Democrats Planning Major Voter Education Effort To Counter Voter ID Laws

Huffington Post

Democrats said last Thursday they are planning a major effort to protect voting rights in the 2012 election after several states passed voter photo identification laws and restrictions on early voting and same day registration.

Concerned over what they call voter suppression efforts in states, party officials said they were organizing on a number of fronts to, educate voters on the types of documents necessary to vote and pursue lawsuits if necessary.

A new website, ProtectingtheVote.org, makes the case that actual instances of voter fraud are rare, despite Republicans’ success in passing stricter laws to combat fraud in dozens of states. Democrats accuse the GOP of trying to stifle minority votes as a way to win elections. The site and an accompanying report, “A Reversal in Progress,” are the first step in an “unprecedented voter protection effort,” DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (picture above right) said during a conference call.

"We have a history of challenging these matters in court if need be. We'll be more than prepared to continue that into the future," said Will Crossley, the Democratic National Committee's counsel and director of voter protection.

Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin have passed laws this year requiring photo ID to vote.

NBC | As 2012 Turnout Battle Brews, Justice Department Eyes Voter ID Laws

If it’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign sea­son, it must be time for another furor over voter fraud and voter suppression. As the Democ­rats did in 2008, they are again charg­ing that Repub­li­cans are try­ing to use photo iden­ti­fi­ca­tion laws and other changes in elec­tion laws to win­now out would-be Demo­c­ra­tic voters.

The dif­fer­ence this time: six more states have enacted laws, or strength­ened their exist­ing laws, requir­ing vot­ers to show a form of photo iden­ti­fi­ca­tion such as a driver’s license in order to cast a ballot. The stand­out among the new voter ID states: Wis­con­sin, which may have a recall elec­tion next year for Repub­li­can Gov. Scott Walker. It also has a mar­quee Sen­ate race and will likely be a bat­tle­ground in the pres­i­den­tial race.

Last week Demo­c­ra­tic National Com­mit­tee chair­woman Rep. Deb­bie Wasser­man Schultz launched a new mobi­liza­tion effort, say­ing, “Repub­li­cans across the coun­try have engaged in a full-scale attack on the right to vote, seek­ing ways to restrict or limit vot­ers’ abil­ity to cast their bal­lots for their own par­ti­san advantage.”

The strat­egy, she con­tended, dis­pro­por­tion­ally affects African-Americans, Lati­nos, and young peo­ple and could “skew the 2012 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in the Repub­li­cans’ favor.”

Assis­tant Attor­ney for Civil Rights Thomas Perez said last week that Jus­tice Depart­ment lawyers are review­ing some of the recently-enacted state laws to ensure that they com­ply with the Vot­ing Rights Act and do not have “a racially dis­crim­i­na­tory pur­pose or dis­crim­i­na­tory effect.”

Advocates of broader voting rights are looking forward to a speech on voting next week by Attorney General Eric Holder. “We’ve been pushing him hard to do that because we think it is a national crisis,” said Laura Murphy, the director of the Washington Legislative Office of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The big question is what will the Justice Department do – and that’s why we’re so excited about the attorney general’s upcoming speech.”

Democrats confront one big obstacle: the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision handed down in 2008 and written by Justice John Paul Stevens, upheld Indiana’s photo identification law. “There is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the State’s interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters,” Stevens said. The decision left open the possibility that future plaintiffs could try to show that, as applied in specific cases, a voter ID law is unconstitutional.

Full Arti­cle: NBC Pol­i­tics — As 2012 turnout bat­tle brews, Jus­tice Dept. eyes voter ID laws.

Does Texas Want the USDOJ To Reject Its Voter Photo ID Law?

It is starting to looking like Texas may be intentionally setting up the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) to reject the state's new voter photo identification law, by ignoring the USDOJ's September request for information about Texas' minority voters. The USDOJ said it needs that minority voter information to determine whether their new voter photo ID law would be discriminatory.

