Voting Law Proposals and Voting Rights Efforts (5 Viewers)

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    MT15

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    This is, IMO, going to be a big topic in the coming year. Republicans have stated their aim to make voting more restrictive in just about every state where they have the means to do so. Democrats would like to pass the Voting Rights Bill named after John Lewis. I’m going to go look up the map of all the states which have pending legislation to restrict voting. Now that we have the election in the rear view, I thought we could try to make this a general discussion thread, where people who have concerns about voting abuses can post as well and we can discuss it from both sides. Please keep memes out of this thread and put them in the boards where we go to talk about the other side, lol.
     
    In Florida there have been dozens of reports of elderly and non-English speaking individuals claiming that their party affiliation was changed. Every single time, it was changed from Democrat to Republican. They have a photo of one of the people responsible, and she is wearing her Florisa Republican Party ID.

     
    I’ve asked this before

    Why is it whenever there are any instances of real intentional attempted voter fraud it’s almost always for republicans?
    ===================

    Tina Peters, a pro-Trump elections clerk in Mesa County, Colorado — who is the subject of a grand jury investigation into alleged election tampering and official misconduct — appeared to kick at a police officer as she was being arrested on Tuesday, according to a video shared by local news station KUSA reporter Kyle Clark.

    The arrest in Grand Junction, Colorado, was unrelated to the election investigation.

    According to a tweeted statement from the Grand Junction Police Department, authorities were trying to execute a warrant issued by the Mesa County District Attorney's Office, leading to the arrest.

    According to KUSA, the warrant was for Peters' iPad. Peters is suspected of using her iPad to record a court proceeding for her deputy clerk Belinda Knisley. Knisley is accused of introducing a security vulnerability into Mesa County's election systems…….

     
    Last edited:
    Did she actually get arrested? When I saw this she was being “detained” because she refused to surrender a device per a search warrant (her iPad). Once they got the iPad, she was released.

    They could have arrested her for her resistance, maybe. But the original episode wasn’t an arrest.

    The reason for the search warrant was she was suspected of secretly recording the trial of her friend in the courtroom, after being advised that it was illegal to do so. So I suppose if they find evidence of her recording the trial, then she will be arrested, lol.
     
    High rejection numbers for new Texas law
    ===========================


    A restrictive new voting law in Texas has sown confusion and erected hurdles for those casting ballots in the state’s March 1 primary, with election administrators rejecting early batches of mail ballots at historic rates and voters uncertain about whether they will be able to participate.

    In recent days, thousands of ballots have been rejected because voters did not meet a new requirement to provide an identification number inside the return envelope.

    In Harris County, the state’s most populous county and home to Houston, election officials said Friday that 40 percent of roughly 3,600 returned ballots so far have lacked the identification number required under Senate Bill 1, as the new law is known.

    In Williamson County, a populous northern suburb of Austin, the rejection rate has been about 25 percent in the first few days that ballots have come in, the top election official there said.
“Twenty-five percent of mail ballots from the starting blocks is a big deal for our county,” said Chris Davis, Williamson County’s elections chief.

    “We’ve never seen it before. And yes, our hope is that we can get these voters to correct the defects in a timely fashion. But what if they don’t, because three months ago they didn’t have to? There’s a learning curve. There are going to be possibly painful lessons that their vote doesn’t count because they weren’t aware.”…….

     
    Working as intended. I’ve never seen a party so dead set against voting before.
     
    so this unfortunately happened


    But there was a problem: The officials who signed off on Moses being eligible to vote acknowledged they made an error in saying her probation was over, meaning her voting rights had not been restored. So when the 44-year-old Black woman submitted the certificate as part of her voter registration, she was charged with trying to illegally register to vote.

    After she was convicted of the voting error last November, Moses was sentenced this week to six years and one day in prison.

    edit: I see it was mentioned here already
     
    Last edited:
    so this unfortunately happened


    But there was a problem: The officials who signed off on Moses being eligible to vote acknowledged they made an error in saying her probation was over, meaning her voting rights had not been restored. So when the 44-year-old Black woman submitted the certificate as part of her voter registration, she was charged with trying to illegally register to vote.

    After she was convicted of the voting error last November, Moses was sentenced this week to six years and one day in prison.

    edit: I see it was mentioned here already
    It's really stupid how we do not allow the "right" to vote to anyone convicted of a crime. In many other advanced post-industrial nations even prisoners serving their time retain the right to vote. And why not? Are they still not members of society subject to all legislation? I guess it depends upon whether the aim of incarceration is to return folks to society once their time/"debt" to society has been served, or whether the goal is revolving door recidivism.
     
    Working as intended. I’ve never seen a party so dead set against voting before.

    Indeed
    ===================

    For Houston-area retiree Pam Gaskin, voting is a ritual that starts every January when she completes her application for an absentee mail ballot.

    This year, the 74-year-old printed the application on January 3, filled it out and mailed it to her local election office. Days later, a rejection letter arrived: The forms she had pulled from the county's website no longer complied with Texas law.

