John Liming pens a timely piece on where you can go to check out your voter registration status.
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I have heard so much stuff about voter suppression and some of the difficulties being reported in regard to all the new Voter ID Laws being passed in a lot of states that I thought it might be helpful to share an article I found on the Internet about Voting Rights.
The article I found is reportedly published by The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and reportedly shows voting rights from state to state.
I tried the site out and I discovered a map where all the states are listed and I discovered that when I click on my particular state, the voter information comes up where I can read it and kind of interact with it. I found out by clicking on the appropriate thing that my own voter registration shows as being fine and I should be good to go.
There is a note on the page that says checking registrations is important this year because there have been so many reported changes in the rules in various states.
From what I have been reading and hearing lately, I decided early on that it is probably not all that cool to just go ahead and assume that everything is alright with my personal registration because if the rules have changed, there might be something that I have to do to get current – - – so I did what I thought was the right thing to do to make sure I can vote without any hassle – - – I checked it out.
I didn’t want to encounter any unpleasant surprises when it comes time for me to cast my vote this year.
It seems, from all that I have been seeing and hearing during this election cycle, that there is a lot of concern all around the country about issues surrounding the possibilities of one kind of voter fraud or another and about the new Voted ID laws – - – it seems to have gotten pretty hot out there about voters, voting and voting rights this time around.
So, having a desire to be a good little political blogger, I thought it would be nice to share this article for anyone who might be interested. Voting rights for your specific state can be found at Let Me Vote and your voter registration status can be determined at Can I Vote.
John publishes Blue Heart Chronicles.
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Thanks John. I found that site last week and checked out the entire family. It is great that you are spreading the word!
I read this morning ( can’t remember which article) that in Indiana alone as many as 77.000 would be voters may get to the polls and find they have been scrubbed from the voter rolls. The article said that most of them were hispanic. When will Holter get off the dime and do something to stop this voter intimidation and denial of rights?
I think that there is a very good chance that we will see unrest in this country like never before if Romney steals this election.
I agree Sydney – I don’t think the American public is going to sit back and accept the outcome of a Romney election – not with the polls being what they are and all the voter suppression and not voter fraud by GOP paid operatives in FL.
Not going to happen this time. Blackwell was a disgrace in OH in 2004 and not too long ago it came out that there were GOP operatives in KY that had been tied into the election computers in OH.
2000 was bad enough — all those they threw off the roles that no one realized had happened until it was too late, the screwy ballots, and once again GOP staffers brought in to disrupt the recount. Then the Supremes stepping in in place of Congress.
They’d better not dare try it this time!
Thank you!
I went to the site and discovered I was listed as an “inactive” voter. I live in a blue state and have been voting since moving here in 2010! I also discovered the deadline for reactivating status is October 8th. If you miss the deadline, all changes will take effect after the next election! You can still vote, they say, but you have to call your election registrar for further information. Who knew?
I can’t thank you enough, John, for bringing this to my attention. I am going to spread the word to my family and friends.
I am a retired educator and since I am not a minority I can only chalk my sudden change of status to age. By the by, nothing had changed on my registration form.
Complacency is never a good idea.
What bothers me is something I had not thought much about until just recently and that something is this: I am sure that someone over there in the Election Board can read the return address on requests for absentee ballots that are being sent in and can determine from the address whether the request is coming from a Republican or a Democrat voter precinct or district and I am wondering if some of the voter suppression might occur by slowing down or mis-placing the actual ballots being requested from districts targeted for suppression efforts? Can that happen? Has that happened?
What occurs to most Americans is that the GOP has not been playing FAIR for decades.
Especially since they got away with rigging the Presidential election in 2000. They got away with falling asleep at the wheel in 9/11, they got away with LYING the Country into a war with the wrong country, they got away with starting a 2nd war to catch Bin Laden and then gave up looking for him.
They got away with their insane “trickle down” ideology for decades convincing an entire country that giving as much as possible to the top rich people is good because a few of those crumbs may trickle down to you.
They gotten away with saying give as many tax breaks to the rich as possible because they are “job creators” only to learn that those jobs would be created in foreign country’s.
They’ve gotten away with saying that the hardworking American employee should not have collective bargaining rights because somehow that would benefit the hated Democratic Party and we can’t have that.
They’ve gotten away with making laws that essentially nullifies Roe v Wade and in it’s wake have created such fascist laws as state mandated trans-vaginal probes.
They’ve gotten away with the country buying into the myth that all main media are “lame-stream liberals” and one should only listen to the gospel of truth on Fox Noise cable channel.
They have been very close to convincing many Americans that the most of our economic problems today are the fault of President Obama while mentally erasing the fact that 8 years of the most horrible GOP administration’s policies is what wrought this travesty of massive misgovernment by GOP.
Check out your voter registration status is a must, this election !
When my husband, and I lost our home, and moved to an apartment, we registered from our new place, right away. We mailed our applications through the local DMV. Our forms never made it to the registrar. Not until the primary election was upon us did we realize our voter cards never arrived. We weren’t even sure when the primaries would be. Nothing was ever mentioned on our local news stations, and that is just not heard of. The evening of the election the news casters said the polling places were closed, and the numbers were coming in slow.. My Mom called me to ask me if I knew the election was that day, because she was just as much in the dark as we were, and she watched local news daily.
