Jason Kander (D) [2015 file photo].

This morning from Jason Kander (D), via Twitter:

Jason Kander‏ @JasonKander
A bogus commission formed to justify the biggest lie ever told by a sitting President has become a vote suppressing power grab.
[….]
9:59 AM – 2 Jul 2017

There are so many big lies by Donald Trump. Choosing the biggest can be difficult.

I’ve been amused by the not inconsiderable number of individuals who sanctimoniously point out that if people in places like Ferguson, say, don’t like what’s going on in local government, or if they have a problem with the makeup of that government, then all they need to do is trot off to the polls and vote. Take, for instance, this letter printed in a recent edtion of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

You want change? Prove it. Those signs people are carrying that say “Black Lives Matter” should be saying “Black Votes Matter.” Marching in the streets may get some attention short term, but where you can really make a difference is on Election Day by marching into the voting booths and casting a ballot for people who can address your concerns. March into the county Board of Elections and register to vote. March into the town hall meetings, the school board meetings, the state legislature and tell your stories. Because these officials have to know how their actions affect you personally. And if their actions show they aren’t listening, then vote them out. Run for office, get involved, pay attention.

Although I don’t think protests vs. votes is an either/or situation – in this case, we probably need both – the writer is, of course, right on a basic level.  We get the government we deserve. When large majorities of the citizens of Missouri – and I’m not necessarily talking about “those people” singled out by the letter writer above – failed to turn out to vote in 2014, the result has been legislators like those currently in Jefferson City who seem hell-bent on trashing the state as fast as they can.

But there’s a bigger story here than the one about apathetic voters. There are a number of socioeconomic factors that influence whether people vote and how they vote. And it’s this last fact that gets us to a whole other open can of worms. There are those who have noticed that who people are, their race, economic status, gender and age, corresponds to their partisan leanings. Lots of those people are Republican politicians or the people who give them money. The result has been a growing effort to keep the wrong people, who often tend to be “those people,” from voting. And it’s happening right here in Missouri. As Rebecca Rivas at the St. Louis American reports:

Just as many are stepping out of the movie theaters with images of the 1965 March on Selma fresh in their minds, Missouri state legislators are hearing about proposed Voter ID laws.

“On the anniversary of the March on Selma, the fight for voter rights have [sic] been exposed and celebrated,” said state Rep. Stacey Newman (D-87). “But they’ve also taught us that this never ends.”

On Tuesday, January 27, the Missouri House of Representative’s election committee listened to community members and experts testify about two voter identification bills, introduced by state Rep. Tony Dugger (R-141). The bill HB 30 would requires voters to show a “valid government-issued photo ID” at the polls, with some exemptions. Dugger is also proposing the bill HJR 1, which would amend the constitution to require voters to have government-issued photo IDs.

[…]

Voter ID laws have been criticized and found unconstitutional because they disproportionately impact people who don’t often have state-issued IDs – often people of color, people with disabilities, seniors and young voters.

In 2006, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down Missouri’s Voter ID law. According to the court opinion, the Secretary of State’s analysis in August 2006 estimated that approximately 240,000 registered voters in the state may not have the required photo ID.

Rep. Dugger offers a comically unlikely hypothetical concerning possible voter fraud to justify his (likely ALEC inspired) obsession with the photo ID project that he has repeatedly tried to enact:

Missouri’s Voter Rolls are severely inflated due to various reasons,” Dugger said. “There are 15 counties in Missouri with 95% or more of their eligible voters registered to vote,” said Dugger. “One county, Reynolds County, actually has more registered voters than eligible voters. With that problem out there, the potential for fraud is quite prevalent. There is no verifiable way to ensure that a voter voting on Election Day is who they say they are without some sort of a photo ID requirement.”

You really think that some sinister somebody is going to go through the rolls, figure out who doesn’t belong there, and then send ringers to impersonate them? Lots of effort for very little return, I’d say. Photo IDs only prevent this type of in-person voter fraud, and as reported in The Washington Post:

A new nationwide analysis of more than 2,000 cases of alleged election fraud over the past dozen years shows that in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which has prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tougher voter ID laws, was virtually nonexistent.

