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Saundra, this is just brilliant -- not only your much-appreciated references, but the insight you provide. Well done; I couldn't have said it better myself. While I'm sure Roger would not himself intend for thousands of people to become, or to have been, effectively left out of the democratic process because of the grotesque biases of some conservatives, I hope he can understand the roots of the issue -- which isn't that thousands of nefarious cads have hijacked the electoral process. GOP hysteria regarding "massive" voter fraud is based not on data, but on the power-threatening notion that those they consider undesirable will have a say in the running of this country. That appears intolerable to them, and they have the power to try to prevent it, facts be damned.<br><br>Unfortunately, the American people have gleefully plunged to seemingly unprecedented depths of chosen ignorance. Intelligence used to be considered a civic virtue; data and facts were accepted as true -- verifiable and agenda-free -- and not offered to a restless, voracious public to pick and choose from like hors d'ouevres on a silver platter. There was always a fringe part of society, from both the left and the right, but they were considered a little "out there," people for whom you felt pity because of their willful stupidity or anger because of their community-destroying obstinence and churlishness.<br><br>Now they're elected to Congress, or picked to co-lead a presidential ticket, or hailed as statesmen and visionaries -- largely because they cackle and roar against the well-educated, the academic, the accountable, and those whose expertise in matters of politics, sociology, economics, and culture are mocked rather than appreciated. They say dumb things, and dangerous things, and they flatter and bamboozle their followers, who rush to every new idea that confirms the already-erroneous beliefs they cling to. If they don't see a brass ring on the merry-go-round of their lives, they'd rather believe that some illegal Mexican or gang member has taken it from them, rather than examining if the merry-go-round ever even came with one. That's how a non-issue like "massive voter fraud" is conceived and brought to birth: Truth be damned, there's an enormous number of people champing at the bit to nurture it and help it grow up, strong and robust, until it takes on the kind of legitimacy formerly reserved for truth-based, rational, civic dialogue. Unfortunately, what's brought forth isn't legitimate -- it's simply loud, popular, vulgar, and comforting. Issues that used to be judged on truth and political, civic, and ethical merit are now just like another flavor of ice cream -- no objective standard, just what I want, the way I want it, with nothing but vitriol directed at those who cling to the odd notion that facts matter. <br><br>But that's OK. It's only voting. It's only democracy. It's only an issue of human rights. It's not like some wild, remote place like Syria or something, where I've heard people aren't allowed to vote, just because those in power have denied them the right.<br><br><font style="" color="#8064a2"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><font style="" face="Verdana">Keely<br>www.keely-prevailingwinds.com<br></font></font></font><br><br><div><div id="SkyDrivePlaceholder"></div>> From: v2020@ssl1.fastmail.fm<br>> To: lfalen@turbonet.com; thansen@moscow.com; Vision2020@moscow.com<br>> Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:39:19 -0700<br>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] NAACP to take vote laws to U.N.<br>> <br>> Well, surely you know what the solution is, Roger, don't you?<br>> <br>> "The United States differs from most other modern democracies in relying on a decentralized election administration system that places the burden of registration on voters rather than treating registration as a government responsibility."<br>> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/politics/us-voter-registration-rolls-are-in-disarray-pew-report-finds.html<br>> OR<br>> http://tinyurl.com/6u2aqjl<br>> <br>> But, I suspect you'd be against that solution, yes?<br>> <br>> I suppose it all depends on what your priorities are. Personally, I'm more interested in approaches that DON'T disenfranchise huge numbers of voters because of a misperception that voter fraud is rampant. <br>> <br>> Certainly, the result of decentralized voter registration has ALWAYS resulted in our voter registration rolls being a mess, but it's an incorrect leap to go from messy voter registration rolls to assuming any significant voter fraud.<br>> <br>> For instance, "People who move, moreover, often take no steps to inform administrators at their old addresses, and a new registration does not typically result in a notification to cancel the previous one. Yet a quarter of all voters assume that their registrations automatically move with them, the report found. As a consequence, active registrations in two states are common. Some 70,000 people are registered to vote in three or more states."