People are responding to Trump's Advisory Commission on Election Integrity request for information by withdrawing their voter registration.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Hundreds of voters are responding to the possibility their information will be shared with President Trump’s election integrity panel by withdrawing their voter registration, according to a Friday report. 

In Colorado, one of the states that is complying with part of the commission request, two clerks have seen a significant increase in voters withdrawing their voter registration, Denver’s ABC affiliate reported. 

In Denver, one clerk has seen a 2,150 percent increase in people withdrawing as voters over the past since July 3 compared to the first non-holiday week before. 

Colorado allows voters to withdraw online or make their information confidential by paying a fee. 

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity last week requested all 50 states to upload publicly available voter information to a federal website. The information requested, in a letter signed by Vice Chair Kris Kobach, includes voter names, birth dates, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and party affiliation.

Okay does anybody else wonder if this was not he plan all along? 

Gerrymandering, voter ID laws, inviting Russians in to hack our election security, and now this.

I don't think our ability to exercise our constitutional right to vote has ever been as under attack as it is today.

Hey I think I just identified the next Right Wing freakout. Planned Parenthood is going to allow voter registration at their clinics.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

Planned Parenthood announced Friday that it will start registering voters at its clinics, on college campuses, online and at other locations, “regardless of their background, beliefs, or political ideology,” in an effort to get disenfranchised populations more involved in the political process. 

 The non-partisan campaign, called “My Vote, My Voice,” has the potential to reach a lot of people who don’t normally vote in presidential campaigns. Volunteers across 45 states will set up “action” tables outside of Planned Parenthood health centers and other locations in the community to sign people up to vote, educate them about voter ID laws in their states, and then remind them two weeks before the November election to vote. 

Planned Parenthood serves 2.5 million patients a year, and many of those patients are young, low-income, and people of color― the demographics that are disproportionately affected by voter suppression laws. 

 “If we can’t all participate in our government, we all get cheated,” said Anna Keene, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman. “We’re launching the ‘My Vote, My Voice’ campaign to help ensure that every voice is heard and every vote is counted in communities across the country. No matter what your political beliefs are, if you don’t or can’t vote, then you can’t elect officials who will keep your best interests in mind.”

Oh yeah this is going to make give the conservatives "splodey" heads for sure.

I mean sure women of all political stripes use the clinics, but in the minds of the Right Wing anybody who registers to vote in a Planned Parenthood clinic is DEFINITELY voting for Hillary Clinton.

California passes automatic voter registration. You're eighteen years old, you have a driver's license, and are not a Kardashian, congratulations you are a registered voter. (Okay I made up that Kardashian part, but I think we can all agree it's a good idea.)

California Governor Jerry Brown.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

Gov. Jerry Brown has approved legislation to make California the second state in the nation to begin automatically registering eligible voters when they obtain or renew their driver's licenses. 

AB1461 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, aims to boost California's voter rolls by registering visitors to the Department of Motor Vehicles and was among dozens of bills that Brown announced Saturday he had signed. 

It follows Oregon's move earlier this year to adopt the nation's first automatic voter registration law. 

The legislation backed by Democratic Secretary of State Alex Padilla calls for data collected by the DMV to be provided to the secretary of state's office, which would verify a resident's legal eligibility to vote before registering them. Drivers would have the option to opt out or cancel their voter registration at any time. 

Padilla praised the signing of the automatic registration bill. 

"Citizens should not be required to opt-in to their fundamental right to vote," he said in a statement. "We do not have to opt-in to other rights, such as free speech or due process. The right to vote should be no different." 

You know that makes so much sense that it pisses me off that this is not the law in EVERY state.

In fact I would like to see it expanded so that you get per-registered on the day you are born, and on the day you turn eighteen you receive your voter ID in the mail.

And if THAT makes you respect California just a little more get a load of this courtesy of The Sacramento Bee: 

Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed legislation to ban the concealed carry of handguns at colleges and schools, further tightening California firearms restrictions that are already among the strictest in the nation. 

Current California law makes it illegal to possess a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school or on a college campus without permission from administrators, but it exempts those with concealed carry permits. 

Senate Bill 707, by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, expands the prohibition on school and college grounds to include concealed weapons, while keeping the same rules in place for the 1,000-foot zone surrounding schools. Active and retire law enforcement officers are not covered by the law. 

I swear sometimes California does something that really sets it apart from the rest of the country in a good way.

