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Charlie Webster, the chairman of Maine's Republican Party, sees "dozens of black people" voting on Nov. 6 as evidence of voter fraud because "nobody in town knows anyone who’s black."

In an interview with WCSH's Don Carrigan earlier this week, Webster said that Democrats were winning elections because they blocked an effort by the Republican Party to repeal same-day voter registration, which requires an ID and proof of residency.

"Let's just look at what happened on Tuesday," he explained. "I mean, literally hundreds of new people came in. We don't know if they're residents or not but they came in and voted. And there's no way of knowing that."

"In some parts of the state -- for example, in some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens -- dozens of black people who came in and voted election day. Everybody has a right to vote, but nobody in town knows anybody that's black. How did that happen? I don't know, but we're going to find out."

When Carrigan pressed the party chairman for specifics about where fraud occurred, he vaguely referred to "several rural Maine towns" and promised an investigation to find out more.

"What I'm doing is purchasing a post card, we're going to mail it in and thank people for registering to vote and see whether it comes back," Webster said.

"So, you think the Democrats bussed in people?" Carrigan asked.

"I just think that the system, without some kind of an ID or without some kind of way to check, is fraught for abuse," Webster insisted. "I'm just telling you my personal opinion. I believe it's a problem."

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan also recently pointed to African-American turnout to explain his loss to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

“We were surprised with the outcome,” the Wisconsin Republican told WISC-TV’s Jessica Arp. “We knew this was going to be a close race. We thought we had a very good chance of winning it. I think that the surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which definitely gave President Obama the big margin to win this race.”

(h/t: Think Progress)

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A liberal group in New Mexico claims to have undercover video showing the vice chair of the Sandoval County Republican Party training poll challengers to use illegal tactics that could suppress voters' rights.

ProgressNow New Mexico on Wednesday published video of a September 26th official "Poll Challenger Training," in which former Republican Sandoval County Commission candidate Pat Morlen misinformed voters about ID requirements and assistance for Spanish-speaking citizens.

"At the request of two or more precinct board members of different political parties, a voter shall still present the required physical form of identification," Morlen says in the video.

Rules posted by the New Mexico Secretary of State, however, state that a verbal ID -- such as name, birthday and address -- are all that can be required from a vast majority of voters.

You do not have to present a photo ID. Only if you are registering for the first time in New Mexico, and you submit the registration form by mail, then you must submit with the form a copy of (1) a current and valid photo identification; or (2) a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, student identification card or other government document, including identification issued by an Indian nation, tribe or pueblo that shows your name and current address. If you do not submit one of these forms of identification with your mailed-in, first time registration, then you would be required to present one of the forms of identification when voting in person or absentee.

The trainer also falsely claims that voters who changed their address but stayed in the same voting district should receive a provisional ballot and that no assistance would be provided to non-English speaking voters.

Morlen, who is now a tea party activist, later mocks disabled voters in New Mexico.

"In this state, if you're in a coma [laughing] and your parent wants you to vote, they can vote for you," she quips. "My own opinion is if the person can't even say their name, at least their name, I don't see why they should be voting."

ProgressNow New Mexico warned that the faulty poll challenger training "could potentially restrict the voting rights of as many as [one in eight] New Mexicans in November."

"Throughout the training the Republican Party representative shows an insensitivity to language minorities and disabled citizens and displays a concerning lack of knowledge regarding New Mexico's voting regulations - this lack of knowledge could have a harmful effect on Election Day when the people who attended these trainings begin trying to challenge votes at the polls," the group wrote. "If the attendees of these trainings - and trainings likes these that have occurred or will occur - attempt to challenge votes because of what they learned, it could lead to many problems at the polls and has the potential to disenfranchise voters who have a legal, legitimate right to exercise their civic duty on Election Day."

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As Rachel Maddow noted on her show this Tuesday night, if you happen to be lucky enough to be related to a television host and celebrity like Jim Cramer, have a huge Twitter following, or lucky enough in some other way to garner enough national attention to embarrass their Gov. Tom Corbett, there's no problem with that voter suppression in Pennsylvania at all.

On the other hand, if you're one of the hundreds of thousands of unlucky schmucks who do not have the proper identification that the state is now trying to require, well, you're on your own and at the mercy of the courts as to whether they're going to allow Pennsylvania to attempt to steal the presidential election for Mitt Romney.

