Eileen McNamara (miss you!) takes our Welfare Whiner to the woodshed:
Would Brown have Massachusetts defy the law designed to ensure that all eligible voters have an opportunity to participate in the electoral process? Is his fear of being judged by a fully representative sample of his constituents really that great?
There is nothing sinister about the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, more widely known as the “Motor Voter Act.” The law requires states to provide voter registration materials to applicants for a driver’s license, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other public assistance. Congress designed the law to address the nation’s anemic voter participation rate. Only half of all eligible voters in this country are registered to vote. Of those who are registered, only 63.6 percent cast a ballot in the last presidential race, according to the Pew Research Center.
via Scott Brown’s Outrage Is Misplaced | Cognoscenti (WBUR).
We’ve been hammering on this for a few days, so in a nutshell:
- Voting is a fundamental right in a democracy. Encouraging voting is good and healthy.
- The “Motor Voter” law is clear in intent, and broad in scope. Read it!
- The state’s actions in sending out registrations to welfare recipients are plainly within the letter — and spirit — of the law.
Discuss
32 Comments . Leave a comment below.Scott Brown apparently believes enough uncommitted Massachusetts voters share both his prejudices and his contempt for the law to make this issue help, rather than hurt, his campaign.
Mr. Brown reacts with faux outrage against the $276,000 cost of the mailing, ignoring the reality of far higher cost of NOT abiding by the court order. From the cited piece:
These are not the kind of statistics that suggest that favor opposing the lawsuit in court — the mailing is far and away the most affordable outcome.
Massachusetts should obey the law. Massachusetts voters have a right expect their elected officials to promote policies that obey, rather than flaunt, the law.
Scott Brown is, like the national GOP, pandering to prejudice and racism. His assumptions about the electorate are insulting to both his audience and himself.
is the tenuous grip on reality our panicking Senator seems to have…have you gone NUTS?? How in the world can you even remotely blame Warren for this at all?? It boggles the mind. Warren’s daughter is on one single board of one single party to the lawsuit…presumably, that board has at least 8-15 people on it besides.
Are we now in the mirror world, where conspiracy theories can be surmised by such tiny connections? You would have to believe that Warren’s daughter controls the board on which she sits with an iron fist, controls the rest of the parties of the lawsuit, and isn’t doing this IN ORDER TO COMPLY WITH FAIR VOTING LAWS but has a sinister motive.
Going up against ensuring equal access to the voting booth is SOO not where Scotto wants to be. What a douchebag.
I think it’s liberals who are afraid of voters, the actual motivated people who register and vote, and that’s why they are so desperate to offset them with the drone army of people on public assistance who hardly participate except to sign up for benefits.
I think Democrats ought to be competing for the votes of motivated registered voters, and not be afraid of them.
It sounds like you are just the kind of voter Scott Brown is pandering to.
You apparently promote squandering even MORE money fighting a lawsuit that the state CANNOT WIN rather than obeying the law and allowing EVERYONE to vote.
Why do you fear registering more voters? Could it be that you, and Scott Brown, KNOW that your contempt for people beneath you on the economic ladder is obvious?
Right, we’re being sued, that’s excellent. How much did we also have to spend defending that lawsuit? Thanks Liz.
And who’s fault is it that they weren’t following the law by offering everyone a chance to register at the welfare office? This was Democrats, looking for a way to spend more money.
Registering to vote should require going to city hall and bringing photo ID and proof of residence, and it should be cross-referenced against a national voter database, so that only real people can be registered, and just at one place at a time. Other agencies should not be burdened with this job. If that means repealing motor voter, then that’s what we should do.
Why don’t you believe that everyone should vote? I think that both Democrats and Republicans should strive to have everyone eligible American fulfill their responsibility as citizens and participate fully in elections. To me, any effort that works against that is distinctly unpatriotic.
Your calling people on public assistance a “drone army” is deeply insulting and shows a deeply selfish and bigoted world view.
and his supporters on this issue if we simply instituted an income requirement in order to vote. Or maybe required property ownership.
Massachusetts just made registration a smidge easier by allowing people to print the voter reg form from a computer, instead of requiring a cardstock version which one can pick up from the Clerk’s office, post offices, libraries, etc. That was real progress, and I thank the Lege for doing it.
But it isn’t enough. In Massachusetts you have to register three weeks before an election to be eligible to vote in that election. That’s nonsense. If I live here *today* I should be allowed to vote here *today*. Period. Want to put all recently-registered votes into a provisional pile? Sure, no prob. But look, fair is fair, small “d” democracy is straightforward. And if the legislature doesn’t want to go from 3 weeks to 0 days, that’s cool — how about in the next session you cut it down to 7 days. Reduce the length and work on managing the technical details. Get the Town and City Clerks on board. Help them make it work.
