Let’s Kill Democracy to Save It

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killing democracy by saving itby Burr Deming

She laughed. The Tennessee state worker laughed. She had never heard of anyone willing to go through all that just to vote.

The elderly African-American woman, Dorothy Cooper, had been told she needed a photo ID to vote. She had a photo ID issued by the city, but now she found it wouldn’t count. Local IDs would not be accepted. This was the first time she had heard of needing a photo ID to vote. She was 96 years old, and she didn’t have a driver’s license. She had never had a license. She had never driven a car.

But, Mrs. Cooper was told, she could easily get a state ID. All she needed to do was to visit one of Tennessee’s Driver Service Centers.

Mrs. Cooper went back and gathered up an envelope full of documents to prove who she was. She had a rent receipt, a copy of her lease, her voter registration card, and her birth certificate. Then she called around for a ride. You see, she didn’t drive.

She eventually found a volunteer who would take her to the right location, where she figured out how to fill out the form, then showed her documents. The clerk looked over the birth certificate, and the other documents thanked Mrs. Cooper and told her she could not register to vote. She did not have her marriage certificate.

Marriage certificate? Mr. Cooper, rest in peace, had died many years before. She did not have the marriage license.

She and her friend started calling around for help. They found another state worker who explained things.

According to the new Tennessee law, if her primary identification contradicted another ID that she was presenting, then she would need a third ID that would explain the discrepancy. Her existing voter ID, the one without a picture, showed her married name. Her birth certificate, for some reason, did not: possibly because she was not married when she was born.

A photo ID was turning out to be a problem. A big problem.

If only she had a driver’s license, she would have been okay. Well, maybe not. She was 96 and the state of Tennessee does not include a photo on licenses issued to drivers over 60. It had been 36 years since she saw her 60th birthday.

And so the state worker, the friendly one, laughed. Someone going through that much trouble just to vote was something she had never seen. Until then.

But Dorothy Cooper had voted in every state and national election except one since she had turned 21, 75 years before. That one was in 1960. She had just moved to Chattanooga and didn’t meet the residency requirement. John F. Kennedy was elected without her help.

She had voted in spite of Jim Crow laws, managing to get by literacy tests for black people, tests with obscure, trick questions. She had not been intimidated by white resistance. And ever since, she had voted. Except that once. And maybe now.

So Mrs. Cooper’s friend asked whether she could re-apply. The state worker stopped laughing long enough to tell her Mrs. Cooper could indeed re-apply with the correct documentation. So Dorothy Cooper set about going through the process of obtaining a duplicate copy of her marriage license. That required more visits and more time.

Then there was a breakthrough. One of the state officials Mrs. Cooper’s friend had contacted was Hamilton County’s Administrator of Elections Charlotte Mullis-Morgan. Ms. Mullis-Morgan had good news. Mrs. Cooper could apply for an absentee ballot.

Mrs. Cooper, at age 96, began a new career as a volunteer advocate for voting rights. She was on television a lot, in Tennessee, at first, then on National news programs. Her ordeal was interesting. And it went against conventional wisdom.

A photo ID to vote makes intuitive sense.

We believe that only American citizens should vote in American election which is why the time has come for voter ID, like everything else. Voter ID.

President Donald Trump, July 31, 2018

When asked, most Americans agree with photo ID for voting. What would be the harm?

My President even provides the reasoning:

You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. You need ID. You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID, and you need your picture.

Okay, so he doesn’t get to the grocery store much. Never did. Golf is his thing. Do they need a photo ID for golf?

But Republican voters, especially the base, don’t support him for his accuracy. Good thing, too. That was the rally where my President referred to himself in the third person…

The most popular person in the history of the Republican Party is Trump. Can you believe this?

…while comparing his poll numbers to those of another President:

So I said does that include Honest Abe Lincoln?

Since you ask, Mr. President, there were no polls taken in the entire 19th Century.

In fact, while most folks, when asked, kind of agree that a photo ID requirement would be okay, they might not if they consider two facts.

  1. The requirement does a lot of harm.
  2. The requirement does no good.

Most states issue a new driver’s license with a new photo, every five years. Seriously, does anyone look the same at the end of the five years as they did at the beginning? In my case, any of my brothers, and one of my sisters could pass for me.

Maybe that last is an exaggeration. Apologies to my sister.

Dorothy Cooper’s voting rights activism attracted enough attention to become part of a fictional television program. An angry nurse gets in the face of her patient, a news anchor who is ready to give up on his health and his profession. Why does any of it matter?