Now if we could just get all of the voters there a famous son like Jim Cramer's dad, and problem solved!

How Jim Cramer Solved His Dad’s Voter ID Mess In 7 Hours:

Are you one of hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania voters who lack the type of photo identification required by the state’s voter ID law? If your son is a rich cable news personality with a big Twitter following, the state of Pennsylvania is on the case.

As TPM reported earlier, CNBC’s Jim Cramer tweeted on Tuesday morning that his father — a World War II veteran named Ken — would lose the ability to vote under the state voter ID law because he “does not drive, he is elderly, and can’t prove his citizenship.”

Less than seven hours later, the “Mad Money” host tweeted that authorities with Pennsylvania’s transportation office “came directly to the rescue” of his father.

So how did it happen so fast? Needless to say, the reach of the younger Cramer, who has more than a half million Twitter followers and a net worth reportedly in the tens of millions of dollars, had a lot to do with it.

Jan McKnight of the Pennsylvania Department of Transporation told TPM that a fellow staffer alerted her to Cramer’s tweet with an email. McKnight was then able to contact Cramer’s publicist. The publicist gave Cramer’s family a phone number for McKnight.

“I can’t go into the details because of privacy issues, but we were able to help him,” McKnight told TPM. She also said she has helped other people get IDs after reading accounts of their struggles in the news.

McKnight said the agency recently began offering a “safety net” form of photo identification, which is given to voters lack a birth certificate but have a Social Security number. The agency issued 472 of those IDs from the first day they were available on Aug. 27 through Sept. 7. PennDOT’s Philadelphia branch alone issued 286 of them.

Besides transportation officials, a congressional staffer also reached out to Cramer on Tuesday and offered to help the cable host’s father. The staffer never got a response. But he later said the case was another example of the problems created by the rush to enact restrictive voting laws.

“Cases like Mr. Cramer’s show that ID laws are about disenfranchising eligible voters, not preventing fraud,” staffer Gregory Abbott told TPM. “Many don’t yet realize that its affecting them or someone they know.” [...]

Pennsylvania’s voter ID law was upheld by a Republican judge last month. It will go before the state Supreme Court on Thursday. Justice Department officials are also investigating whether the law is discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act. The state has admitted that more than 750,000 registered voters lack an adequate form of state-issued photo identification.

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After the Obama campaign filed their lawsuit in Ohio, which Mitt Romney subsequently went out and lied about, claiming that they were trying to disenfranchise military voters, which they're not, as Karoli explained here, wingnut Rep. Allen West took to his Facebook page to attack the President as well and throw some more flames about whether he deserves the title of "Commander in Chief."

As a retired Army officer I am appalled at the Obama administration’s actions to bring a lawsuit against the State of Ohio for the early voting privileges it extends to our Men and Women serving in uniform. To have the Commander in Chief make our US Servicemen and Women the target of a political attack to benefit his reelection actions is reprehensible. The voting privilege extended to these Warriors who represent the best among us should not be a part of the collective vision of this inept President who is more concerned about his reelection than sequestration. As a Combat Veteran, for this President to unleash his campaign cronies against our Military is unconscionable….how dare this President compare the service, sacrifice, and commitment of those who Guard our liberties not as special and seek to compare them to everyone else. Barack Obama is undeserving of the title Commander-in-Chief.

Quite astounding coming from this man: Allen West (R-FL) Brags about Torturing Iraqi Policeman. Yeah, that's who I want to hear from when it comes to judging whether President Obama deserves his title or not. Spare me.

For her part, Greta Van Susteren did at least press West about why he thought it was alright to disenfranchise all of those other Ohio voters and he did not have a good answer. His response was basically that they go "above and beyond" what everyone else in the state is doing, therefore they should have extra time to vote.

How about those veterans West? You think they deserve the same amount of time to vote as those currently serving? I don't know what it's going to take to get some meaningful, national laws protecting everyone's rights, making the availability of early voting mandatory everywhere and getting rid of these rigged voting machines, but we're long past due for all of it.

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Here we go again with MSNBC's replacement in the afternoon for Martin Bashir's show, The Cycle, after Bashir moved into Dylan Ratigan's old time slot, and more proof that the network really screwed the pooch with giving S.E. Cupp a spot as one of the co-hosts on this god awful show.