On November 16, USDOJ Civil Rights Division Voting Section Chief T. Christian Herren Jr. sent a letter to the Texas Secretary of State's office reminding the state that it had not yet sent the minority voter information that the USDOJ requested in September. As of today, December 5th, Texas has still not sent the minority information the USDOJ requested in September.

If Texas does not send the requested minority voter information, the USDOJ likely will turndown Texas' request to preclear its new voter photo ID law. Texas will then appeal the USDOJ's decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the DOJ's decision very well could be over turned.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled 6-3 in its 2008 Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita decision (findlaw) that Indiana's 2005 strict voter photo ID law is constitutional. Texas' voter photo ID law is nearly identical to Indiana's voter photo ID law.

After hearing arguments of voter disenfranchisement, which were nearly identical to arguments that opponents of Texas' 2011 photo ID law have made to the USDOJ over the last three months, Justices Stevens, Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas and Alito said in their 2008 majority opinion that those arguments do not provide concrete proof that Indiana's photo ID law constitutes either a burden to voting or an intentional discriminatory barrier to voting. The majority opinion further said that states have a “valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.’” (AP story)

Wisconsin Voter ID Law May Force 84-Year-Old Woman To Pay $200 To Get A Voter ID

For 63 years, Brokaw, Wisconsin native Ruthelle Frank went to the polls to vote. Though paralyzed on her left side since birth, the 84-year-old “fiery woman” voted in every election since 1948 and even got elected herself as a member of the Brokaw Village Board. But because of the state’s new voter ID law, 2012 will be the first year Frank can’t vote.

Born after a difficult birth at her home in 1927, Frank never received an official birth certificate. Her mother recorded it in her family Bible and Frank has a certification of baptism from a few months later, along with a Social Security card, a Medicare statement, and a checkbook. But without the official document, she can’t secure the state ID card that the new law requires to vote next year.

“It’s really crazy,” she added. “I’ve got all this proof. You mean to tell me that I’m not a U.S. citizen?” But state officials have informed Frank that, because the state Register of Deeds does have a record of her birth, they can issue her a new birth certificate — for a fee. And because of a spelling error, that fee may be as high as $200:

NAACP Targets Tougher Voter Qualifications

The NAACP launches a cam­paign Mon­day against new state laws that tighten voter qualifications. The NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Edu­ca­tional Fund, two sep­a­rate orga­ni­za­tions, will release a report that finds the laws tend to sup­press minor­ity vot­ing — a trend the report says emerged after unprece­dented minor­ity turnout in the 2008 elec­tion and Cen­sus fig­ures that show peo­ple of color gain­ing a larger share of the population.

The groups will send the doc­u­ment to con­gres­sional lead­ers, state attor­neys gen­eral, sec­re­taries of state and the Depart­ment of Jus­tice in hopes of prompt­ing leg­is­la­tion to roll back laws requir­ing government-issued iden­ti­fi­ca­tion at the polls and reduc­ing the num­ber of early-voting days and other mea­sures they say could dis­en­fran­chise as many as 5 mil­lion vot­ers. The NAACP, the National Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Col­ored Peo­ple, will lead a march to United Nations head­quar­ter in New York on Sat­ur­day to draw atten­tion to the issue.

The report says 14 states have passed 25 laws in roughly the past year that put new restric­tions on vot­ers or vot­ing. It sug­gests the mea­sures are a reac­tion to the minor­ity voter turnout in the 2008 gen­eral elec­tion, in which African-American vot­ers had a higher turnout rate than white vot­ers, as well as a reac­tion to Cen­sus fig­ures that show that from 2000 to 2010, the white pop­u­la­tion grew by 1.2% while the black pop­u­la­tion grew by 12.3% and the His­panic pop­u­la­tion by 43%. State offi­cials have said the laws are meant to pre­vent voter fraud and make elec­tions more efficient.

Voter ID laws are at the heart of the debate, accord­ing to the report. The authors main­tain that such laws dis­pro­por­tion­ately tar­get minori­ties. The report says about 25% of black Amer­i­cans and about 16% of Lati­nos do not pos­sess government-issued photo iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, com­pared with 8% of whites.

