DOJ To Monitor Polls in 23 States

Posted: November 2, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, Civil Rights, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 59 Comments

Just a quick post…

CNN is reporting that:

The Justice Department Friday announced that it is dispatching more than 780 federal observers and monitors to 23 states to watch for potential problems which would violate voting rights protected by federal law.

The Justice Department said it was sending observers to 51 jurisdictions in those states to help enforce federal voting rights laws which protect ballot access.

….

Jon Greenbaum, Chief Counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, says his organization is generally pleased with the locations selected for federal monitoring. The organization successfully pushed, for example, for monitors to be sent to Maricopa County, Arizona because of potential problems for Hispanic voters, and the group noted potential for discrimination against black voters in Alabama and Mississippi counties.

Historic incidents of discrimination against Native American voters prompted observers to be sent to Shannon County, South Dakota, and Sandoval County, New Mexico, Greenbaum said. In Chicago, several ethnic minorities have suffered incidents in the past, including lack of poll workers who spoke Chinese, South Asian, or other minority languages. A growing Muslim population in Detroit and Hamtramck, Michigan also had caused issues for native Arab and Middle Eastern language speakers at polling places, Greenbaum said.

There’s a complete list of the targeted counties at the CNN link. Franklin and Hamilton Counties in Ohio are included.

According to the Palm Beach Post,

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who was at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tallahassee on Friday, is sending staff to Duval County, Hendry, Hillsborough, Lee, Miami-Dade, Orange and Osceola counties on Election Day. DOJ is also monitoring Miami-Dade County elections during early voting, the agency announced today.

Hendry and Hillsborough are two of the five “preclearance” counties – along with Collier, Hardee and Monroe – that require federal approval of election law changes because of a history of discrimination against minorities.

“Although state and local governments have primary responsibility for administering elections, the Civil Rights Division is charged with enforcing the federal voting rights laws that protect the rights of all citizens to access the ballot on Election Day,” DOJ said in the press release.

The LA Times reports that Riverside and Alameda Counties are on the list.

The federal government began monitoring polling sites in Riverside County after the agency’s Civil Rights Division filed a complaint against the county for failing to offer election-related information and assistance to Spanish-speaking voters, a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The county and the Department of Justice reached a settlement in February 2010 that included having federal observers at polling stations.

A similar settlement was reached with Alameda County in 2011 after the federal government accused the county of failing to train an adequate number of poll workers to help Mandarin-, Cantonese- and Spanish-speaking voters on election day.

This may not completely make up for the numerous efforts of Republican election officials to suppress the votes of traditionally Democratic groups, but it’s good to know Holder is on the case.

This is an open thread.

Great News: SCOTUS Refuses to Block Ohio Early Voting

Posted: October 16, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, open thread, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 46 Comments

The Supreme Court has declined to review the decision of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 6th District that:

if Ohio is going to allow in-person voting for members of the military during the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the election, it must open the process to all voters.

“While there is a compelling reason to provide more opportunities for military voters to cast their ballots, there is no corresponding satisfactory reason to prevent nonmilitary voters from casting their ballots as well,” the appeals court said.

Bloomberg:

Ohio Republicans had sought to cancel early voting that weekend for everyone except members of the military. A U.S. appeals court blocked the plan last week, saying it probably violated the constitutional rights of non-military voters. In a one-sentence order, the Supreme Court today rejected a challenge to that ruling, filed by Ohio’s Republican secretary of state and attorney general….

The early-voting clash is one of two Ohio election disputes with implications for the presidential race between Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. In a second Obama victory, the same Cincinnati-based appeals court last week barred the state from disqualifying provisional ballots that voters cast in the wrong precinct because of poll-worker error.

In other news, President Obama says he “feels fabulous” about the debate tonight.

President Barack Obama walks with Senior White House Adviser David Plouffe and Anita Dunn to debate preparation at the Kingsmill Resort on Tuesday in Williamsburg, Va. — Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Hours before a crucial debate, President Obama tried to flash some confidence and calm for the cameras.

“I feel fabulous. Look at this beautiful day,” Obama said, as he strolled under blue skies at the Virginia resort where he has been preparing for his faceoff with Mitt Romney.

The president has been largely out of sight since Saturday, when he arrived here for three days of intensive debate preparations.

Zeke Miller at Buzzfeed writes that:

President Barack Obama appears amply aware that he fumbled badly during a debate two weeks ago in Denver, but he’s not the only one looking for redemption: Obama’s staff, blamed in part for his weak preparation, for a flawed plan, and for a lame post-debate effort are also seeking a do-over.

