The brouhaha caused by Texas voter ID bill, HB 218, brought the nation to attention when the Democratic minority in the Senate banded together to fight the bill at all costs, including risking the life of a Senator who suffered complications from a recent liver transplant. But neither this risk or the witch hunt for “voter fraud” stopped him for protecting the “'basic right to vote without undue pressure.'”
"That's not the type of publicity I wanted. I just wanted to be the 11th vote to block the bill," said Gallegos in this Associated Press story. Against doctor's orders, Gallegos set up a hospital bed near the Senate chambers until the bill was declared dead, Wednesday at midnight.
“The bottom line is that voter identification proposals are about politics, not fraud,” he wrote in the Houston Chronicle. HB 218, one of about “120 burdensome voter identification proposals” across the country, is a product of a partisan plan to suppress the votes of marginalized communities. Further, “no one has documented a single case of 'voter impersonation' that HB 218 would solve,” he said.
“When more people vote on 'American Idol' than vote for president, we should make it easier for people to vote, not harder,” Gallegos wrote.
Making it easier to vote is an unusual concept, especially to 43-year-old Wisconsinite Kimberly Prude who is now in prison for voter fraud after casting her first ballot, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Prude took a job as a poll-worker and voted, but later was told by her parole officer that her vote was illegal since state law does not allow felons the right to vote until completion of probation or parole. She then tried to revoke her vote, to no avail and testified in a three-day-trial that she had made a “terrible mistake.” She is now serving a two year sentence.
“At this point, I'm not interested in voting," she said. Another “felony offender” confused with his voting rights was charged with voter fraud. Derek Little registered and voted the same day with the only ID he had – his parolee card. “In big bold letters, it says OFFENDER, and they still let me vote," Little said. "I thought it was their job to know the rules."
Milwaukee U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic was accused of “not being aggressive enough in pursuing voter fraud cases” and was on the “evolving list” or U.S. Attorneys to be fired. Biskupic “has repeatedly denied that his office prosecuted any voter fraud case because of White House pressure.” Little and Prude were two of 14 voter fraud cases Biskupic pursued in Wisconsin, a battleground state. Only five were convicted. One of them was Kimberly Prude.
“It is hard not to see the fingerprints of Karl Rove. A disproportionate number of the prosecutors pushed out, or considered for dismissal, were in swing states,” a New York Times editorial said. “It is now clear that United States attorneys were pressured to act in the interests of the Republican Party, and lost their job if they failed to do so,”
Project Vote is the leading technical assistance and direct service provider to the civic participation community. Since its founding in 1982, Project Vote has provided professional training, management, evaluation and technical services on a broad continuum of key issues related to voter engagement and participation in low-income and minority communities.
Laws not allowing felons to vote are ridiculous. If creatures like the Bushites: Rove, Rumsfeld, Robertson, DeLaye, Bush, Frist, and the rest can vote, then even Satan should be allowed the vote, for his crimes were far less than theirs.
Haiving committed a felony, has aboslutely NOTHING to do with treasonous acts. Let us disallow from voting only those who have impeded and or sinned against our Sacred Bill of Rights, Constitution, Freedom, those who have sent our citizens into harm's way for personal, corporate reasons. That would be everyone in congress who voted for the war, who voted for the Patriot Act, The Millitaary Commission's Act of 2006, everyone working for G W Bush, the staff of Fallwell's "law school," most of the Justice Department, at least 3 members of the Supreme Court, most especially the actions of Ant'ny Scalia and a number of generals, the cabinet, most members of many of the nations law enforcement agencies, the Drug corporations, doctors, hospitals and clinics, the oil companies, energy trading companies, America's utilities, the makers, sellers and users of: pesticides/herbicides, solvents, and explosives and automatic weapons and those who permit and promote. their use for "sports" and... Jeeps that leaves just some of us ordinary citizens.
Oh, one more thing. If anyone fails to vote let us suspend their citizenship until they prove themselves worthy of that privilege.
There ought to be a civil rights movement of felons denied with mass sit ins at polling places, etc. I am opposed to the above suggestion of making voting compulsory or denying people their right to vote for the sweeping and multitudinous reasons suggested above.
But my main comment is about Steven Biskupic, the U.S. Attorney in eastern Wisconsin. He was on the Rove/Gonzalez list of attorneys to be fired but he got off the list by prosecuting innocent citizens.
He prosecuted Georgia Thompson, an employee of the state travel office on trumped up charges of directing a state travel contract to a company that had contributed to the Democratic Governor. When Thompson's appeal reached the appelate court, the court commented on the lack of any evidence supporting Thompson's conviction and ordered her freed from prison that same day. Meanwhile, Thompson had served four months in prison and lost her house.
Citizens of a free society are supposed to be able to go about their business without having the fear that the state will single them out for a show travel and conviction as was done in the former Soviet Union and other dictatorships. Biskupic's false and political prosecution strikes at the very foundation of that right. Georgia Thompson should be given the money to buy an even better house plus punitive damages for the ordeal she has suffered. Steven Biskupic should be removed as the U.S. Attorney, disbarred and sentenced to at least ten years in prison for that trumped up prosecution alone.
But there's more. In accord with the Bush Cheney Administration policy of cutting down the number of veterans who received service connected disability, Biskupic prosecuted a 62 year old Vietnam veteran for fraud after he applied to retroactively move back the time he was eligible for benefits. He had contracted Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after seeing another service member crushed to death in the wheel well of a plane during the 1960's. The VA hearing examiner ruled that he was eligible for benefits from an earlier date. But Biskupic obtained another trumped up conviction and the veteran has now been in jail for over four months, awaiting his transfer to prison
The Republican administration tried to suppress the minority vote by alleging that there was massive voters fraud. Biskupic prosecuted 14 voters for voting before their probation ended, obtained five convictions and some of those voters are now in prison serving several year terms.
Remove, disbar and prosecut this evil despicable man before he can prosecute and imprison more innocent citizens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Robert Halfhill
by
rhalfhill (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 283 comments)
on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 9:39:22 PM
2 comments
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