Full Arti­cle: NAACP tar­gets tougher voter qual­i­fi­ca­tions – USATODAY.com….

Rafael Anchia On Texas' Voter Photo ID Law

By Rafael Anchia, Texas State Representative, District 103

November has been month full of “oops” moments for Texas Republicans.

Not only were their illegal maps redrawn by a San Antonio Federal court last week, but lost in the redistricting news was the story about the refusal by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pre-clear the strict photo ID legislation that Texas Republicans passed during the 2011 legislative session. Since July of this year, the DOJ has twice asked the Texas Secretary of State’s office (SOS) for additional information, including the number of registered voters who may be unable to comply with its requirements. At issue are about 600,000 registered Texas voters who may not have a state-issued license or ID. If the SOS does not provide the data, implementation of the bill can be halted.

Citizen Video Journalists

When blogging was young you could tell there was an emerging set of Citizen Journalists writers with real talent. It wasn't new as a medium, there were probably tens of thousands of LiveJournal blogs around with people expressing opinions and personal thoughts on everything from politics to what they had for breakfast. It's what these talented writers did with the medium that took it to the next level. There's a thousand ways things could have gone wrong for those early pioneers. But with a combination of talent, entrepreneurial skill, and the luck of being in the right place at the right time we've got the vibrant online world we have today. And we have a track record of lots of wins to look back on.

We've got a similar set of conditions brewing in the video broadcast world right now. Turn the dial on your TV and you'll mostly find right wing ownership of the air waves. News organizations have cut their budgets around the world for sending correspondents out to cover conflicts around the world. And the local TV coverage is mostly a joke. The technology to cheaply record video has existed for quite some time, most people have the ability to do that from their smart phones now. The technology to stream video in real time has become incredibly easy to use and free. You'll see coverage of all types of events, concerts, discussion panels, and you're even seeing some people broadcast live from Occupy protests.

Read the full story @ DailyKos

The Internet A Diversion And Destination In 2011

A survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project show that young adults’ use of the internet can at times be simply for the diversion it presents. Indeed, 81% of all young adults in this age cohort report they have used the internet for this reason at least occasionally. Americans are increasingly going online just for fun and to pass the time, particularly young adults under 30. On any given day, 53% of all the young adults ages 18-29 go online for no particular reason except to have fun or to pass the time. Many of them go online in purposeful ways, as well.

These results come in the larger context that internet users of all ages are much more likely now than in the past to say they go online for no particular reason other than to pass the time or have fun.

Some 58% of all adults (or 74% of all online adults) say they use the internet this way. And a third of all adults (34%) say they used the internet that way “yesterday” – or the day before Pew Internet reached them for the survey.

Both figures are higher than in 2009 when we last asked this question and vastly higher than in the middle of the last decade.

"These findings are one of our main signs about how deeply Internet use has woven itself into the rhythms of people's lives," report author and Pew Internet Lee Rainie told Mashable.

"When they have some down time, more and more of them are finding the Internet a fun, diverting place to spend their leisure moments. It's not necessarily surprising to see that this is a favorite pastime of young adults. It is a bit surprising to see that the incidence of this use has grown in every age demographic. The Internet is not just the playground of the young."

About the Survey

The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from July 25 to August 26, 2011, among a sample of 2,260 adults, age 18 and older. Telephone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by landline (1,344) and cell phone (916, including 425 without a landline phone).

Read the full survey report @ Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

2011 Social Media Statistics

Social media has never been bigger, with hundreds of millions of people checking Facebook, Tweeting, posting and watching videos and sharing their lives on the web. Videoinfographcs have released a new video infographic with the latest statistics, facts and figures about social media that were released in 2011.

The World of Social Media 2011 hit YouTube just over a week ago and includes stats about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Flickr, Instagram and more.

