As the inimitable Ari Berman talked about in detail in our podcast a few weeks ago, one of the chief ways of disenfranchising poor people – particularly minorities – is to make it hard for them to vote. And one of the ways they do that is by passing laws that require a photo ID to vote on Election Day. […]

Prior to 2013, the Voting Rights Act required federal oversight of changes to election laws in areas where voter disenfranchisement had historically been a significant problem. One of those places was Maricopa County in Arizona. However, after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act three years ago, Maricopa County officials were free to make whatever changes they wanted. […]

Twice in Michigan’s past Republicans have passed a law to take away the right to vote for all the candidates of a single political party with one mark on a ballot. Both times voters went to the polls and rejected their law. As the clock ticked down on the 2015 legislative session, Republicans passed the same damn law a third […]

Last month, I wrote about Senate Bill 571, a Republican campaign finance bill that will do a number of truly anti-democratic things. Here’s a recap from that post: [The] faux sincere desire for voters to be more informed was proven to be the lie that it is when [Republicans] passed Senate Bill 571. This bill bans using public dollars or […]

As we wind down the year, those of us who pay attention to state politics are breathing a sigh of relief that the state legislature is no longer in session and working on ways to shape our state into the corporatocracy the Republicans so desperately want it to be. However, before they left Lansing for the year, they passed three […]

After over ten hours of behind the scenes negotiations among their caucus members, all but two Senate Republicans voted last evening to ban straight-ticket voting on Michigan ballots. The bill had been tie-barred to far-less-than-perfect legislation to permit “no reason” absentee voting. However, the tie-bar was removed before passage by the Senate and then sent back to the House where, […]

This morning the Michigan Senate Elections Committee voted to advance a Republican-sponsored bill – S.B. 13 – that will eliminate straight-ticket voting in our state. If it becomes law, you will no longer have the convenience of simply pulling one lever, filling in one oval, or punching one chad to vote for all the candidates in your preferred party. The […]

Boehner’s mama would be so proud…

At last night’s State of the Union address, one of the unquestionable stars of the evening was Desiline Victor, a 102-year old Haitian-born American who waited for hours to vote in November 2012 thanks to the voter-suppression efforts of Florida Republicans. As the President told her story, Ms. Victor tried briefly to stand but it just wasn’t happening. Everyone else, however, did stand and gave her a thunderous standing ovation.

Everyone else except one person, that is: Republican House Speaker John Boehner.

Details after the jump.

“He who votes decides nothing; he who counts the votes decides everything” – Joseph Stalin

Last March in Wellington, Florida, City Council candidate Al Paglia was declared the winner only to learn later that the voting machines used to tally the vote had reversed his votes with his opponent’s and he was subsequently informed he had actually NOT been elected.

More on this and other voting machine-related news after the jump.

Mission Partially Accomplished

Yesterday, I wrote about the March for Democracy and Freedom being organized by Rev. Charles Williams II and his group, National Action Network – Michigan Chapter. The march was modeled on the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches of the mid-60s and was in protest of voter suppression legislation passed by Michigan Republicans as well as the anti-democratic Emergency Manager Law, Public Act 4.

Yesterday, Governor Snyder stunned the state by vetoing the three most egregious bills in the election reform package sent to him by the Republican legislators. Based on this, the march has been postponed.

Rev. Williams’ statement after the jump.

Hallelujah

In a surprising blow to conservative Michigan Republicans working to make it harder to vote in our state, Governor Rick Snyder vetoed three key components of a package of voter suppression bills. The move apparently caused House Speaker Jase Bolger to temporarily lose his mind.