But Photo ID laws do pose an often insurmountable barrier to voting:

Since 2008, states across the country passed measures to make it harder for Americans – particularly African-Americans, the elderly, students and people with disabilities – to exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot. Over thirty states considered laws that would require voters to present government-issued photo ID in order to vote. Studies suggest that up to 11 percent of American citizens lack such ID, and would be required to navigate the administrative burdens to obtain it or forego the right to vote entirely.

The irony should not be lost on anyone that we are hearing so many disapproving sounds about the failure of “those people” in Ferguson to turn out and vote rather than rampaging in the street, while at the same time our GOP lawmakers are trying their hardest to keep them from the polls.

Once again Missouri Republicans are out to limit the franchise so that only the “right” types of people cast their votes. Of course, that’s not what GOPers are saying. To hear them tell it, they’re pushing SB511 and its companion, SJR31,  the latest iterations of the annual GOP voter suppression bills, to ward off the threat of massive voter fraud that exists only in the overheated imaginations of the more gullible souls on the right. If you doubt me, you can check out the nature of the complaints sent to the Secretary of State concerning voting irregularities in Missouri. The actual consequence of the ID laws, according to Secretary of State Jason Kander,  is that 220,00 Missourians could be disenfranchised if these measures are enacted:

Among the hundreds of thousands of eligible Missouri voters that could be kept from voting by SJR31 & SB511 are students with current school-issued photo ID’s, senior citizens who no longer drive, Missourians who rely on public transportation, and women who have changed their last names due to marriage or divorce.

“This is not just a simple identification requirement,” Kander said. “This is essentially ‘REAL ID’ all over again, as the legislature wants everyone in our state to be required to have a certain kind of identification. …

This is not the only sin against democratic government that Missouri Republicans have committed in the recent past: Remember Prop. B, the popularly approved puppy-mill initiative that the legislature decided to dismantle just because they could? And Prop. B was just the latest winning ballot initiative to be treated in a cavalier fashion by a predominantly Republican legislature. Nor is this discomfort with the consequences of democracy limited to Missouri Republicans. State and federal GOPers are united in their in opposition to numerous positions supported by a majority of Americans such as minimum wage increases, extending unemployment benefits, ending workplace discrimination against LGBT people. Heck, most Americans want Republicans to stop the repeal Obamacare charade they’ve been playing at and get down to the brass tacks of making the law better – or, at the very least, doing something constructive with their time.

If all of this evidence leads you to conclude that the “we the people” contingent has a very narrow conception of just who comprises the “we” in that formulation, you wouldn’t be alone. The disdain for the popular will shown by the folks who precipitated the last government shutdown, for instance, led  former Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons to declare:

…  there’s a “new breed of politician. A lot of the highly conservative element that’s come in … are actually anti-democratic. The will of the people, … which is a founding principle of this country, is no longer relevant,” …

This conservative anti-democratic bias isn’t new. It can be traced to a dispute that has deep roots in American political life, one side of which is elaborated in James Madison’s Federalist no. 10, often read as an argument for limiting democracy by moderating the ability of “faction,” i.e., partisan politics, to affect the established interests of the elite. Though this document is treated as ultimately authoritative by many conservatives, it was considered aberrant by many of Madison’s contemporaries. That fact hasn’t stopped conservatives though. Although many on the political right argue exclusively from authority, they also frequently exhibit a strong proclivity to pick and choose among various potential authorities when they attempt to interpret the Constitution’s true meaning.

It’s instructive to do a google search on the phrase “republic vs. democracy.” I warn you that you’ll come upon some examples of incredibly tortured logic, simplistic and often wrong-headed definition, and linguistic confusion. One writer actually suggests that the difference resides in the fact that in a republic, after a vote is taken, the members of the minority may go along with the majority result or not based on the individual’s personal preference. Others, such as the dominionist Christian Wallbuilders, define a republic as rule by law which should not be based on the “rapidly fluctuating feelings and emotions of the people,” as in a democracy, but rather on Christian biblical principles to which elected or appointed representatives must defer. In general, though Federalist no. 10 is the usual starting point, the tenor is similar to that of medieval academics reverently distilling received authority into arcane arguments – with the distinction that most of the medieval thinkers were much less tendentious and had a head for nuance, something that seems to muddle modern conservatives.

