Why Does Mitt Romney Want To Restrict Voting Rights For More Than 900,000 Ohio Veterans?

WTF!?!? The CONSTITUTION... you may remember is the document upon which ALL laws are built, states that voting is reserved for the first Tuesday in November. To accomodate those who cannot make it to the polls, Absentee Voter laws were passed. A logical exception would be active military who do not have simple access to either Absentee Voter Ballots or the polls themsleves. Laziness is NOT an excuse for failing to cast your ballot on the proscribed day. Neither is "Convenience".

Democrat motto: Vote early and vote often!

There is no reason that there should not be three days to vote for Ohians. These laws have been in place for years and were instated because Ohio previously had a lot of issues with their voting system. While the early voting did not solve all of the problems, it definitely helped.

This is a transparent attempt by the GOP to pull out a win from Ohio, a swing state. If they really cared about their citizens ability to vote they should have reformed their system during a time when huge votes were not coming up.

Instead, so close to the election, they change the rules for no reason.

Originally posted by kozmo
WTF!?!? The CONSTITUTION... you may remember is the document upon which ALL laws are built, states that voting is reserved for the first Tuesday in November. To accomodate those who cannot make it to the polls, Absentee Voter laws were passed. A logical exception would be active military who do not have simple access to either Absentee Voter Ballots or the polls themsleves. Laziness is NOT an excuse for failing to cast your ballot on the proscribed day. Neither is "Convenience".

Democrat motto: Vote early and vote often!

You haven't watched the video posted what happened in Ohio in 2004 and how the government fixed the problem, and now the republicans want it the way it was.

Voter ID and purge list are hallmarks of republican secretary of states, its voter suppression. If voter fraud is occurring then why isn't there many voter fraud cases in all of these states that are passing voter ID laws?

reply to post by kozmo

Laziness is NOT an excuse for failing to cast your ballot on the proscribed day.

This statement must make sense in your mind, but it doesn't make sense to mine.

How is it lazy to do something EARLY? Thats like saying waking up at 8 is lazier than waking up at 10.

Originally posted by kozmo
WTF!?!? The CONSTITUTION... you may remember is the document upon which ALL laws are built, states that voting is reserved for the first Tuesday in November. To accomodate those who cannot make it to the polls, Absentee Voter laws were passed. A logical exception would be active military who do not have simple access to either Absentee Voter Ballots or the polls themsleves. Laziness is NOT an excuse for failing to cast your ballot on the proscribed day. Neither is "Convenience".

Democrat motto: Vote early and vote often!

This is the third time we've seen this exact argument, albeit worded differently, in just over one page of replies.

Is this really the one you guys are sticking with?

This is the exact argument I heard on the radio on the way home.. Do you guys have a secret underground network that delivers canned responses or something? I now understand why The Borg were so effective..

reply to post by RealSpoke

People in the military are not a special class of citizen, every Ohioan should have the same equal opportunity to vote.

Why do you support taking my opportunity to vote away and giving it to another?

Because I'm a lowly civilian?

Obviously you were never in the military! If you were, you would know that you just can't walk up to you CO (that is Commanding Officer) and say, hey, I have a right to vote, so I want to go now!

As for taking your vote away...................are you being dramatic??? Just how in the hell is allowing the military a courtesy to have their vote counted against your duty (or laziness) to go out and vote or at least get an absentee ballot?

Hey! If you want to consider yourself a "lowly civilian" then that is all on you, not me!

reply to post by RealSpoke


Hey, you forgot this little tidbit from the U.S. Constitution,
Section 4,

1: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

And of course the Constitution later describes the process for electors by each state legislature for Presidential office.

The constitution gives the power to override a states voting rules directly to congress not the judicial branch.

reply to post by TsukiLunar


The new law makes NO sense...it is extremely apparent that republicans wrote it just because they wanted to regulate voting in their favor.

Ohio republicans and Romney are terrorists that want to limit voting access to all citizens.

The Ohio republicans voted to rescind early voting for some Ohioans, keeping it in place for others (including active military). Early voting was created to allow more Ohioans to have access to voting. But since "more voters voting" is taboo to the GOP, they passed a law to remove it. Of course that would have been suicide to remove early voting for active military, hence the "some voters can, some voters can't" situation they've created.