If they were not always on the brink of bankruptcy, constantly on fire, and home to some of the most vacuous people on the planet, it might even be nice place to live.

Donald Trump and the Republicans have inspired the Latino community to register to vote. Somehow I don't think this is going to help them however.

Courtesy of the Daily Kos:

Republican presidential candidates have been making racist remarks about Latinos in the U.S., and they aren't falling on deaf ears. Those same candidates choosing to skip July's National Council of La Raza conference in Kansas City—which was attended by Democrats Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley—didn't go unnoticed. Acting as if Latinos don't matter in U.S. elections is not only bad politics, it is the height of political stupidity. Latinos listen. 

Latinos are answering the blatant racism and xenophobia with calls for action, and one primary action will be getting people registered to vote and to the ballot box.

I picture at some point the Republican party coming together. 

To burn an effigy of Donald Trump.

Assuming of course they are satisfied with just an effigy.

Hillary Clinton stands up for voter rights, calls out GOP rivals for fear mongering.

Courtesy of CNN:  

Hillary Clinton accused four potential GOP presidential rivals by name of being "scared of letting citizens have their say" as she called Thursday for every American to automatically be registered to vote. 

Clinton told an audience at the historically black Texas Southern University that she supports the concept of signing every American up to vote as soon as they're eligible at age 18, unless they specifically opt out. She called for expanded access to polling places, keeping them open for at least 20 days and offering voting hours on evenings and weekends. 

For the first time in her campaign, she attacked her likely opponents by name as she laid into four GOP governors -- Texas's Rick Perry, Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Florida's Jeb Bush and New Jersey's Chris Christie -- telling them to "stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of voter fraud." 

"All of these problems voting just didn't happen by accident," she said. "And it is just wrong -- it's wrong -- to try to prevent, undermine and inhibit Americans' right to vote."

Good for Hillary!

You know all of these voter restriction laws were put in place specifically to beat Barack Obama, and the news ones, that will be used for the first time in 2016, were put in place to specifically defeat her.

Fucking pansy ass Republicans know that can't win in a fair fight, so all they have are tricks and cowardly personal attacks.

Florida Democrats suggest Jeb Bush lawyer up after it was revealed he identified himself as Hispanic on voter registration form.

Hey @JebBush, did you know it's a 3rd degree felony to submit false information on your voter registration form? pic.twitter.com/6xCafz1ydB
— FL Democratic Party (@FlaDems) April 6, 2015

It was from a 2009 registration form.

My mistake! Don’t think I’ve fooled anyone! RT @JebBushJr LOL - come on dad, think you checked the wrong box #HonoraryLatino
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) April 6, 2015

Currently Jebbie is trying to laugh it off, but in fact it might not be something that can simply be dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders and an insincere mea culpa.

Some legal experts are saying that without evidence that Bush was trying to deceive it is unlikely he will face legal repercussions.

Political repercussions however.........

The Republican's most aggressive attempt to suppress votes yet. And it looks like it will succeed.

Courtesy of Slate:  

According to a six-month-long investigation conducted by Greg Palast for Al Jazeera, “voting officials in 27 states, almost all of them Republicans, have launched what is threatening to become a massive purge of black, Hispanic, and Asian-American voters. Already, tens of thousands have been removed from voter rolls in battleground states, and the numbers are set to climb.” 

Specifically, officials have a master list of 6.9 million suspected “potential double voters.” And in Virginia, Georgia, and Washington the lists are “heavily over-weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel, and Kim,” all common to Democratic-leaning minority groups. 

The process for checking those names, a computer program called Crosscheck—touted by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a vocal supporter for voter identification—is incredibly inaccurate. “The actual lists,” notes Al Jazeera America, “show that not only are middle names mismatched, and suffix discrepancies ignored, even conflicting birthdates are disregarded. Moreover, Crosscheck deliberately ignores any Social Security mismatches, in the few instances when the numbers are even collected.” 

Given the tight races in Georgia and other battleground states, even a small number of false positives could turn the tide of an election, giving a strong advantage to Republican candidates for statewide and congressional offices.

In Georgia they simply misplace voter registrations that they don't want to accept:

On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Brasher of the Fulton County Superior Court denied a petition from civil rights advocates to force Georgia’s Secretary of State to process an estimated 40,000 voter registrations that have gone missing from the public database. 

All of that bullshit the conservatives have been throwing around about voter fraud, and the need for stricter restrictions at the polls, was all to lay the groundwork for crap like this.