Somewhat saner writers begin with Madison’s conception of a classical democracy where citizens vote directly for every issue – although citizenship itself may be restricted. They argue that our Constitution envisions instead a representative Republic, where an elected political elite makes the decisions. Of course, the ideas have merged over the years and most of us would agree that the United States is a representative democracy, with a bill of rights to protect minorities. This merger has been incorporated into the Constitution and informs most Americans’ conception of our government; as Peter Levine observes:

… the 15th, 17th, 19th, and 24th amendments to the Constitution, the state constitutions, two centuries of legislation, and Lincoln’s interpretation of the Civil War as a struggle for government “by the people” have made us a representative government on the basis of one person/one vote, which is a reasonable definition of a democracy.

For all practical purposes, the distinction between the two terms has become meaningless for reasonable people. For those, however, who have an axe to grind with the direction democracy is taking in the U.S., it provides a shield to deflect criticism when they seek to obstruct the common will. Conservative interpreters of Federalist no. 10 still view the Constitution as a document that limits the power of majorities, and they deny the validity of changes that have moderated aspects of 18th century elitism in the document – changes which they often seek to eradicate. Most of us have seen the lists of Constitutional Amendments that Tea Partiers would like to do away with, most recently the 17th amendment that provides for direct election of senators.  

Within this context, suppressing and limiting the franchise, drawing voting districts  to ensure political hegemony (gerrymandering), and enabling monied interests to essentially buy elections, are acceptable because they are meant to ensure the election of elite representatives who will moderate the enthusiasms of the democratic “mob.” The distinction between “republic” and “democracy” supports a system, embraced by the Republican party, that works fine for folks like the Koch brothers and Missouri’s Rex Sinquefield, and when it’s threatened, it’s not surprising that you hear the squealing of little piggies like billionaire Tom Perkins, who last week warned his fellows that progressives were even now preparing the tumbrils to cart the 1% off to the guillotine.  

   

“….it’s pretty simple, the, uh, bill is so blatantly unconstitutional that even the sponsors concede that the only way for it to ever take legal effect is to change our constitution….”

Missouri Constitution

Article I

BILL OF RIGHTS

Section 25

Elections and right of suffrage.

Section 25. That all elections shall be free and open; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.

   Source: Const. of 1875, Art. II, § 9.

[emphasis in original]

Missouri Constitution

Article VIII

SUFFRAGE AND ELECTIONS

Section 2

Qualifications of voters–disqualifications.

Section 2. All citizens of the United States, including occupants of soldiers’ and sailors’ homes, over the age of eighteen who are residents of this state and of the political subdivision in which they offer to vote are entitled to vote at all elections by the people, if the election is one for which registration is required if they are registered within the time prescribed by law, or if the election is one for which registration is not required, if they have been residents of the political subdivision in which they offer to vote for thirty days next preceding the election for which they offer to vote: Provided however, no person who has a guardian of his or her estate or person by reason of mental incapacity, appointed by a court of competent jurisdiction and no person who is involuntarily confined in a mental institution pursuant to an adjudication of a court of competent jurisdiction shall be entitled to vote, and persons convicted of felony, or crime connected with the exercise of the right of suffrage may be excluded by law from voting.

   Source: Const. of 1875, Art. VIII, § 2 (as amended November 4, 1958).

   (Amended November 5, 1974)

[emphasis in original]

Think about that.

Yesterday Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) spoke on the Melissa Harris-Perry show against republican voter suppression efforts through voter ID legislation pending in the Missouri General Assembly:

http://player.theplatform.com/p/2E2eJC/EmbeddedOffSite?guid=n_mhp_6mo_140208

The transcript:

Melissa Harris-Perry: Missouri republicans are ready to give the Show Me State motto a whole new meaning by introducing a requirement for showing voter ID.The Republican controlled state legislature recently held a hearing on a bill that would put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this November which, if approved by voters, would allow for a voter ID law. The law would require Missouri voters to show state or federal government issued identification in order to cast a ballot. Military IDs would count. Student IDs would not. Missouri’s state Supreme Court, back in two thousand six, struck down a voter ID law and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to revive it two thousand eight. But at the end of January the Washington Post reported that Missouri Republicans believe they’ve fixed the objectionable provisions by allowing residents without proper identification to receive the new IDs they’ll need without cost. Still, Missouri’s Secretary of State says the bill could keep hundreds of thousands of current Missouri residents from voting. Joining me now from Missouri is Jason Kander, the Secretary of State for the Show Me State. Nice to have you with us, Mister Kander.