What's really disgusting is that the Romney campaign has issued a statement that is a full-blown lie, that even the talking heads at Fox are questioning - the claim that "Obama sued to restrict the military vote". That is pure BS. The Romney campaign when asked to point to where in the lawsuit Obama wants to "restrict military voting" and back up their claim, and they couldn't;

Romney’s spokesman, Ryan Williams, in an interview Saturday could point to no place in Obama’s lawsuit that seeks to restrict the rights of military voters…

Romney’s legal counsel, Katie Biber, said creating two separate classes of Ohio voters does not violate the 14th Amendment, though she also did not offer evidence that Obama’s lawsuit would make it tougher for members of the military to vote…

Source: Romney Smears Obama, Falsely Claims He Filed Lawsuit To Restrict Military Voting In Ohio

Romney's campaign failed not only in pointing out where in Obama's lawsuit to restore voting rights for all Ohio voters (including vets), Romney's spokeperson Katie Biber declared their goal of creating two classes of voters - which IS a violation of the 14th amendment, despite what Biber thinks.

The Obama lawsuit is attempting to restore voting rights for all Ohioans, not restrict them for the military or any other group. From the Obama lawsuit, filed in federal court:

Plaintiffs bring this lawsuit to restore in-person early voting for all Ohioans during the three days prior to Election Day – a right exercised by an estimated 93,000 Ohioans in the last presidential election. Ohio election law, as currently enacted by the State of Ohio and administered by Defendant Ohio Secretary of State, arbitrarily eliminates early voting during the three days prior to Election Day for most Ohio voters, a right previously available to all Ohio voters.

Even Fox News acknowledges the purpose of the Obama lawsuit, noting that "the lawsuit does not restrict the ability of military personnel to cast their ballots early."

BUT... let's look at the OP's thread title: "Why Does Mitt Romney Want To Restrict Voting Rights For More Than 900,000 Ohio Veterans?"

By restricting the early voting rights of all non-active duty Ohio voters, they (the Ohio GOP) will indeed be restricting the voting rights of veterans.

I'm pretty sure that active-duty voters would have no problem sharing a voting precinct with civilian voters. The polling places will be open, they'll be staffed, why lock out one group of voters and leave it open for another? Let EVERYONE vote. This all comes down to the voter-suppression tactics of a corporate right-wing group, ALEC.

Republicans have admitted voter ID laws are going to help Romney win:

At a recent meeting of the Pennsylvania GOP State Committee, the top Republican in the state House of Representatives, Mike Turzai, declared that a new requirement for voters to show identification with a photograph on it “is going to allow Gov. [Mitt] Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” He drew wild applause from Republicans in the crowd.

Does it get any clearer than this?

This here is why they are doing this:

According to a July report from the Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth, more than 758,000 voters statewide do not have the necessary photo identification cards issued by the State Department of Transportation. President Obama won the state by about 600,000 votes in 2008.

This is there motivation and becoming a hallmark of newly elected republican government.

Now to respond to the charge that these laws are needed because of voter fraud:

“There have been no investigations of prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states,” according to official state papers sent to the court.

Here is the liberal rag that reported this: Fox News

Originally posted by seeker1963
reply to post by RealSpoke

 

People in the military are not a special class of citizen, every Ohioan should have the same equal opportunity to vote.

Why do you support taking my opportunity to vote away and giving it to another?

Because I'm a lowly civilian?

Obviously you were never in the military! If you were, you would know that you just can't walk up to you CO (that is Commanding Officer) and say, hey, I have a right to vote, so I want to go now!

As for taking your vote away...................are you being dramatic??? Just how in the hell is allowing the military a courtesy to have their vote counted against your duty (or laziness) to go out and vote or at least get an absentee ballot?

Hey! If you want to consider yourself a "lowly cilivian" then that is all on you, not me!

This is the last time I'm going to say it. It's like trying to get through a brick wall with my face - it HURTS.

The Ohio GOP are not "allowing the military a courtesy" in Ohio. The military ALREADY HAS THAT COURTESY. They are attempting to REMOVE that courtesy from all other Ohioans. I believe it is more accurate for RealSpoke to say his vote is being taken away than it is for you and the Ohio GOP/Romney to say that the Obama Administration is trying to take away the rights of the military.

I'm not yelling, I'm emphasizing. It's just all those brackets and slashes take so long.

reply to post by Phoenix


What does that have to do with anything? We are talking about giving unequal opportunities to voters. You cannot create a law that favors one groups voting rights to another, it is unconstitutional.