As Fran rightfully pointed out a couple of weeks ago, this show "has all the markings of a summer replacement series" and that's probably giving it way too much credit. I caught some of this on the satellite radio this Wednesday afternoon and this has to be one of the more obnoxious appearances I've had the unfortunate circumstance of listening to since I first had the unfortunate circumstance of ever hearing the woman's name in the first place.

The segment, I assume was supposed to be a serious interview with The Nation's Ari Berman, who's done some excellent reporting on the problem we've got going on right now across the country and voter disenfranchisement, some of which you can read about here: Discriminatory Texas Voter ID Law Challenged in Federal Court .

Rather than the other hosts and their guest being allowed to have a sane debate on the topic, the viewers were treated to Cupp demanding that the rest of them explain to her how to solve the 86 cases of voter fraud which were prosecuted under the Bush administration, as though those cases being prosecuted wasn't a solution in and of itself and her defending the disenfranchisement of millions of voters in order to do something about the minute number of actual fraud cases, that almost never happen and are not statistically a problem when it comes to the integrity of our elections in the United States. Unlike, you know, throwing millions of people off of the voting rolls because less than a hundred may have had some irregularity with how they voted.

If Cupp is so worried about the types of problems that were likely to be found in those 86 cases, maybe we can get her to go ballistic over her buddies Ann Coulter and Mitt Romney and making sure they're both voting from the addresses where they actually reside. Listening to her rail on over and over about them not having a "solution" to those cases of voter fraud, when they ended up in the courts, was enough to make me want to throw something at my TV set when going back to record this debacle.

If MSNBC doesn't want to lose all of their viewers in this time slot, they'll start looking for a new host and a new format for that matter. Four hosts don't work. The show has mainly been a shoutfest with them talking over each other constantly since it first aired and S.E. Cupp has no business hosting anything. The woman is just another know nothing flame thrower who is a bad guest and an even worse host. I put up with watching a lot of really bad television to help with monitoring cable "news" for C&L and this show is already somewhere in the range of Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity awful with trying to watch or listen to any of it.

If MSNBC were serious about having anyone want to watch their network in this time slot, they'd consider giving it to someone like Sam Seder. They'd also take Michael Steele out of Pat Buchanan's old cot on the set and send him packing as well. He's ruining shows from Morning Joe straight on through their prime time programming.

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Stephen Colbert went after Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai with this bit of satire on his show Wednesday evening for him bragging about voter suppression winning his state earlier this week.

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They don't even care if the whole world knows about their evil voter suppression schemes now. This is Mike Turzai, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader, speaking at a committee meeting:

House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) suggested that the House’s end game in passing the Voter ID law was to benefit the GOP politically.

“We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature.

“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”

Shameless. They know there isn't any substantial voter fraud going on, and they know their ideas aren't popular, or in some cases, even existent. But they've got lots of money and an agenda and they're not afraid to use it.

Maddow Blog:

The Republicans in attendance cheered, and I suppose that's to be expected -- the disenfranchisement of traditional Democratic voters is bound to make Republicans applaud.

But but the state lawmaker's candor was a reminder that Pennsylvania's voter-ID law isn't about the integrity of the process; it's about ensuring Republican victories by rigging the game.

State Sen. Daylin Leach, a Democratic critic of voter ID, told Cernetich, "This is making clear to everyone what Voter ID was all about. This is about one thing: disenfranchising Democratic voters and rigging elections for Republicans. When they get behind closed doors, they admit it. And that's exactly what Turzai did."

The Pennsylvania State GOP's effort to walk back Turzai's braggadocio is about as lame as anything else:

“Rep. Turzai was speaking at a partisan, political event. He was simply referencing, for the first time in a long while, the Republican Presidential candidate will be on a more even keel thanks to Voter ID…Anyone looking further into it has their own agenda,” he told PoliticsPA.com.

Really? And "a more even keel" means what? Eliminating legitimate voters from the rolls because they don't drive? Robbing voters of their right to participate in democracy? That agenda?

Lame.

