CPAC 'GOP minority outreach' panel goes as well as you'd expect

[Brittain33]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/panelists-minority-outreach-goodies

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[Brittain33]

The issue here is that a minority outreach panel defaults to "minority voters want stuff from the government, unlike our rugged individualist whites” which is kind of racist and shows the usual blind spot to "goodies” the Republican base loves.

[Brittain33]

Voter Drives-Nobody is stopping anybody from having voter drives.

A Florida law required voter registration groups to turn in registration forms within some unrealistic time of receiving them--two or three days--which was so impossible that the League of Women Voters had to stop its registration drives.

[Brittain33]

Voter Drives-Nobody is stopping anybody from having voter drives.

A Florida law required voter registration groups to turn in registration forms within some unrealistic time of receiving them--two or three days--which was so impossible that the League of Women Voters had to stop its registration drives.

What's so unrealistic about that?  It might not be as convenient to the group to have someone stop by the voter registration office every day or two to turn in the forms, but should be far from impossible unless you could only turn them in in Tallahassee.

I'll let them explain. Here's their statement on how Republican changes to voting laws affect their non-partisan voter drives.

Volunteers weren't interested in facing $5,000 fines, a third degree felony and up to 5 years in prison if any one of the registration cards they got didn't get into state hands within that time limit.

http://www.lwv.org/blog/why-lwv-florida-cant-register-voters

[Brittain33]

Okay. I agree the penalties are excessive, but what is so damned difficult about turning in the forms the day (or even the day after) they were filled out? Indeed, why wouldn't they have been doing that already?

It's a volunteer effort with volunteers managing volunteers. Expecting them to track all registrations and getting them in, full stop, is challenging enough, although they do it. Imposing an artificial deadline just to force the organization to jump through hoops they can't meet and which requires efficiency from every volunteer, and putting draconian penalties on it, is only intended to keep them from registering.

[Brittain33]

I suppose it is a slight inconvenience to have to turn in forms daily instead of weekly, but not so much as to prove a significant burden.

Let's assume it's only a slight inconvenience to do that. (I disagree, knowing how shoestring many volunteer operations are, but neither you nor I can say for sure.)

The outcome of this law would be that many applications that, for whatever reason, can't get into Uncle Sam's hands within 48 hours would have to be thrown out or else 5 years of jail time. Which requires checking the time and date of all of them before submission. Which takes time away from registration. And it also means having to throw out any registration form that has past this arbitrary deadline, which means people who think they're registered to vote, aren't, and you can't fix that problem because how would they know they didn't register? All of this adds up to a situation meant to shut down registration drives. It worked.