While I’m at it, may I also point out that we need no-excuses absentee voting. Currently, you get to vote absentee for three reasons only:
* religious exemption [Amish, etc.]
* medical exemption
* out-of-town that day
That’s it. It’s crazy. There are loads of folks who are just crazy-scheduled on a regular Tuesday, and that’s before a kid gets in trouble at school or a parent gets sick or a commuter gets stuck on a disabled train or in a traffic jam. If people want to vote early, just let ‘em. I’m not arguing that people should be casting their November ballots in August, but there’s no reason against letting anyone vote absentee. Open it up and make it easier for registered voters to cast their ballots.
Massachusetts has pretty good voting laws. Our polls are open a good long time, we use paper ballots (AFAIK) universally or near-so, and things generally seem to run smoothly. Heck, Massachusetts even restores voting rights to freed felons immediately*. But we ain’t perfect, and we really should work to reduce the barriers that eligible voters face in casting their ballot.
* Two states allow prisoners to vote — Maine and Vermont. 14 states+DC allow freed prisoners to vote immediately — DC, HI, IL, IN, MA, MI, MT, NH, ND, OH, OR, PA, RI, UT. 4 states after parole, 19 after parole and probation, and in 12 states you may never get your voting rights restored. Given the countless examples of racist policing and prosecuting, how this isn’t considered a major civil rights oppression is beyond me.
that a no-excuse absentee constitutional amendment (which is the only way to fix the problem) passed last session’s ConCon – anyone remember for sure? If so, it would need to pass this session as well, and then hit the ballot.
Jeff Jacoby: Why Should Massachusetts Beg Anyone To Vote?:
LOL
And if registering one’s cat is so bad then why isn’t Jacoby in jail?
he should be tried and prosecuted.
It got a favorable report from the Election Laws Committee, but progress stopped there.
House 561 (2009-2010 session), amending Amendment 45.
Cleaning up the rolls is something that should be done periodically, but not at the expense of getting new voters onto the rolls. Plus, just because Mr. Jacoby mailed in a registration for his cat, doesn’t mean the cat actually made it to the rolls assuming the registrars were doing their due diligence.
n/m
WHERE is that “like” button??
voting and politicking.
MA state law should ban any community’s attempt to limit campaigning and signage. No bans of campaigning at events or public buildings. No limits on signs either timing or size.
Get rid of the 150 feet from polling places limit.
Once that is done I think that public financing is the next step.
Spot every Rep candidate $50K, every Senate Candidate $100K. On top of that all candidates can raise unlimited amounts from anyone.
Because if the goal is to get as many people to vote as possible, it’s only proper that those people have enough information to make an informed decision.
In MA the fundraising is so lopsided that you can hardly expect a recently registered welfare shut-in to have any information about the GOP candidate. He/She needs to be able to get in his/her face at the polling location, load the town up with signs as well as be able to send them something in the mail.
if no one wants to give your far right losers any money so they can then go ahead and lose.
It’s a big big marketplace of ideas out there, and in MA, yours lose. We’re just too educated in this state to vote for too many rightwingnuts.
If you examine closely the OCPF reporting you will see that many groups (via their PACs) that would traditionally be Republican give to Democrats in this state because that’s where the power is.
You also see people who gave to Baker in 2010 then turned around and contributed to Democratic legislators.
“We’re just too educated in the state to vote for too many rightwingnuts” is about the most pompous statement I think I’ve read here, but then again I am not a native New Englander and I remember when people looked down on me when I came from the midwest 30 years ago.
One historical question. How smart were the people that put general nut John Silber as a nominee? How about Scott Harshbarger, who clearly has shown he’s a kook on Fox25?
I remind you that John Silber lost the election. William Weld won by attracting those voters who agreed with you that Mr. Silber was not only a “general” nut, but was also a right wing nut.
The last right-wing nutcase that I can remember winning in this state was Ed King, in 1978. He was not re-elected, and his one-term administration is not remembered favorably.
I think you’ve supported, rather than weakened, Lynne’s argument.
Red states. I am saying that the electorate in this state can make the same bad (or stupid, but I don’t like to put voter & stupid together) choices as any other states.
If one state voted 50.5% to elect a “right wing nut” and another voted only 49.5% for a (losing) clone, can you make a general statement about those states? No.
The “smarter” Democrats put forth Silber as their candidate. Fortunately the “dumber” Republicans nominated a good guy.