Did you know that at 135 million users, LinkedIn is 15 times the size of the population of New York? Or that Twitter users send an average of 1,735 tweets per second, with an all time record of 8,900 tweets per second? The average Facebook user now has 130 friends and spends 700 minutes on Facebook each month, and there are more Facebook users than motor vehicles.

Note: Infographics (including in this video) are saying that 35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. In fact, back in May this statistic was upped to 48 hours of video being uploaded per minute. Additionally, YouTube now sees 3.5 billion daily views.

Web Videos Can Deliver Messages To Millions

By now, if you haven't been living under a rock, you've seen or been told about this viral YouTube video:

Zach Wahls, a 19-year-old University of Iowa student spoke about the strength of his family during a public forum on House Joint Resolution 6 in the Iowa House of Representatives. Wahls has two Lesbian mothers, and came to oppose House Joint Resolution 6 which would end civil unions in Iowa.

The speaker's name is Zach Wahls; he's addressing the Iowa House of Representatives on the issue of marriage equality, and representing his parents, who are both women.

Posted in February, the video had been passed around several times before yesterday; it had appeared not twice but three times on the home page of Reddit, for example.

But then MoveOn.org featured the video on this page, with the headline, "Two Lesbians Raised A Baby and This Is What They Got," and the urging to "share this now" on Twitter, Facebook, or by email.

Over 500,000 people shared the page on Facebook alone, MoveOn Media editor-in-chief Angie Akers told me today, contributing to 6 million pageviews for the video since it was promoted to their front page Wednesday morning.

On YouTube, the video's analytics show 4.4 million views and a massive upward traffic spike yesterday, after its appearance on MoveOn.org and reappearance on Reddit.

Web An Increasing Tool To Link Campaigns, Voters

Huffington Post

As potential voters in New Hampshire and Iowa scan the Internet, they probably are seeing ads for Republican Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama alongside deals for shoes and holiday gifts.

The campaign ads will then follow those voters around the Web, popping up on news sites, Google searches and on social networking sites like Facebook.

Online advertising, once used primarily as a way to reach young and heavily wired consumers, has emerged as an essential communications tool in the 2012 presidential contest. While few expect Web ads to supplant television commercials anytime soon, strategists say online ads may be the most nimble, efficient and cost-effective way to reach voters.

"Online advertising cuts through because of its ability to target. It's unparalleled in any other medium," said Romney's digital director, Zac Moffatt. "TV may be more effective for driving a big message, but per usage, the Internet is more powerful. We are probably one presidential cycle from everyone believing that."

Web ads can take many forms, from small display boxes to clickable videos to 15- or 30-second commercials known as "pre-rolls" a viewer sees before the start of a news clip or YouTube video.

While campaigns invest heavily in television ads to reach a mass audience, Web ads are geared specifically to people based on their ZIP code, demographics and, most importantly, their Internet browsing history.

That means someone who has visited the Obama campaign website probably will start seeing his ads on a number of different Web pages. Those who use Google to search for information on the Republican candidates might notice a Romney campaign pre-roll the next time they watch a TV show online.

Campaigns also buy ads on websites that cater to the different demographic groups the campaigns are hoping to reach.

"When someone expresses interest in politics online, it's an incredibly good time for the campaigns to talk to them," said Andrew Roos, a Google account leader who works with Democratic campaigns on Web ad strategy. "You want to grab people when they are paying attention and ask them to take another action, like send money or attend an offline event. It's an old-school organization principle that has been working its way online."

Read the full story @ Huffington Post

Newt Gingrich's Google Ad Buy Jumps the Cain Train

Politico's Morning Score notes that Newt Gingrich is running ads on web searches for news about Herman Cain in Iowa and New Hampshire with the message "Support the Candidate that can win."

In terms of web searches, that could be a successful move by Gingrich. Google Insights shows that within the past week, searches for Newt Gingrich have risen above searches for Herman Cain in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

But when it comes to searches only in the category of news, there are still significantly more searches for Cain than for Gingrich in both states.