<br>> <br>> Does that mean those people are voting in two or more states? Of course not!<br>> <br>> ""Mr. Becker warned that poor record keeping at the registration stage is not evidence of fraud at polling places. “These bad records are not leading to fraud but could lead to the perception of fraud,” he said.""<br>> <br>> And, that *perception* is what the GOP has chosen to go after rather focusing on than the REALITY "that many people who are eligible to vote and want to do so fail because of flaws in the registration rolls."<br>> <br>> And, the consequence of the GOP's factually incorrect approach that is also at odds with its phony clamor for "less regulation, less government, and fewer laws" is stupid & unreasonable laws that will result the disenfranchisement of millions of otherwise qualified voters.<br>> <br>> <br>> Saundra<br>> Moscow, ID<br>> <br>> The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.<br>> ~ Edmund Burke<br>> <br>> <br>> -----Original Message-----<br>> From: vision2020-bounces@moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com] On Behalf Of lfalen<br>> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2012 2:32 PM<br>> To: Tom Hansen; Moscow Vision 2020<br>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] NAACP to take vote laws to U.N.<br>> <br>> The NAACP has done a lot of good over the years to end racial discrimination and I applaud them for it. However there has to be some method to insure a person is a citizen and entitled to vote. Otherwise you might as well allow every one in the world to vote in our elections. I do not care what method is used to ensure this. If anyone has a better idea, other than an ID Card, lets hear it.<br>> Roger<br>> -----Original message-----<br>> From: Tom Hansen thansen@moscow.com<br>> Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 06:48:05 -0700<br>> To: Moscow Vision 2020 Vision2020@moscow.com<br>> Subject: [Vision2020] NAACP to take vote laws to U.N.<br>> <br>> > Courtesy of today's (March 12, 2012) Spokesman-Review.<br>> > <br>> > ------------------------------<br>> > <br>> > NAACP to take vote laws to U.N.<br>> > WASHINGTON – Taking a page from its past, the NAACP will go before a United Nations panel in Switzerland this week to argue that new voting laws approved by some U.S. states violate civil and human rights by suppressing the votes of minorities and others.<br>> > <br>> > A delegation from the venerable civil rights organization will present its case in Geneva on Wednesday before the United Nations Human Rights Council, a body that normally addresses troubles in places such as Libya, Syria and the Ivory Coast.<br>> > <br>> > The Geneva appearance is part of an NAACP strategy rooted in the 1940s and 1950s, when the group looked to the United Nations and the international community for support in its domestic battle for civil rights for blacks and against lynching.<br>> > <br>> > “It was in 1947 that W.E.B. Du Bois delivered his speech and appealed to the world at the U.N.,” NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said Thursday. “Now, like then, the principal concern is voting rights. The past year more states in this country have passed more laws pushing more voters out of the ballot box than any point since Jim Crow.”<br>> > <br>> > Supporters of the new laws say the action by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a curious move, but one that isn’t likely to produce tangible results.<br>> > <br>> > “The NAACP can appeal to whatever body it chooses to – the UN. doesn’t run our elections,” said Catherine Engelbrecht, president of True the Vote, a tea party-founded anti-voter fraud group thats seeking to mobilize thousands of volunteers to work as poll watchers and to validate existing voter-registration lists.<br>> > <br>> > Jealous acknowledged that the Human Rights Council has no direct authority over American states, but he hopes that it can exert influence through public pressure.<br>> > <br>> > “The power of the U.N. on state governments historically is to shame them and to put pressure on the U.S. government to bring them into line with global standards for democracy, best practices for democracy, that’s where we are,” he said.<br>> > <br>> > “There are plenty of examples – segregation of the U.S. to apartheid in South Africa to the death penalty here in the U.S. – of global outrage having an impact.”<br>> > <br>> > Jealous said the U.N. panel will hear Wednesday from two Americans impacted by the new laws: a convicted felon who served her time and a University of Texas student who might not be able to vote this year because of a law approved by the state legislature requiring voters to show government-approved photo identification.<br>> > <br>> > Since last year, 15 states have passed new voting laws; currently 38 states, including some of those 15, are weighing legislation to require people to show government-approved photo identification or provide proof of citizenship before casting their ballots.