I am merely pointing out a statement put out there as semi-fact “We’re just too educated in this state to vote for too many rightwingnuts.” is bogus.
I realize there is nothing I can say Tom that you will every agree with, so go ahead and dispute away.
Please reread her statement (emphasis mine):
Regardless of who nominated whom, the VOTERS rejected the rightwingnut candidacy of John Silber.
“more educated” is not the same thing as “smarter.” There are plenty of smart people without college degrees, and there are plenty of people with college degrees who aren’t very smart. I believe the point is more to look at the demographic of people with college degrees, not an IQ level. Fact is, Mass. has a higher than average percent of people with college degrees — enough to swing an election by a couple of points.
Republicans traditionally had an advantage among those with college educations, but that advantage has been slipping away. Lots of interesting stats about this in the NY Times blog post The Politics of Going to College. I suspect there are several reasons for this, including the changing demographics of those with college educations; but I doubt it’s a coincidence that the GOP has been losing support among those with more formal education as the Republican message has veered to the hard right and often been openly anti-intellectual. I think it’s fair to say that if you value higher education, it is less likely (although certainly possible) that right-wing ideologues such as Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum will hold much appeal.
they look down on you because of the things that you say, ie accusing all citizens of Somerville of being losers.
Note the fact that you apologized for getting the facts wrong in that thread, but NOT for calling the people of Somerville losers.
Plus, don’t get me started on your quest to engage in Godwin’s law of the worst kind, then lamely try to say that while you’re accusing Somerville Tom of wanting to scoop up and kill differently winged people, that you ‘don’t really mean it,’ but failing to say what you really mean.
You have absolutely no credibility, you do not deal with other people honestly and you persistently fail to show others even a modicum of respect. If you want to realize why people may look down on you, all you have to do is look in the mirror.
You have misquoted me several times in this reply
people looked down on me when I came from the midwest 30 years ago. I wasn’t political then.
I implied Tom was worried about getting scooped up himself
I in now way implied that all people in Somerville were losers. I said “losers in Somerville” Are you telling me there are no losers whatsoever in Somerville?
So please try reading the posts before slamming them.
This post started out with a broad brush on a group of people based on single data point and I responded in kind.
Sorry to interrupt your bobbing head world.
All I saw was another drive-by ad hominem, more suitable for trashy talk radio than any kind of reasonable discussion.
The only “logical conclusion” that I can discern is that you disapprove of the 1993 law that is being enforced here. So work hard to change it (good luck).
The law is the law, and Massachusetts has been breaking it. The lawsuit was brought, and the state concluded — quite reasonably — that the mailing was far more cost-effective than pursuing expensive litigation that we would lose.
I am only proposing to increase the amount of information available to the voter. Do you think an informed electorate is a bad idea?
I like the 150′ limit. Maybe it’s the wrong number of feet, but I like that there’s a line in the sand where I get my chance, and after that people are free of annoyances like me.
Granted, in an urban setting where people walk to the polls this means I get a chance to talk and press flesh, whereas in a suburban setting the folks in cars drive pass and I never get a chance to make my pitch… so again, the distance might be the wrong number in all places.
As for signs, I think a limit on timing is nonsense, but a limit on size might be appropriate so long as it’s fairly enforced, not foolishly small, and applies to all signs political and otherwise.
In general I would err on the side of fewer/less restrictions, but I’m not sure I’d go as far as you suggest for electioneering laws. As for your campaign finance laws, I think that they’re remarkably foolish. The net result would be that we’re throwing $50k to every candidate despite the reality that, thanks to unlimited fundraising ability, it will become an irrelevant pittance in a number of races. I’d rather see the state throw in $5 to each candidate for each unique 18+ person who lives in the district and donates $5+ to the candidate. Tweak the numbers perhaps, but that’s a public financing system I like.
P.S. How many “recently registered welfare shut-in”s do you think live in MA? How many recently registered social security recipient shut-ins do you think live in MA? In either case, just because somebody spends most of his or her time indoors, it doesn’t mean that they can’t make well informed votes. After all, there’s always television, magazines, radio, newspapers, the telephone, visitors, and teh interwebz.
and if voting is about choice then these proposals make sense.
If it’s just turning out more people to vote without increasing choice, what’s the point.
I like your proportional financing idea.
The larger the participation, the more ‘legitimacy’ and a bigger mandate that can be claimed. Also, it should be noted, that oftentimes very unpopular policies get through the sausage factory and one way they can count on being able to do that is turn-out percentages. I wish I had the cite but there was a recent study basically showing statistically that candidates are much more likely to buck their party leadership near election times.
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