You know there are a whole lot of reasons to vote for the Democrats in this next election. But perhaps one of the best is because they respect EVERY American's right to vote, and rather than attempt to suppress any group's ability to cast their ballot, they work overtime to make it easy for all of us.

I for one am beyond fed up with this underhanded shit.

Perhaps the Republican's aggressive campaign against Obamacare has less to do with stopping increased health care services, and more about blocking the registration of new voters.

Courtesy of Mother Jones: 

Republicans have slammed Obamacare's health care exchanges—where uninsured Americans can apply for subsidized coverage—as "Democrat Party front organizations." That's because the millions of mostly low-income and minority applicants—who tend to vote Democratic—will be asked if they want to register to vote when they sign up for insurance through the exchanges, which open up next week. The administration has been adamant that it will not cede to the GOP on this provision. Until now. 

The 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), known as the Motor Voter law, says that DMVs and other state agencies that provide public assistance have to provide voter registration services. The Obama administration has said that means that both the state-run exchanges, and the federally-run exchanges that are being rolled out in states where Republican governors have refused to set them up, will have to comply with the Motor Voter law. But now it appears that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is wavering on whether it will require the 35 federally-run exchanges to offer voter registration, according to a recent report by the left-leaning policy shop Demos and the voting rights organization Project Vote. Congress also recently launched an inquiry into the matter, Hill staffers told Mother Jones. 

GOP opposition to signing up new voters through the health insurance exchanges has been fierce. Right-wing talk show yeller Rush Limbaugh said in June that it shows "the purpose of Obamacare... It's about building a permanent, undefeatable, always-funded Democrat majority." In March, Republicans on the House Ways and Means committee worried about how Obama-friendly "associations like the now-defunct ACORN"—such as FamiliesUSA and AARP that the administration will fund to help sign up the uninsured—would use applicants' voting information. Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) wrote a letter to HHS this past spring, charging that the health care law "does not give your Department an interest in whether individual Americans choose to vote," and asking HHS to provide justification for including voter registration questions in health insurance applications. 

Some conservative legal scholars have argued that since the exchanges operate as a marketplace for private insurance, they don't fall under the Motor Voter law's definition of social service providers, and therefore shouldn't be linked to voting. But the exchanges also provide government subsidies, and as recently as April, HHS made it clear that all health care exchanges would need to provide voter registration services.

Well that's a new one, I had not really even considered this as the possible reason for such stiff opposition to ACA.

But it makes sense. As we know the Republicans are flat out terrified of new voters joining the electorate, especially if those new voters are young, poor, or non-white. You know the very people best served by Obamacare.

However there are signs that the HHS was no longer planning to provide the same voter registration services that the Motor Voter law requires, essentially caving in to conservative pressure.

In my opinion they should leave it the way it is. After all our form of government benefits from having as many citizens involved in the process as possible. Unless of course you are a Republican, then keeping the electorate small and easily hoodwinked is of paramount importance.

However let's face it, even if the ACA does not offer voter registration services, the Republican base is shrinking and the Democratic base is swelling. It is really only a matter of time.

Virginia's GOP run State Board of Elections refuses to ask Attorney General to investigate dumping of registration forms.

Courtesy of WTVR.com:  

The State Board Of Elections says it will not ask Virginia’s Attorney General to investigate the case of a Republican Party contract worker, accused of throwing voter registration forms in the trash. 

State Senator Donald McEachin, who is chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus, asked the attorney general to investigate following the arrest of after Colin Small. 

Small was a contractor hired by the Republican Party of Virginia to conduct voter registration drives. 

He was charged after investigators say as many as nine applications he collected were found in a trash bin behind a Harrisonburg store. 

The attorney general says he only looks into election issues after a request from the State Board of Elections. 

“There’s no way to tell by party when people fill out these forms, what party they’re affiliated with, so I don’t think there’s any political motivation,” Virginia Registrar Brandi Lilly said Friday. 

Somebody working as an operative for the Republican party disposes of registration forms, and the Board of Elections does not think "there's any political motivation?" WTF?

Do they really think he was just arbitrarily throwing away registration forms that might have contained those from people registering as Republicans? Seriously?

Okay THIS is proof positive that all of that garbage about passing Voter ID laws was NOTHING more than a partisan attempt to keep Obama supporters from coming to the polls. (As if we needed further proof of that.)

If they had REALLY been interested in fighting voter fraud they would be all over this. Especially since there is proof that this goes much further than just Virginia.

Hypocritical bastards!