Greg Palast - Ignore A Postcard & Lose Your Vote!
Ohio’s Junk Mail Trick Led Supreme Court to Approve Jim Crow Vote Purge
American stands every bit a beacon to the basis for 'freedom, fairness in addition to democracy' nosotros are told, but the Republicans practice everything they tin to halt the democratic process. The neoliberals, the Western ruling elite, practice the same all over the basis ensuring that Government past times the People, For the People, never occurs. KV
Monday’s Supreme Court determination approbation Ohio’s removal of one-half a 1 thou k voters was ultimately decided on the number of a postcard.
Now that piffling postcard threatens the voting rights of millions—but it tin live reversed.
The instant-news media, working from press releases, non the Supreme Court’s determination itself, said that Husted, Ohio Secretary of State v. A. Philip Randolph Institute was almost whether Ohio has the correct to withdraw voters who failed to cast ballots inward 2 federal election cycles.
Nope.
Even the Court’s right-wing bulk concedes that federal police delineate strictly forbids removing voters because they skipped to a greater extent than or less elections. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 states that a voter purge programme “shall non resultant inward the removal of the yell of whatsoever individual … past times ground of the person’s failure to vote.”
But here’s the trick: In 2002, the George W. Bush direction ginned upwards the Help America Vote Act. When a Bush tells you lot he’s going to “help” you lot vote, expect out. Yet naïve Democrats passed the human activeness into law. The Help America Vote Act is filled amongst buried Earth mines that are however exploding.
Monday’s determination is 1 of those Earth mines. The Help America Vote Act, the Court concluded, blew opened upwards a giant loophole inward the National Voter Registration Act's protections. The play tricks is that Ohio does non withdraw voters precisely because they missed a few elections. According to the bulk regard written past times Justice Samuel Alito:
Ohio uses a registrant’s failure to vote [only] to pose that registrant every bit a individual whose address has probable changed.
The Court takes banking concern annotation that Ohio claims it had evidence that, inward 2012, a whopping 1.5 1 thou k voters—an astronomical xx per centum of its total voter base—had moved their residence out of Ohio or moved from their county voting area. The 1.5 1 thou k voters were sent postcards yell for them to confirm their mailing address.
It was a voter’s failure to render the postcard that toll them their correct to vote. The Court bulk said that the Help America Vote Act trumps the National Voter Registration Act, controversy that human activeness passed nether George W. Bush "specifies that ‘nothing inward [the National Voter Registration Act prohibition] may live construed to prohibit a State from using the procedures’—[such as] sending a render card.”
It was a voter’s failure to render the postcard that toll them their correct to vote. The Court bulk said that the Help America Vote Act trumps the National Voter Registration Act, controversy that human activeness passed nether George W. Bush "specifies that ‘nothing inward [the National Voter Registration Act prohibition] may live construed to prohibit a State from using the procedures’—[such as] sending a render card.”
[An event of the postcard that was the centre of the Supreme Court Ohio ruling. If you lot don’t render it, you lot lose your vote. The bill of fare was designed past times Kris Kobach of Kansas—each GOP Earth using it tin create a variant. This one, used inward Georgia, is used past times Secretary of State Brian Kemp to purge voters. Kemp is running against Democrat Stacey Abrams for Governor.]
The Justices ruled that a voter’s failure to render a postcard (which asks the voter to confirm their address) constitutes solid proof that the voter had left Ohio or moved to to a greater extent than or less other voting district.
The plaintiffs, a coalition of voting rights groups, were gob-smacked. Plaintiffs argued that in that location are many reasons folks did non render the postcard, most probable that they threw it away every bit junk postal service or never received it inward the starting fourth dimension place. But the Court bulk establish that, without specific evidence, the plaintiffs’ claim that voters precisely threw away the cards was speculative in addition to “dubious.”
Jim Crow Is inward the Cards
Writing for the 4 dissenters, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the outcome of the Court’s determination was to disproportionately wipe out the rights of "minority, low-income, disabled, homeless, in addition to veteran voters." Sotomayor went on to bring upwards an investigation revealing that Ohio’s purge functioning had knocked out the registrations of 10 per centum of African American-majority neighborhoods inward downtown Cincinnati compared to only 4 per centum of voters inward a nearby suburban, majority-white neighborhood.
But that’s the point, Madame Justice.
But how? The Jim Crow resultant is inward the cards.
I starting fourth dimension discovered "purge-by-postcard" inward 2014 patch investigating bulk attacks on voter rolls past times GOP officials inward a dozen states for Al Jazeera. I turned to straight postal service experts, including Michael Wychocki, a Chicago-based adviser on mailing for Amazon in addition to other companies that alive or drib dead past times mail.
He directed me to the USA Census Bureau’s massive study of postal service render rates. Dig this:
- While ninety per centum of those 65 years of historic menses in addition to older render the Census form, only 55.4 per centum of those xviii to 24 reply.
- Homeowners are 32 per centum to a greater extent than probable than renters to render forms .
- Only 65 per centum of Latino voters mailed dorsum an initial Census form, every bit did seventy per centum of Black voters—versus over eighty per centum of non-Hispanic whites.
And crucially, according to the Census study, 12 per centum of mailings precisely become astray—especially, says Wychocki, inward poor, urban communities, where the tenants hop betwixt apartments inward the same neighborhood. And let’s non fifty-fifty utter over students in addition to the homeless.
Designed to Be Thrown Away?
And that’s the Census Bureau, which designs mailings to larn the highest response possible. Not in addition to hence for the purge-by-postcard programs used past times Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted.
I showed Ohio voting rights attorney Robert Fitrakis a postcard on which one’s voting rights hangs, in addition to he gave, give-and-take for word, the same response I got from to a greater extent than or less other straight postal service expert, Mark Swedlund (whose clientele includes eBay in addition to AT&T): “Looks similar junk mail, you’d throw it inward the garbage.”