What was even more strange is that my husband started receiving letters, and flyers from the Mitt Romney campaign. He would just tear them up, and trash them. He just got a call tonight asking him if he wanted to see Obama as a one term President, and if he would donate $100.00 to the Romney campaign. Well, this time we have our voter cards, and know that we are registered as Democrats. My husband was slightly unpleasant with the caller, and hung up. We’re just baffled over the whole thing.
Now we are working to get my mother registered. She wants to vote this up coming election for President Obama. We found one place that carries the application in her town. The building is overly huge, with what looks like a good 50 steps to walk up, and the ramp to the side looks a half mile up! I got the number on the net for her to the Sacramento office Division of Registration to see if she can call and ask for a few forms through the mail. The Post Office claims that they had to bring their forms inside, and offer them up by request. The portion of the post office kept open for the mail boxes, and paper works at night, including the registration forms were no longer placed in the open area. They claim to experience nightly destruction of all the forms and other various papers made available for the public, are no longer made available after hours.
This is so ridiculous, the problems in trying to obtain a form. My Mom lives in a small, poor city. The county went bankrupt a few years back. You would not believe the amount of theft going on in so small a city. It’s heavily populated with poor, and disabled seniors. It use to be one of the best places for the retired. The city once did very well to have numerous ways of making life easier for them. That has all changed. When we left her home last week-end, we met up with a giant sign that said “Obama must go’ parked in front of a trailer park of poor seniors. We felt like we were just leaving a hell hole, and my mom is stuck there in it.
The more I learn about voter suppression the more we feel it for ourselves.
Goldensun…..I so often think about all the points that you have made about the republican party. They also have convinced the poor who themselves are in welfare programs that it is OTHER UNDESERVING Americans collecting the same benefits as them that have caused our debt.
How can people be so ignorant? So easily manipulated?
Can you imagine if the democratic party had done the things they did? The dems definitly have a messaging problem, and they seem to believe that the citizens of this country are smarter then they really are.
That is why the republicans dive into to regilious and racist issues, using their dog whistles. They know just what to say to get these one issue voters to believe in them. It is so easy to become a republican canidate, they all follow the same script. Just look at the idiots that were swept into office in 2010, people that don’t have any business in congress are given prime time media outlets to spew their hate and ignorance.
And the people that are sucked into this republican vortex so stupidly remind me of a bigot living in a multi-cultural neighborhood who hates, just hates their neighbor. Maybe the family next door is blah, or the wrong religion or nationality or their just different, and one day on their way home they see their neighbors house on fire, and they are so righteous that these people are getting just what they deserve from the karma gods. They watch the flames and they laugh, they dance they high five each other. They can’t believe their luck! But there is something they don’t notice, something they don’t see as they celebrate their neighbor getting some godly smit. They don’t notice that the flames have jumped to their own house and there is nobody left to call the fire department.
Sydney, in the 2010 election, did you find any Democratic voters, that were just plain pissed at the President for not doing anything to make Bush, Cheney, the others of the administration that took us to war on false claims in Iraq, to make them pay for war crimes against our country, and our military? We found many that refused to keep the Dems their jobs. Either refused to vote, or voted one of the tea party Governors, various Senators into their seats. That seems to be what screwed us most in 2010. I know we were angry, too, but I wasn’t willing to let any of our Dems in office pay the price. Then making us pay the price when the tea party poopers won. That was certainly an issue for other states.
Dear Janet – - – That angry vote that swept some of the Tea Lickers into power in 2010 or whenever is coming home to bite the voters in the rear end now – - – especially in places like Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and else where where some of those crazy austerity things were attempted and where some of the elected started acting more like dictators than like representatives – - – but that is who they are and that is what they are and that is why they have to be voted out as soon as possible. The government cannot get out of gridlock until those (Expletives Deleted) are once and for all sent packing!
Janet,
Yes they were pissed at Obama for not going after Bush/Cheney, but what really got up everybody’s butt was the way he gave up the public option SO EASILY. And he was so NICE to the republicans, he DIDN’T KNOW they were NUTS and he needed to be tuff with them, he needed to talk to the American people, and tell everyone what asswipes the republicans were being. And he didn’t do that. Then once in a while he would speak about the republicans party like they were NORMAL and really wanted what was BEST for this country. And there were his 2008 supporters screaming at him “Watch out! The GOP is tring to stab you in the back! Their trying to take this country down!” And he didn’t seem to listen to us, and that is when many of us were having voters remorse and thinking that we should of voted for Hilary, because SHE would of known how to handle these republicans! Then came the 2010 midterm elections. I went to the polls and voted democrat, because I could see that the GOP was playing a very dangerous game. But many didn’t, and maybe in a way it’s a good thing that many paid a price for sitting this one out. They got a little taste of what the republicans are all about, but others had their mouths so full of spoon fed propaganda there was no room for reality.
Before Obama was sworn in, I believe it was Kristol who wrote a piece for the national review giving Obama a list of advice that would help him out and get the GOP to work with him. On that list was “Dont prosecute bush/Cheney for war crimes” and the republicans would be so grateful and would really really like him and they would comprimise.
It wasn’t until the debt ceiling debacle that Obama saw the light.