From HBO’s Newsroom:

Tell him about your great aunt.

Seriously?

My great aunt Dorothy Cooper is 96 years old and has been voting for 75 years. Now the state of Tennessee’s saying she can’t vote.

Voter ID?

I want to know what you’re gonna do about that.

Well, are you…

I want to know why I don’t see it on the news.

Well the reason…

Why has my aunt become less American because she doesn’t have a car.

Okay, that’s a reasonable…

Why, young man, isn’t this the first story on the news every night?

(Motioning to a colleague) She usually decides…

Shut up!

Okay.

I want to see this story on the news.

Mrs. Cooper is not alone. The Brennan Institute has run the numbers.

It isn’t just the elderly. More than 5 million voters across the nation who simply don’t drive: workers taking the bus, domestic workers living at work, college students, some military people, do not have what states would be willing to recognize as legitimate voter photo IDs.

That’s a lot of folks who can’t vote. In a democratic republic, that’s a lot of harm.

And the newscaster in our fictional program delves into reality. His statistics are based on a real study conducted by the Bush administration.

Voter fraud is such a huge problem that during a five-year period under the Bush administration, 196 million votes were cast, the number of cases of voter fraud reached … 86.

Not 86,000. 86.

Here’s what that number looks like as a percentage of votes cast. Four one hundred thousandths (4/100,000) of one percent.

This would be called a solution without a problem, but it’s not. It’s just a solution to a different problem. Republicans have a hard time getting certain people to vote for them.

So life would be a lot easier if certain people just weren’t allowed to vote at all.

There is a reason elections are not stolen retail, with voters voting twice or voting in someone else’s place. You will face years of prison time and a $10,000 fine if you’re caught. And, while you’re standing in line waiting hoping no neighbor or relative will realize you are not who you will claim to be, you can think about the huge impact your little vote will have on the outcome.

On the other hand, you could do it wholesale. You could go low tech and stuff ballot boxes. Or you could go high tech.

Here is election expert Jonathan Simon in a public forum discussing the ease with which electronic counters can be set:

That memory card’s set up with about 500 thousand lines of code.

You add three lines of code, you interpolate them somewhere in this mishmash of routines and subroutines and whatnot. Then basically reset the zero counters.

And here is Clint Curtis, a programmer who testified under oath that he devised a prototype for election fraud for his employer to expose that fraud when it happened, then discovered his employer actually wanted to steal elections in Florida.

Mr. Curtis, are there programs that can be used to secretly fix elections?

Yes.

How do you know that to be the case?

Because in October of 2000, I wrote a prototype for present Congressman Tom Feeney, at the company I worked for in Oviedo, Florida, that did just that.

And when you say, “Did just that,” it would rig an election?

It would flip the 51/49 to whoever you wanted it to go to, and whichever race you wanted it to win.

In all fairness, the Florida politician, Tom Feeney, denies knowing Mr. Curtis.

National intelligence officials warn that the Russian has been detected making moves to remotely break into state election machines.

So we have individual voter fraud, which is pretty much nonexistent.

And we have manipulation of voting totals by those who want to break into voting programs from Russia, which experts say is being attempted.

Guess which one Republicans are focused on with solutions that will prevent people from voting.

And guess which one they are ignoring.

Many thanks as always to our partners at Fair and Unbalanced.

About Post Author

Burr Deming

Burr is a husband, father, and computer programmer, who writes and records from St. Louis. On Sundays, he sings in a praise band at the local Methodist Church. On Saturdays, weather permitting, he mows the lawn under the supervision of his wife. He can be found at FairAndUNbalanced.com
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Glenn R. Geist
5 years ago

Trump has triumphed by fixing problems that don’t actually exist and of course it’s far easier than doing anything about intransigent realities. What swamp? What voter fraud? and what about those killer/rapist/drug-smuggling illegals?

There’s a Trump math that rounds off 5 one hundredths of one percent to 100% so why not a Trumptastic voter machine algorithm that makes a winner out of a loooosah?

And of course Al Capone was treated unfairly and there is no Russia and this is the biggest witch hunt since the Spanish inquisition and Bernie Madoff was framed.

Reply to  Glenn R. Geist
5 years ago

Wow, Glenn. That’s a pretty good summary.

Up is down, down is up, and don’t believe what you see and hear. Just believe everything I tell you to believe.

Watch the pendulum. You are getting s.l.e.e.p.y.

Admin
5 years ago

The Russians, no doubt in league with Trump, will do all they can to influence the election in favor of the Republicans. Hopefully, there are people in government who won’t allow that.

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