Secretary of State Jason Jander (D): Great to be with you, thanks so much.                  

Melissa Harris-Perry: Okay, so, given this insistence on this new voter ID provision I assume that there must be a serious problem with voter fraud in your state. can you tell me about what you have encountered as Secretary of State?

Secretary of State Kander: Well, you know, the sponsors of this legislation say that it’s targeted at voter impersonation fraud, which is something that we actually haven’t had in Missouri. Uh, so, you know, this would be the most extreme law in the entire country if it were passed. Two hundred and twenty thousand registered voters, uh, could be disenfranchised. So, in fact, even calling it a photo identification law I think sort of underplays it. It’s really a law that requires a very specific form of identification. So, as you mentioned, student IDs wouldn’t be good enough, the voter identification card you receive in the mail wouldn’t be good enough, an expired driver’s license, and actually, a military ID that has expired, you know, like a lot of veterans, you know, I, I carry my military idea still, like a lot of veterans. It expired in November twenty thirteen. If this law were to pass I wouldn’t be allowed to present it and vote in twenty sixteen. So, you know, a law like that, anything that’s gonna disenfranchise a single eligible voter, that’s something that I’m going to fight against.        

Melissa Harris-Perry: So, Mister Kander, I think that that’s so important the, the clarification you made there because often when I’ve had this conversation with people who support voter ID here at the table they say to me, well, you know, you need an ID to get on a plane and all of those sorts of things. But the notion that, that is in fact quite hard to comply with this law, that it’s not just sort of reasonably demonstrate that you are who you say you are.  

Secretary of State Kander: Right. Well, it makes, the bill, it makes a show of trying to say, well, we’re gonna, we’re gonna get an ID for, ID for you, the state’s gonna pay for it. But it really just makes a show of it. I mean, at the end of the day there’s still underlying documents that cost money, there’s the fact that you have to take off work, spend your time and your money to go stand in line to get an ID. And we’re talking about a constitutional right. So, it’s pretty outrageous. And, you know, you mentioned that, uh, the Republicans in my state like to say that they’ve fixed it. I think you’d find their fix pretty interesting. What it actually is, is we have of all the state constitutions in the country our state has one of the strongest voting rights provisions in a constitution anywhere in the country. So the Republican strategy here is to amend our state constitution, to weaken the voting rights provision and then pass the most extreme version of this kind of law in the entire country. So, it’s pretty simple, the, uh, bill is so blatantly unconstitutional that even the sponsors concede that the only way for it to ever take legal effect [crosstalk] is to change our constitution.  

Melissa Harris-Perry: You know, that, look, let, so let me ask you this, because you as the Secretary of State being out this early in front of this, so you, you haven’t waited until, next week the, the state legislators, state legislators are voting on this, you’re talking at this point about trying to raise some awareness, about a change to a constitution. Why get in front of this so early?        

Secretary of State Kander: Well this is a constitutional right. I mean, it’s incredibly important. You know, as I said, two hundred and twenty thousand registered voters in my state could be disenfranchised by this. Melissa, that’s eight percent, that number is eight percent of the number of people who voted in my state in the twenty-twelve presidential election in Missouri. That is a substantial number. And I’m the chief election official in my state. I have a couple of jobs, you know, that, that go with that. The first is to make sure that only eligible voters vote, but it also is to make sure that the eligible voter has the opportunity to vote. I take both of those really seriously.    

Melissa Harris-Perry: Mister Kander, hold for me for just one moment. Dorian, I want to come out to you on this because it was striking to us that Missouri is now a state that I would be talking about in the context of voter ID law. And when you kind of look at the map of the fifty states you’re just seeing these expansive restrictive voter ID laws spreading. We did have it turned back in Pennsylvania. Uh, you know, both in Texas and North Carolina there that you see in yellow, those are being challenged by the DoJ. But all those states you see in red, these things are in place and, and now Missouri potentially bringing it up, too. What is happening here?