Indeed, Wychocki inspected the cards, which are filled amongst blocks of little impress amongst no images. He explained that the blueprint violates every key dominion of straight postal service solicitation. While Wychocki would non speculate on the designer’s motives, he said it looked every bit if the postcard was past times someone who did non desire the voter to respond.
And 1 such someone is Kris Kobach. According to documents obtained past times the ACLU, Kobach provided Husted (and other GOP voting officials) a sample postcard to transportation to voters targeted for purge.
Writing for the 4 dissenters, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the outcome of the Court’s determination was to disproportionately wipe out the rights of "minority, low-income, disabled, homeless, in addition to veteran voters." Sotomayor went on to bring upwards an investigation revealing that Ohio’s purge functioning had knocked out the registrations of 10 per centum of African American-majority neighborhoods inward downtown Cincinnati compared to only 4 per centum of voters inward a nearby suburban, majority-white neighborhood.
But that’s the point, Madame Justice.
But how? The Jim Crow resultant is inward the cards.
I starting fourth dimension discovered "purge-by-postcard" inward 2014 patch investigating bulk attacks on voter rolls past times GOP officials inward a dozen states for Al Jazeera. I turned to straight postal service experts, including Michael Wychocki, a Chicago-based adviser on mailing for Amazon in addition to other companies that alive or drib dead past times mail.
He directed me to the USA Census Bureau’s massive study of postal service render rates. Dig this:
- While ninety per centum of those 65 years of historic menses in addition to older render the Census form, only 55.4 per centum of those xviii to 24 reply.
- Homeowners are 32 per centum to a greater extent than probable than renters to render forms .
- Only 65 per centum of Latino voters mailed dorsum an initial Census form, every bit did seventy per centum of Black voters—versus over eighty per centum of non-Hispanic whites.
And crucially, according to the Census study, 12 per centum of mailings precisely become astray—especially, says Wychocki, inward poor, urban communities, where the tenants hop betwixt apartments inward the same neighborhood. And let’s non fifty-fifty utter over students in addition to the homeless.
Designed to Be Thrown Away?
And that’s the Census Bureau, which designs mailings to larn the highest response possible. Not in addition to hence for the purge-by-postcard programs used past times Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted.
I showed Ohio voting rights attorney Robert Fitrakis a postcard on which one’s voting rights hangs, in addition to he gave, give-and-take for word, the same response I got from to a greater extent than or less other straight postal service expert, Mark Swedlund (whose clientele includes eBay in addition to AT&T): “Looks similar junk mail, you’d throw it inward the garbage.”
Indeed, Wychocki inspected the cards, which are filled amongst blocks of little impress amongst no images. He explained that the blueprint violates every key dominion of straight postal service solicitation. While Wychocki would non speculate on the designer’s motives, he said it looked every bit if the postcard was past times someone who did non desire the voter to respond.
And 1 such someone is Kris Kobach. According to documents obtained past times the ACLU, Kobach provided Husted (and other GOP voting officials) a sample postcard to transportation to voters targeted for purge.
Sunday, Part 2: The Supreme Court determination is NOT the finally word. Millions of voters’ registrations are threatened, but I have got joined amongst a squad of attorneys, in addition to nosotros have got come upwards up amongst a agency to stop the steal, halt the massive purge.
And nosotros really, really need your support to construct this massive activeness against non precisely Ohio, but 25 other states using the same vote purging trick.
For example, inward 2015, leading upwards to the presidential election, Kobach, secretarial assistant of Earth inward Kansas, gave Husted the Crosscheck list, obtained past times my Rolling Stone team, of 423,484 names of Ohio citizens who supposedly had registered inward to a greater extent than or less other state. Kobach in addition to Husted had originally sold the Crosscheck programme to the populace every bit a method of finding criminal “double voters”—those really voting inward 2 states.
But Kobach himself told me inward 2016—when I confronted him at a GOP fundraiser inward Wichita patch working for Rolling Stone—that the main role of his Crosscheck lists are to pose voters who have got moved in addition to registered inward to a greater extent than or less other state. Kobach’s component division directs the national programme to withdraw voters who neglect to respond to a postcard, taking payoff of the swell Help America Vote Act-shaped hole inward the National Voter Registration Act.
That Kris Kobach led the agency amongst the purge-by-postcard system is non surprising, given his long history of scams to disenfranchise voters of color, closely reported on past times Truthout.
History of Vote Suppression
Which brings us to Sotomayor’s shock that the bulk “entirely ignores the history of voter suppression against which the [National Voter Registration Act] was enacted in addition to upholds a programme that appears to farther the really disenfranchisement of minority in addition to low-income voters that Congress ready out to eradicate.”
We don’t demand to expect at all of USA history. Husted’s ain long tape of purging, blocking in addition to non counting voters of color is a history lesson inward disenfranchisement all past times itself.
In 2012 in addition to 2016, I filmed the unmarried early on voting station inward Dayton, Ohio, where Black voters lined upwards for v hours to vote. I every bit good filmed the lines inward a white Toledo suburb. Well, actually, in that location were no lines: white voters had a gigantic acre of machines to pick out from—plus cookies in addition to java served.
The long lines for Black voters resulted from Husted’s guild closing all but 1 unmarried early on voting station inward each county. That meant 1 polling station for the 13,000 residents in addition to cows inward Vinton County in addition to 1 polling station for 1.3 1 thou k residents of Franklin County (Columbus).
Ohio attorney Robert Fitrakis says, bluntly, that Husted is purging voters of color to "make Ohio winnable [for Republicans] inward the only agency he knows how—by stealing American citizens’ votes. And he’s counting on bigotry to larn away amongst it.
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