On Voting Republicans Out Of Office

WASHINGTON -- The House GOP quietly blocked funding for ACORN last week, even though the anti-poverty organization has long since been both defunded and disbanded.

The legislative assault on ACORN, which shut down in 2010, was included in a Department of Defense appropriations bill that cleared the House on Thursday. Although the bill passed by a broad, bipartisan margin of 315-97, it garnered attention for an amendment proposed by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) that would have stopped the government from collecting masses of phone call metadata without reasonable suspicion.

Amash's amendment failed, but language to bar ACORN from receiving any money made the final cut. Section 8097 of the bill reads, "None of the funds made available under this Act may be distributed to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or its subsidiaries."

ACORN cannot receive any funding from the U.S. government under any legislation, of course, because ACORN does not exist. Similarly, ACORN has no subsidiaries because ACORN does not exist.

The North Carolina legislature voted Thursday to approve the most restrictive voter suppression measures in the country, making it the first state to pass new laws after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. But the move comes the same day that the Department of Justice announced plans to use other means to protect voting rights.

Among other things, the amended bill:
Cuts Early Voting by a full week, which could lead to longer waits on election day, and which is made worse by another provision that prohibits counties from extending poll hours in case of long lines or other extraordinary circumstances. Florida pulled the same move before the 2012 elections, which led to six-hour lines and an estimated 200,000 voters who gave up and didn't vote. On Tuesday morning, voting rights groups in North Carolina warned lawmakers not to repeat Florida's mistake, planting dozens of plastic pink flamingos in the lawn outside the Legislative Building. "Despite warnings, North Carolina is poised to make the same mistakes Florida made," said Justin Guillory of the liberal advocacy group Progress North Carolina. In the 2012 elections, 56 percent of voters in North Carolina voted early, particularly voters of color.
Ends Election Day Registration: North Carolina is one of just nine states that allow voters to register at the polls on election day, with California and Connecticut soon to join the list. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Republican legislators also targeted election day registration last year (although they dropped the effort after public outcry and an estimate that ending the practice would cost the state $14.5 million). Around 155,000 North Carolina voters registered at the polls in 2012.
Authorizes Voting Vigilantes like True the Vote, a group best known for training Tea Partiers to patrol polling places for voter fraud, in many cases prompting accusations of voter intimidation. The group had a presence in North Carolina for the 2012 elections, but the potential for voter suppression was blunted by North Carolina law only allowing voter challenges from an individual registered within that precinct. This helped limit white voter vigilantes traveling to communities of color and intimidating voters, as True the Vote poll watchers have been known to do. The amendments would eliminate the precinct-only provision and allow challenges from any registered voter in a county.
Codifies "Zombie Voter" Paranoia with a provision that reads:
"At the time funeral arrangements are made, a funeral director or funeral service licensee is encouraged to make available to near relatives of the deceased a form upon which the near relative may report the status of the deceased voter to the board of elections of the county in which the deceased was a registered voter."

For years, Republican lawmakers have peddled myths of the dead casting ballots, despite essentially zero evidence of it happening. The issue became particularly salient last year in South Carolina, when Republicans in the state alleged (and Fox News repeated) claims that nearly 1,000 dead people had voted in the previous six years, which was used to justify strict voter ID laws. But an 18-month long investigation by the South Carolina law enforcement division showed not a single case of dead voters casting ballots.


Other provisions:
Eliminate pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds;
End "Citizens Awareness Month," an annual event where the State Board of Elections runs a voter registration drive;
Eliminates public funding for judicial candidates;
Increase contribution limits to $5,000 (up from $4,000), with those limits scheduled to rise with inflation;
Limit disclosure requirements for issue ads and calls for a study into eliminating 48-hour campaign finance reporting requirements, further cloaking election spending in secrecy.

"Political bullies rigging the election system for their own self interest"

The impact of the North Carolina bill closely resembles a similar omnibus piece of legislation introduced in Wisconsin earlier this year, which like the North Carolina law, would enact voter ID, restrict early voting, and make it harder to register. Wisconsin's bill was also introduced at the last-minute and fast-tracked to minimize debate, although its most egregious provisions were eventually blunted in a compromise with Democrats.

There is no statistically significant incidence of voter fraud, but the legislature's proposal would have a major impact on North Carolina voters, particularly those who tend to vote for Democrats. The bill is expected to sail through the Republican-dominated legislature.

Bob Hall, Executive Director of Democracy North Carolina, says the intentions behind the amendments are clear:

"This is political bullies rigging the election system for their own self interest."