Dorian Warren: So, it, it’s clear, this is not just a southern strategy even though it’s [inaudible] in the south, but it is a strategy of the Republican Party. And if you can’t win by attracting new voters, what’s the alternative? Kick voters out, suppress the vote. And so this is essentially, we’re seeing the ghost of Jim Crow in all of these states come alive again. Republicans are breathing new life into Jim Crow laws, just under a different name. And it’s a strategy because they know they can’t attract new voters, so they have to restrict the entire electorate to try and rig the game to stay in power.          

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yep. Mister Kander, in addition to being out in front of challenging this you’ve also taken proactive steps, things you, uh, folks in Missouri can now register to vote on line. Is that right?

Secretary of State Kander: Yeah, you know, I appreciate you mentioning that. Um, I’ve been in office a year. I’m very proud of our record of, of, you know, really following through on our philosophy of making sure that every eligible voter, uh, should meet more convenience at the polls. I think that that makes sense, that’s why we’re the sixteenth state now to have an online voter registration form. We’re pushing for early voting, uh, we actually for the first time have bipartisan legislation on it. I’m gonna continue to work on that. But again, I just think that my job is to make sure that, uh, there’s more convenience for eligible voters. And, for some reason, there are Republicans in my state and around the country who are very uncomfortable with that. And I don’t really understand that. I think that it’s pretty fundamental.                  

Melissa Harris-Perry: Mister Kander, you’re so eminently reasonable [laughter] you, you [crosstalk]….

Secretary of State Kander: Well, thank you.

Melissa Harris-Perry: ….may not get a lot of play on this cable TV situation. [laughter] Your voice is all moderate and you have all this empirical evidence and such. I, I appreciate you for joining us on MHP Show.

Secretary of State Kander: Hey, thanks very much.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Thanks. Thank you for joining us from St. Louis….      

What the republican controlled House has proposed to change the Missouri Constitution:

SECOND REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 47

97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES COX (Sponsor), DUGGER, DOHRMAN, WALKER, ENTLICHER, WILSON, KELLEY (127), ANDERSON, DAVIS, ROWLAND, SWAN, CRAWFORD, MORRIS, HOSKINS, KOLKMEYER, GANNON, BROWN, PFAUTSCH, CROSS, GATSCHENBERGER, LEARA, REDMON, BERNSKOETTER, HURST, WHITE, MCGAUGH, FITZWATER AND LOVE (Co-sponsors).

4459L.01I      D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

JOINT RESOLUTION

Submitting to the qualified voters of Missouri an amendment to article VIII of the Constitution of Missouri, and adopting one new section relating to elections.

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring therein:

           That at the next general election to be held in the state of Missouri, on Tuesday next following the first Monday in November, 2014, or at a special election to be called by the governor for that purpose, there is hereby submitted to the qualified voters of this state, for adoption or rejection, the following amendment to article VIII of the Constitution of the state of Missouri:

           Section A. Article VIII, Constitution of Missouri, is amended by adding one new section, to be known as section 10, to read as follows:

           Section 10. A person seeking to vote in person in public elections may be required by general law to identify himself or herself and verify his or her qualifications as a citizen of the United States of America and a resident of the state of Missouri by providing election officials with a form of identification, which may include requiring valid government-issued photo identification. Exceptions to the identification requirement may also be provided for by general law.

           Section B. The official ballot title for section A shall read as follows:

           “Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended so that it will be permissible under the Constitution of Missouri for the General Assembly to enact a general law requiring voters to show valid photo identification in order to vote in person at a public election?”.

[emphasis in original]

“….by providing election officials with a form of identification, which may include requiring valid government-issued photo identification….”

