vote, and over 100 of them had in fact voted. According to law, they were given a chance to show that they were citizens - they did not. The cases were handed over by the election board to Eric Holder (then Obama's A.G.) who refused to act and who later held press conferences in which he claimed there was no evidence of vote fraud in America. In 2015 the Obama administration spent more money importing illegals into the country (under the guise of "family reunification" where they FLEW illegals INTO the US to unite them, rather than deporting the ones whho were here) than they spen looking for vote fraud. The Democrats have endlessly demanded that there is "no evidence" of vote fraud, as they have done everything they possibly could to block any attempt to look for it and to ignore it and destroy evidence of it when offered. They work very hard to not see what they claim does not exist. EVERYBODY knows full-well that poor immigrants and the 1st generation kids of poor immigrants vote overwhelmingly for Democrats when they are given the chance. If this is a mystery to anybody, they need their head examined.
One cannot find what one refuses to look for and refuses to see.
what about dead people who still on the rolls some times for years.
Sorry about the mistake. There is no "annual" fee for driver's licenses in NH, there's a one-time fee every 5 years.
It was a mental typo - I mentally confused car license with driving license when typing.
The change in the law was to require the DoJ to actually have a current factual basis to micro-manage and oversee elections in that state. That there were problems in particular states pre-1965 doesn't mean the federal government will forever observe elections there. Basically the law inserted federal officials into state elections based on historical events that occurred prior to the signing of the bill, once signed into law, there was no path for a state to come off the 'watch list'.
No observer has been denied. What happened is that a state changed it's voting laws and the justice department said they couldn't. The state took them to court and it was ruled that so much has changed that the feds have to justify preemptive interaction. They have not done so either by inaction or inability to demonstrate a pattern of discrimination that would meet the legal definition.
What this means is that they can send only voluntary observers and court appointed observers. The voluntary observers are fed employees who can be kicked out. The court ordered observers have full reign of the polling operations. What the article is talking about is that so far, the justice department has only been able to meet the legal requirements for court ordered observers in five states to date.
No observer has been denied access to anything yet. And it certainly hasn't been denied based on any political party affiliation or political party's safe areas.
It's Chicago style voting - vote early and vote often!
That sounds more like Wisconsin Republican style voting to me.
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
Then you should have no problem supporting a voter ID law. Right?
is most amusing.
Easily going to be the most controversial election in the history of our country and we're going to further limit the ability to catch any bullshit that is likely to happen.
Not that it matters, no matter who wins, ( Ego A or Ego B ) we all lose anyway.
I think it would shock folks more if the election happened without any sneaky, underhanded bullshit.
In a world after the FBI ruling on Clinton, where it basically says she is guilty, but the government basically refuses to prosecute people in her pay grade, don't you think you should really start re-evaluating your world view and perspective some?
Do you honestly still think that the actions of this very same government are not suspect in other legal matters? You may want to reconsider the possibility that the throwing out of the black panther racial intimidation lawsuit had nothing to do with legal merit.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Doesn't every polling place have observers? In Canada (and other British Commonwealth countries), every political party is entitled to have an volunteer observer called "scrutineer" present at the registration table, and that person also assists in the ballot count.
Does this happen in the US?
If not, it seems reasonable to have somebody watching what goes on.
Without neutral observers asserting that the process is fair, it seems pretty certain that it isn't.
Just like Jim Crow. Even when they couldn't even show 0.01% of the votes were fraud. Even when they only had 17 cases the previous year out of several million votes.
Maybe the Carter Foundation will send out observers.
mark
Our federal government has One Job. Defend the public, and adhering to the constitution ensure the sacred institution of government for the people by the people remains as such.
Elections are fraught with voter fraud attempts.....
How is it that there are BILLIONS to throw away on the most absurd things..... and yet not a single Million$ or two to spare to make sure there are eyes on every single polling place: and abuses or interferences are not occurring that could undermine election processes?
How else can Hillary steal the election?
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.