This seems pretty cut and dry to me. Active duty get 3 days, then so should everyone else. It's not hurting the process at all. I do think the only reason to rescind the 3 day period for us 'normies' would be out of fear. I don't like admitting it, but there ya go.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


Good thread, and I don't have an explanation except for grimy party politics, but I heard something today and I had to go check it out and it is almost true!! I heard that the state of Missouri has more registered voters than it does residents.

Turns out that it is kind of true. They have 4.1 million registered voters, and only 6.1 million residents. It isn't technically "more," but it is an unbelievably high percentage!!

Maybe Obama, and Romney, and our Governor Scott here in Florida are all correct, and they need to be restricting voter access as much as possible to make sure everyone is who they say they is!

I wonder what other states look like?

I have to agree with Domo1's sentiments on the first page, will someone explain this to me gently. If I understand this correctly, the law will result in a situation where the voting will be held on election day. OK, so far.

Those who are prevented from voting on that day may vote using absentee ballots. Still good.

Active duty miltary, as a group, are widely unable to vote on any one given day. Therefore, to avoid getting tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots from the military, the state says, "Give them a little time to get there."

I just don't see the problem. No one is being deprived of a vote, absentee balloting is reduced, there is a good reason to give the military extra time, and there seems to be no particular reason to give all voters extra days. (Except, perhaps, "Mommy, that's not fair, Billy got to.")

As I said, explain it to me gently.

Originally posted by Domo1
This seems pretty cut and dry to me. Active duty get 3 days, then so should everyone else. It's not hurting the process at all. I do think the only reason to rescind the 3 day period for us 'normies' would be out of fear. I don't like admitting it, but there ya go.

Ohio is a swing state, but for the last twelve elections they have picked the winning candidate.

They have a large population and along with that comes more electoral votes as well. Ohio is pretty much needed for Romney to have ANY chance of winning.

Originally posted by TsukiLunar
There is no reason that there should not be three days to vote for Ohians. These laws have been in place for years and were instated because Ohio previously had a lot of issues with their voting system. While the early voting did not solve all of the problems, it definitely helped.

This is a transparent attempt by the GOP to pull out a win from Ohio, a swing state. If they really cared about their citizens ability to vote they should have reformed their system during a time when huge votes were not coming up.

Instead, three months before the election, they change the rules for no reason.

Oh, please do educate me on the "Issues with [Ohio's] voting system". Being an Ohio resident for over 40 years and having voted in the last 5 federal elections, I'm having some difficulty in recalling said "issues". Perhaps you are referring to the Florida elections where Democrats had some difficulties using a punch card?

Why early voting helped the process.

mediamatters.org...

Between 2005 and 2011, Ohio successfully administered an early voting system that included in-person voting in the three days prior to Election Day. This early voting system increased participation among voters, including those for whom work or family obligations make it difficult to vote on Election Day, and reduced the congestion that caused such severe waits during the 2004 presidential election in Ohio that some citizens were effectively denied the right to vote.

The big problem with absentee ballots.

en.wikipedia.org...

Typically a voter must request an absentee ballot at least a week before the election occurs.

All of this hand wringing cracks me up - perhaps because it will actually have an impact on eliminating fraudulent votes. Apparently the Democrats couldn't survive without all of those pets and dead people showing up at the polls. Or the illegal immigrants. Or the felons. Or the voter intimidation offered by the Black Panthers...

Come on you guys. The FIRST TUESDAY OF NOVEMBER. Is it that hard? If you are unavailable that day, get an Absentee Ballot and mail it in!

Originally posted by TsukiLunar
Why early voting helped the process.

mediamatters.org...

Between 2005 and 2011, Ohio successfully administered an early voting system that included in-person voting in the three days prior to Election Day. This early voting system increased participation among voters, including those for whom work or family obligations make it difficult to vote on Election Day, and reduced the congestion that caused such severe waits during the 2004 presidential election in Ohio that some citizens were effectively denied the right to vote.

The big problem with absentee ballots.

en.wikipedia.org...

Typically a voter must request an absentee ballot at least a week before the election occurs.

NOBODY was denied the right to vote! They could have applied for an Absentee Ballot. Additionally, the polls open early and remain open until late. This is pure bullocks!!! Why stop at 3 days days? Let's allow it for a month, maybe a full year!!! I bet we could get a whole bunch of people to vote that way.