Voting Rights Violators: A Fun Theory, Some Depressing Stuff, and Why It Matters

In 11 weeks we go to the polls again to reelect President Obama. Republicans know that they aren't going to gain the support of the American people, so instead they're going to strip them of the right to vote:

• The Guardian has my new favorite theory for why Mitt Romney is refusing to release his tax returns: they could prove he committed voter fraud.  The article is worth a read, but the gist of it is that during the 2010 special election to replace Ted Kennedy, Mitt and Ann Romney did not own any property in Massachusetts and registered to vote out of their son's Belmont, MA basement.  Now just because Mitt's worth a quarter of a billion dollar and owns three mansions in other states, it doesn't prove that he wasn't living in his son's basement.  But his 2009 tax returns, which were filed shortly after the special election, could.  In fact, in cases of voter fraud by disputed residence, where someone lists their residence on their tax returns is considered the gold standard.  For extra fun, this type of voter fraud would not be prevented by Republican Voter ID laws.

• Remember Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, our friend from this morning?  Well he's suspended two Democratic election board members for standing up to him in his attempts to eliminate early weekend voting in the state.  Not suspended of course is Republican election board member Doug Priesse who came out saying "I guess I really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accomodate the urban--read African American--voter-turnout machine."  I mean obviously you should suspend the two election board members advocating making it easier to vote and not the one explicitly saying we should make it harder for African Americans to vote.  Republicans are trying to win an election, for Pete's sake.

• Have no fear that Ohio is the only messed up state in the union, Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott is vowing a new voter purge before the election, despite the fact that his last purge failed when even Republicans agreed it was too blatant an attempt at voter suppression.

• Meanwhile up north in Pennsylvania, Republicans are celebrating their Voter ID law being upheld in state court by canceling a program to allow people to register to vote or apply for an absentee ballot online.

• Oh, and Forbes Magazine wonders why we even let poor people vote at all.

• Last week I made fun of Congressman Todd "legitimate rape" Akin for opposing the direct election of Senators (I was calling him a whackjob before it was cool).  Just as I pointed out this morning that his views on rape and abortion are actually pretty common in the Republican Party, his opposition to the 17th Amendment isn't fringe in the Republican Party either.  Arizona Senate candidate Congressman Jeff Flake, Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, Texas Governor and former Presidential candidate Rick Perry, Senator Mike Lee, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia have two things in common.  They are all prominent Republicans on the national stage, and they all oppose the 17th Amendment and the direct election of US Senators.

• Why do I make such a big deal out of all of this stuff?  Because Obama (and Democrats in general) beat Republicans 2 to 1 among "unlikely voters.  Those are the people most likely to get disenfranchised by voter suppression tactics.  If you want to say that makes this a partisan issue, that's fine.  But it also means that Democrats are on the side of more people legally voting while Republicans are on the side of preventing people from exercising their right to vote.  And in a democracy, that makes us the good guys.