The most obvious — and critical — flaw in the Denver debate was Obama’s performance, and aides say they’ve prepared him intensely not to repeat it. They’ve played him the tape of the Denver debacle, examined his facial expressions and overall body language, and prepared for how to personally engage a live audience of questioners.

Tuesday’s town hall-style forum at Hofstra University on Long Island, NY is a format in which Obama in 2008 thrived, as the format’s king, John McCain, stumbled. Four years ago Obama managed to draw a connection with both the questioner and the audience at home. Aides say they expect this stage to be more comfortable, since he’s not interacting with just Romney.

There is also a new plan. Two weeks ago, Obama tried to stay above the fray, backing down from nearly every attack he and his campaign have been firing at Romney by proxy — both on television and in solo rallies across the country. Tuesday at Hofstra, will throw all the punches he pulled two weeks ago, his aides promise. Romney’s tax rate? Check. The 47% video? He’ll work it in there. Osama bin Laden? You can bet on it.

Sounds like Team Obama is taking this seriously. Do you buy it? How are you feeling about tonight?

This is an open thread, of course.

Sunday Afternoon Open Thread: From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Posted: September 23, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Civil Rights, Mitt Romney, open thread, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , | 30 Comments

Good Afternoon!

Dakinikat clued me in about a terrific speech that First Lady Michelle Obama gave to at the Congressional Black Caucus Dinner last night.   She spoke movingly of the importance of voting rights as “the Civil Rights issue of our day.  Here is a bit of that.

You can watch the entire speech on YouTube.

From the WaPo:

Speaking in Washington at the foundation’s annual Phoenix dinner, the first lady likened turning out the vote to the civil rights struggles of previous eras.

“Make no mistake about it, this is the march of our time,” Obama told the audience at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “Marching door-to-door registering people to vote, marching everyone you know to the polls every single election.” That effort, she said, “is the movement of our era — protecting that fundamental right, not just for this election but for the next generation and generations to come.”

Obama did not refer explicitly to voter-ID laws that that have been passed or proposed in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, but she warned against being dissuaded from voting.

“We cannot let anyone discourage us from casting our ballots,” she said. “We cannot let anyone make us feel unwelcome in the voting booth. It is up to us to make sure that in every election, every voice is heard and every vote is counted. That means making sure our laws preserve that right.”

On Face the Nation, Bill Clinton commented on the small portion of his income that Mitt Romney pays in taxes.

Former President Bill Clinton said low tax rates like the one paid by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney aren’t helping the economic recovery, adding to Democratic criticism that Republicans disregard the needs of average Americans.

“I don’t think we can get out of this hole we’re in if people at that income level only pay 13, 14 percent,” Democrat Clinton said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” today. “It’d be interesting, I think, for the American people to see how the ordinary income years were treated, but apparently we’re not going to get to see that.”

That was a nice little dig. Here’s hoping Clinton keeps on throwing elbows right up till November 6.

Robert Gibbs worked on managing expectations for the first presidential debate on October 3. He told Fox News that Romney has a big advantage over poor President Obama.

“Mitt Romney I think has an advantage, because he’s been through 20 of these debates in the primaries over the last year,” Gibbs said Sunday on Fox News.

The Republican presidential nominee last took part in a debate on February 22, when CNN hosted a debate in Arizona. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas were also on stage with Romney.

“Having been through this much more recently than President Obama, I think he starts with an advantage,” Gibbs said.

Romney would be wise to have his surrogates do the same thing, but he’s probably too arrogant to say that Obama is a superior debater. Besides, I think the only reliable surrogate Romney has left is John Sununu, and he would most likely prefer being waterboarded to praising the president.

And now for the ridiculous…

This morning, RNC Chair Reince Priebus argued tried to convince George Stephanopoulos that the past week was a good one for Mitt Romney. Check out the double take Stephanopoulos does when he finally gets what Priebus is saying.

Bwaaaahahahahahahahha! From the New York Daily News:

As Mitt Romney tried Sunday to change the course of his campaign, the head of the GOP was looking backward, declaring the party’s nominee “had a good week” — and leaving many wondering what a bad week looks like.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus spun like a toy-store top when asked about the impact of a leaked video that caught Romney portraying 47% of Americans as moochers at a fund-raiser of wealthy GOP donors.

“It probably wasn’t the … best week in the campaign,” Priebus said when first asked about the gaffe on ABC’s “This Week.”

“I think we had a good week last week,” he said later, clinging to the belief that the 47% comments had a positive role in focusing the conversation on entitlement programs and spending. “We were able to frame up the debate last week in the sense of what future do we want.”

Wow, you have to be either really brave or incredibly stupid to go on national TV and try to sell that kind of bullsh&t.

So what have you up to today?

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