“….I mean, at the end of the day there’s still underlying documents that cost money, there’s the fact that you have to take off work, spend your time and your money to go stand in line to get an ID. And we’re talking about a constitutional right. So, it’s pretty outrageous. And, you know, you mentioned that, uh, the Republicans in my state like to say that they’ve fixed it. I think you’d find their fix pretty interesting. What it actually is, is we have of all the state constitutions in the country our state has one of the strongest voting rights provisions in a constitution anywhere in the country. So the Republican strategy here is to amend our state constitution, to weaken the voting rights provision and then pass the most extreme version of this kind of law in the entire country. So, it’s pretty simple, the, uh, bill is so blatantly unconstitutional that even the sponsors concede that the only way for it to ever take legal effect [crosstalk] is to change our constitution….”

Res ipsa loquitur.

Yup. You read that right. Rep. Todd Akin, Missouri GOP Senatorial candidate, proud member of the Grand Old Party of voter suppression, says that the hard won federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which wiped out decades of discrimination, should probably be revised or overturned.  According to Think Progress and FiredUp Missouri (which has video of the local radio interview in which Akin committed his foot to his mouth), when asked if the legislation should be “modified or scrapped”:

Akin said that states – not the federal government – should set voting rules. According to Akin, elections “have historically always been a state thing” and that’s a “good principle.”

Of course, the law was enacted in order to deal with mostly Southern states that used “literacy” tests and other stratagems to deny African-Americans the right to vote. But, of course, as per Akin, that was their right. One wonders if Akin also thinks they had the right to practice slavery? (He is, as I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, an acolyte of the bizarre historical revisionism of Christian dominionist, David Barton. On his Website, Barton does distinguish several types of acceptable slavery, which he terms “biblical slavery.” Barton would, for instance, consider enslavement of nonbelievers, or pagans, to belong to this class.)

Over and above such arcane questions, Akin’s attitude mirrors those of many in his party and puts the GOP’s current efforts to suppress the voting rights of minorities, the elderly and students in its proper perspective. Bear in mind that under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Acts, some Southern states with a history of discrimination must have changes to their election laws precleared by federal courts. In order to avoid that stipulation, which applies to five of its counties, Florida, in its pursuit of more restrictive voting laws, actually actually filed suit seeking to have Section 5 declared unconstitutional. As of yesterday, a federal court refused to preclear at least one of the four elements of Florida’s new voter law that the Department of Justice found problematic. Given the GOP’s current drive to implement new, state-level Jim Crow laws all over the country, it’s not surprising that “state’s rights” politicians like Akin echo the call to clear the way of impediments like that pesky Voting Rights Act.

If you want to know more about the new Jim Crow, journalist Ari Berman discusses GOP strategies to restrict voting in the video below:

UPDATE:  Watch Todd Akin attempt to extricate his entire lower leg from out of his mouth. The video of Todd’s statements about the Voting Rights Act temporarily disappeared from the St. Louis Fox2Now webpage and reappeared in a slightly more edited form (compare the original with the new video). When the video reappeared, it was accompanied by text that presented what I can only assume is the Akin campaign’s effort at damage control:

Congressman Todd Akin believes that the right to vote is fundamental to our country.  He supports laws that protect these rights and did not say that he was opposed to the ‘civil rights and voting rights’ laws.  Akin has, and always will, support the right to vote.

Of course, nobody said Akin was opposed to the right to vote in general – just that his espousal of radical states rights in this case would destroy or modify federal protections for entire classes of U.S. citizens. It could decimate the system of checks and balances enacted for states and counties with a history of discrimination. And, as the Florida case demonstrates, efforts to impose discriminatory laws are not safely in the past.

One can only wonder if the entire Fox interview, scheduled to run on Sunday, will have been “cleaned-up” as well?

Voter suppression efforts in the form of Voter ID bills have had a fraught history in Missouri. To date, Democrats have succeeded in warding off this GOP ploy to make it harder for traditionally Democratic constituencies to vote.

Voter ID has widespread popular support in Missouri, however – it is one of those ideas that sound good until you realize what it entails and, consequently, it often appeals to more casual voters. Which is why it is interesting when Jonathan Chait points out a hole in the GOP Voter ID rhetoric that was opened up by Mitt Romney’s most recent effort to denigrate President Obama – something that we should perhaps file away for later use when the Missouri Voter ID zombie climbs back out of its most recent grave.