    So, she tried again -- using the new form, which required her to submit a Texas identification number or partial Social Security number. But it, too, was rejected. The problem this time: She had submitted her driver's license number, but it didn't match the identification she used 46 years ago when she first registered to vote after moving to Fort Bend County.

    "I am mad as hell," said Gaskin, who grew up watching her father pay poll taxes for himself and other African Americans in Galveston County so they could vote. "These are the things we fought 60 years ago, 50 years ago, and we are still fighting them. And that is not right.".

    Gaskin is among the Texans ensnared in the Lone Star State's restrictive new voting law, passed by the Republican-controlled legislature last year. It imposes a raft of changes in a state that already had some of the strictest voting regulations in the country. As early voting kicks off in the state on Monday, election officials and voters alike are grappling with confusion about the law in the first statewide election since it has taken effect.

    At stake: primary races for governor and six other statewide offices, along with contests for state legislative and congressional seats and other local positions. Early, in-person voting runs through February 25. The final day of voting in the primary is March 1.

    In addition to the new ID requirements to vote absentee, the law makes it a crime for a public official to mail out absentee ballot applications to voters who haven't requested them. SB1, as the law is known, also takes aim at Harris County -- home to Houston -- which offered 24-hour voting during the pandemic in 2020. The law limits early voting hours and bans drive-thru voting, another tool the county used.............

     
    so this unfortunately happened


    But there was a problem: The officials who signed off on Moses being eligible to vote acknowledged they made an error in saying her probation was over, meaning her voting rights had not been restored. So when the 44-year-old Black woman submitted the certificate as part of her voter registration, she was charged with trying to illegally register to vote.

    After she was convicted of the voting error last November, Moses was sentenced this week to six years and one day in prison.

    edit: I see it was mentioned here already
    More on Pamela Moses' case
    ========================

    The story of Tennesseean Pamela Moses receiving a six-year prison sentence for submitting a form with incorrect information while trying to regain her voting rights begins with her past criminal record and ends with a judge who did not believe her.

    It has re-opened the debate about discriminatory sentences and disenfranchisement of Black voters. The case also pivots on one question: Is she being unfairly punished for someone else’s mistakes?

    USA TODAY has reviewed court records and talked with experts and parties involved in the case to piece together what led to the Memphis resident's six-year sentence.

    Moses’ situation is complex and dates back more than two decades. A guilty plea in a felony case first stripped her of her right to vote in 2000, she regained it, and lost it again in 2015, after pleading guilty to two more felonies.

    The recent case hinges on what happened in 2019, when she tried to restore her voting rights, and asked a probation officer to complete the certificate that starts the process in Tennessee. The officer certified that Moses had completed probation for the crimes impacting her voting rights, so Moses submitted the certificate and registered to vote.

    That’s where things begin to unravel.

    The officer was wrong. Whether Moses was aware of the mistake – or even engineered it – became the crux of the legal case that led to her six-year sentence, an outcome she now is seeking to overturn.

    Moses said she didn’t know, and, from jail, told USA TODAY: “The truth is about to come out.” Prosecutors said she did know because by the time she filed the certificate she had already gone to court over the length of her probation and received a court order that said it would not end until 2022.

    The jury unanimously sided with the prosecutors.

    An attorney who represented Moses during her sentencing said Moses thought the court order was incorrect, which is why she had asked the probation officer to check. He said the case should have been dismissed from the get-go.............

     
    More on Pamela Moses' case
    ========================

    The story of Tennesseean Pamela Moses receiving a six-year prison sentence for submitting a form with incorrect information while trying to regain her voting rights begins with her past criminal record and ends with a judge who did not believe her.

    It has re-opened the debate about discriminatory sentences and disenfranchisement of Black voters. The case also pivots on one question: Is she being unfairly punished for someone else’s mistakes?

    USA TODAY has reviewed court records and talked with experts and parties involved in the case to piece together what led to the Memphis resident's six-year sentence.

    Moses’ situation is complex and dates back more than two decades. A guilty plea in a felony case first stripped her of her right to vote in 2000, she regained it, and lost it again in 2015, after pleading guilty to two more felonies.

    The recent case hinges on what happened in 2019, when she tried to restore her voting rights, and asked a probation officer to complete the certificate that starts the process in Tennessee. The officer certified that Moses had completed probation for the crimes impacting her voting rights, so Moses submitted the certificate and registered to vote.

    That’s where things begin to unravel.

    The officer was wrong. Whether Moses was aware of the mistake – or even engineered it – became the crux of the legal case that led to her six-year sentence, an outcome she now is seeking to overturn.

    Moses said she didn’t know, and, from jail, told USA TODAY: “The truth is about to come out.” Prosecutors said she did know because by the time she filed the certificate she had already gone to court over the length of her probation and received a court order that said it would not end until 2022.

    The jury unanimously sided with the prosecutors.