<br>> > <br>> > Other changes adopted or under consideration by states include restricting voter registration drives by third-party groups such as the League of Women Voters and the NAACP; curtailing or eliminating early voting; doing away with same-day voter registration; and rescinding the right to vote of convicted felons who have served their time.<br>> > <br>> > Proponents of the new laws say they are needed to protect the integrity of the vote, to prevent illegal immigrants from casting ballots, and to clamp down on voter fraud, although several studies indicate that systemic voter fraud is negligible.<br>> > <br>> > The NAACP, civil liberties groups, voting experts and some lawmakers say the new laws smack of poll taxes and literacy tests – devices that in previous generations blocked blacks from voting.<br>> > <br>> > A study last year by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice said the new laws “may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election” by restricting voting access to 5 million people most of them minority, elderly, young or low-income earners.<br>> > <br>> > States that have adopted new laws account for 171 electoral votes in 2012 or 63 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, the Brennan Center report said.<br>> > <br>> > The study also found that more than 21 million Americans don’t possess government-issued photo identification. The NAACP estimates that about 25 percent of African-Americans nationwide don’t possess the proper documentation to meet ID requirements.<br>> > <br>> > The Justice Department is scrutinizing some of the laws under Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires approval of voting law changes in 16 mostly Southern states because they have histories of racial discrimination.<br>> > <br>> > The department’s Civil Rights Division rejected as discriminatory a South Carolina law requiring voters to show government-issued photo ID. The state filed a lawsuit last month against the Justice Department over its decision.<br>> > <br>> > The department is expected to make a determination on Texas’ voting law on Monday. Justice Department officials have filed court papers challenging Florida’s voting law changes.<br>> > <br>> > Opponents of the new laws have been waging a multifront battle either to get the measures killed or to prepare those potentially affected by the laws for what they will need to do to register and vote.<br>> > <br>> > The Congressional Black Caucus, for example, is scheduled to hold a symposium in May in Washington for a nationwide gathering of ministers to explain how the new laws could impact their efforts to mobilize parishioners to vote.<br>> > <br>> > CBC members also plan to conduct a multicity voter education tour in May, and some caucus members will launch voter education bus tours from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.<br>> > <br>> > But the NAACP’s Geneva journey takes the voting law battle in a different – but familiar – direction.<br>> > <br>> > After World War II revealed the atrocities of the white supremacist Nazi regime, the NAACP saw an opportunity to tell the international community about the unequal treatment of African-Americans in the U.S. In October 1947, the NAACP filed “An Appeal to the World” at the United Nations, penned mostly by Dubois.<br>> > <br>> > The U.N.’s Commission on Human Rights rejected the appeal in December 1947, but the NAACP’s New York office was flooded with requests from around the world for copies of the petition, according to a Stanford University timeline on the African-American civil rights struggle.<br>> > <br>> > Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights movement veteran, said he doesnt know what type of reception the NAACP will receive in Geneva, but he applauds the organization for trying.<br>> > <br>> > “If this is what it takes to bring attention to what’s happening, and not just in the South, it’s probably what should be done, he said.<br>> > <br>> > ------------------------------<br>> > <br>> > Seeya round town, Moscow.<br>> > <br>> > Tom Hansen<br>> > Moscow, Idaho<br>> > <br>> > "If not us, who?<br>> > If not now, when?"<br>> > <br>> > - Unknown<br>> > <br>> > <br>> > <br>> > <br>> <br>> =======================================================<br>> List services made available by First Step Internet, serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.<br>> http://www.fsr.net<br>> mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<br>> =======================================================<br>> <br>> <br>> =======================================================<br>> List services made available by First Step Internet,<br>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.<br>> http://www.fsr.net<br>> mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<br>> =======================================================<br></div> </div></body>
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