Liberal bloggers – like SMP’s Blue Girl – have almost uniformly been scandalized by Mitt’s claims that the Obama administration has filed a lawsuit intended to curtail military voting privileges. The implication is, of course, that the Obama administration is trying to suppress military voting that might, traditionally at least, be expected to tend toward Republicans. Today Politifact took up the Romney camp’s assertion and declared it unequivocally false:

Indeed, Obama’s lawsuit clearly states that it seeks to permit all Ohioans – not just members of the U.S. military –  to vote during the three days before the election, as was the case in 2008. The suit in no way suggests restricting early voting by members of the military.

It is simply dishonest for Romney and his backers to claim that Obama’s effort to extend early voting privileges to everyone in Ohio constitutes an attack on military voters’ ability to cast ballots on the weekend before elections.

So what does Jonathan Chait have to say about this piece of dishonesty that relates to Voter ID? He points out a key element of Romney’s pretend outrage:

Obviously this is your basic political smear, but there’s also a little more going on here. Consider Romney’s justification for longer in-person voting windows for members of the military:

The brave men and women of our military make tremendous sacrifices to protect and defend our freedoms, and we should do everything we can to protect their fundamental right to vote.

If the ability to get to the polls is the “fundamental right to vote,” then why shouldn’t all eligible citizens enjoy that right?

Chait concludes:

If Romney is conceding that voting is a fundamental right rather than a privilege – not all Republicans concede this anymore – and, more importantly, that practical impediments can interfere with that right, then what justification do they have for their wide-ranging campaign to deny the same convenience to other Americans?

Clear enough?

The title of yesterday St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s editorial says it all:  “It’s pitch perfect that Voter ID measure tossed as a fraud.” The voter ID measure, of course, refers to the efforts of Missouri’s GOP legislators to place an amendment intended to suppress voting rights by requiring would-be voters to produce very specific types of photo ID (e.g.,  photo student ID from local universities would not suffice). To no one’s surprise, the folks who tend to lack such documents are overwhelmingly from groups that tend to vote Democratic.

Cole County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Joyce rejected the ballot language because it was, if you will forgive my understatement, misleading:

Judge Joyce, in no uncertain terms, accused the Republicans who wrote the summary language for the inaccurately titled “Voter Protection Act” of trying to pull a fast one on voters.

A ballot amendment that purports to combat unsubstantiated voter fraud uses fraudulent language? Who could’ve guessed.

But don’t be too hard on our Missouri GOP. Dishonesty on this topic is the norm. Consider: The Department of Justice, which is investigating a similar type of Voter ID law in Texas that has the potential to negatively affect, at the very least, half the state’s Hispanic-American population, has found that the GOP legislators involved in passing the law are very, very averse to having their strategic deliberations made public:

Texas, which sued the federal government in an attempt to have their voter ID law approved, said in a court filing last month that “communications between members of the state legislature, communications between state legislators and their staff, and communications between state legislators and their constituents” should be protected by legislative privilege. The state also tried to prevent officials with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division from deposing legislators who supported the voter ID legislation known as SB 14.

So what’re they trying to hide?

Just to recap once again: We’ve got laws imposed by predominantly GOP legislatures that have the potential to seriously restrict voting rights among groups most of whom tend to vote Democratic. The rationale is to prevent voter fraud, almost no instances of which can be substantiated. Most of the very few fraud claims that have been verified tend to be of the sort that would not be affected by presenting voter ID. Finally, the folks behind these laws not only try to hide their reasoning, as in Texas, but as in Missouri, they try to misrepresent the very intent of the law to those voters who, as the Post-Dispatch notes, aren’t able to hear the right-wing dog whistle:

Republican primary voters know what you’re trying to accomplish, and they’re on board. You want to limit the number of African-Americans in St. Louis and Kansas City and college students in Columbia and elsewhere who might vote for President Barack Obama and other Democrats. And if in the process a few folks in wheelchairs, elderly nuns and legal immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens are denied the right to vote, even better.

Tell the straight truth, and Judge Joyce will approve your ballot language.

Or don’t tell the truth. But the risk that you run is that the stench that emanates from the Republican Party will become so overwhelming that it will destroy our democracy. Remember that, Tea Partiers, the next time you feel inclined to agitate about “big government,” “freedom” and your Alice-through-the-looking-glass vision of the Constitution.