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If anyone needs another example of why watching Fox makes you dumber, here you go. HuckaJesus wants his viewers to believe that having the right to vote and participate in our country's democracy is exactly the same thing as being allowed to enter a Democratic state convention, or to attend the First Lady's book signing.

HUCKABEE: And you know the Democrats will fight any attempt to make photo I.D. laws for voters, saying that it will suppress the vote and disenfranchise the voters. Well, guess what the Massachusetts Democratic convention required to get into their convention? A photo I.D.. But the real head scratcher is the announcement that if you want to attend the book signing of First Lady Michelle Obama's new children's book, you'll have to bring, a photo I.D. and a Social Security number.

Well that tears it. You see, I think that this is nothing more than reader suppression. We are suppressing the rights of people who read books and furthermore, we're disenfranchising the readers of children's books.

Well they say if illegals and dead people ought to vote, we don't need no stinking photo I.D. for that. But if you want to attend a Democratic event or have the First Lady sign your children's book, then you'd better have a photo I.D., or expect to be disenfranchised and suppressed.

You see, liberals, just don't have to make any sense.

And apparently neither does Mike Huckabee, since his audience actually applauded for this garbage. Huckabee conveniently forgot to mention that Republicans want people to vote with gun permits as I.D., but don't want to give students the same allowance. Or that they don't want those who are elderly and poor and have been voting forever and have plenty of identification, but just don't have the type of I.D. they want the right to vote. Instead he's going to yuck it up about "illegals" and dead people and give his audience trite false equivalencies.

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Any time someone has to use James O'Keefe and one of his phoney sting videos to validate their argument, they don't have one, which is exactly what Heritage Foundation flack Brian Darling did this Monday to justify the GOP's voter suppression laws they've been passing across the country: Heritage Foundation ‘Expert’ Cannot Cite Any Examples Of Actual Voter Fraud:

In an interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown this morning, Heritage Foundation senior fellow Brian Darling argued for the importance of Florida-style voter suppression laws in order to stop potential voter fraud. But when pressed by Todd to identify any actual examples of voter fraud, Darling appeared stumped:

DARLING: And there’ve been examples of voter fraud… in Florida. Look at ACORN.

TODD: Where is this voter fraud? I mean it is not this giant…

Continue reading »

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Fox News host Gretchen Carlson says she can't understand why Democrats would be against discriminatory voter ID laws unless they are "for voter fraud."

Earlier this week, the Department of Justice blocked a law requiring Texas voters to show identification on the grounds that it could disenfranchise Latino voters.

Similar Republican-backed laws have also been blocked or temporarily barred in South Carolina and Wisconsin.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder told NBC News that the laws only hindered voters because there was "no proof that our elections are marred by in-person voter fraud."

Fox News contributor Dick Morris said Wednesday that Holder's comments just amounted to election-year politics.

"What he's trying to do, of course politically, is to send a message to downscale voters, particularly to Latinos that the Republicans are against them and he's for them," Morris asserted. "The fact is that what Texas is doing is for free issuing this ID to people. Anyone who wants it can get it. And given that, for him to say that this inhibits participation in the franchise is ludicrous."

Ignoring Holder's point about there being no widespread voter fraud, Carlson said she could not imagine why anyone would be against voter ID laws.

"I just don't understand who is for voter fraud?" she asked. "Like, who is going to stand up and say, 'Yeah, I'm for voter fraud'? All this does is try to cut down on that."

A study released last year by the Brennan Center for Justice determined that the new restrictions on who can vote -- largely championed by Republican lawmakers -- could suppress the the votes of more than five million young, minority, low-income, and disabled voters, all groups who tend to vote for Democrats.

New photo ID restrictions in Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin could disenfranchise up to 3.2 million voters, the report found. Another 2.6 million voters could be suppressed by proof of citizenship laws, laws restricting voter registration drives, election day registration restrictions, reduced early voting and restrictions on when convicted felons may have their voting rights restored.

The motivations of the Republicans introducing these restrictions haven’t exactly been a secret.

Republican House Speaker in New Hampshire, Bill O’Brien, was caught on tape explaining why he wanted to disenfranchise young voters.

“The kids [are] coming out of the school and basically doing what I did when I was a kid: voting as a liberal,” he told a tea party group last year. “You know, that’s what kids do. They don’t have life experience and they just vote their feelings.”

(H/T: Media Matters)