    An attorney who represented Moses during her sentencing said Moses thought the court order was incorrect, which is why she had asked the probation officer to check. He said the case should have been dismissed from the get-go.............

    Well, historically, who would that explanation benefit? Don's lied forever. But this woman, she must pay whether she did or not and we don't really gaf anyway. She's a meme now.
     
    With Texas’ track record of being the sole supplier of history textbooks I have a good feeling about this

    And yet another case of a solution in search of a problem

    Holographic ballots? Invisible ink?
    ====================

    Holographic foil. Special ink designed to be sensitive to temperature changes. Nearly invisible “stealth numbers” that can be located only using special ultraviolet or infrared lights.

    Those are among the high-tech security features that would be required to be embedded on ballots under measures proposed in at least four states by Republican lawmakers — all promoters of false claims that the 2020 election was marred by mass fraud — in an attempt to make the ballots as hard to counterfeit as passports or currency.

    But the specialized inks and watermarks also would limit the number of companies capable of selling ballot paper — potentially to just one Texas firm with no previous experience in elections that consulted with the lawmakers proposing the measures.

    Mark Finchem, an Arizona state representative spearheading the initiative, said in an interview that he developed ideas for the proposals after discussions with executives of Authentix, a company in Addison, Tex. The firm has since hosted other GOP lawmakers at its office and given presentations about the idea to legislators in two states, according to participants and social media posts.

    The proposals face stiff battles before they can become law, but they demonstrate the potentially lucrative business opportunities created by suspicions that Donald Trump and his allies have spread about the security of elections. They also vividly illustrate how a loose network of die-hard Trump supporters is coordinating to push concerns about mass electoral fraud, including through conference calls that one participant said has included regular discussion of the nearly identically worded anti-counterfeit bills.

    There is no evidence that counterfeit or fake ballots have been a problem in American elections. Yet, when versions of the measure modeled on Finchem’s proposal were heard late last month by committees of the Virginia and Arizona state senates, citizens lined up to tell lawmakers that they believed the 2020 presidential election had been rigged against Trump and that new measures were needed to prevent counterfeits……..

     
    Pamela Moses getting a new trail
    ========================
    A Memphis judge has ordered a new trial for Pamela Moses, a woman who was sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register to vote.

    The case attracted national attention following a Guardian report, because of the severity of the sentence. Moses said she had no idea she was ineligible.

    Moses has been in prison since December, when her bond was revoked. On Thursday, the Guardian revealed new evidence in the case that was not produced at trial. Moses was released from custody on Friday, according to Claiborne Ferguson, her attorney.

    “We are so excited that the motion for new trial was granted for Pamela Moses today and that she is able to return home to her family while she awaits trial. We hope that she receives justice and is found not guilty for the admitted mistakes of the state of Tennessee,” said Dawn Harrington, the executive director of Free Hearts, a criminal justice organization in Tennessee that supported Moses...........

     
    an update regarding Smartmatic :

    unfortunately claims against Jeanine Pirro and Sidney Powell got dismissed but not everyone got off the hook



    A judge has ruled that voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic can proceed with a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News and Rudy Giuliani. The company has accused them and others of making false claims that it rigged votes in favor of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

    Fox News parent Fox Corp, anchor Maria Bartiromo, former anchor Lou Dobbs, The Five host Jeanine Pirro and ex-Donald Trump lawyer Sidney Powell all tried to have Smartmatic's claims against them dismissed. Justice David Cohen of New York State Supreme Court dismissed the claims against Pirro and Powell, though rejected the bids from Fox Corp, Bartiromo and Dobbs.
     
    Did she actually get arrested? When I saw this she was being “detained” because she refused to surrender a device per a search warrant (her iPad). Once they got the iPad, she was released.

    They could have arrested her for her resistance, maybe. But the original episode wasn’t an arrest.

    The reason for the search warrant was she was suspected of secretly recording the trial of her friend in the courtroom, after being advised that it was illegal to do so. So I suppose if they find evidence of her recording the trial, then she will be arrested, lol.


    I got some news for you

     
    I got some news for you


    Straight from the playbook....accuse others of the crimes that you are committing....sure hope they have enough evidence for a guilty verdict.....
     
    when your judge throws out your shirtty gerrymandered redistricting, the only obvious choice is to impeach the judge


    The court struck down the maps on Wednesday with O'Connor as the deciding vote, sending the Ohio Redistricting Commission back to the drawing board for the fourth time. A ruling on the latest congressional maps is expected any day.

    O'Connor is seen as an independent voice on the court and sided with Democratic justices to throw out multiple sets of maps, arguing they did not comply with constitutional rules for redistricting. That's increasingly made her a target of fellow party members who contend she's shirking her responsibilities.

    "It's time to impeach Maureen O'Connor now," Rep. Scott Wiggam, R-Wayne County, tweeted Thursday.
     
    It sounds like that will go nowhere. 🤷‍♀️
     

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