Here's the problem I have with the polls.

The problem here is like the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill thing. I struggled to imagine a scenario in which both people were telling the truth, where the disagreements were just of interpretation.

I couldn't. It was impossible. Someone was lying. It was very frustrating for me, because my first, and second, inclination is to imagine some scenario in which there are simply two versions of the truth, subject to the normal amount of fudging and perspective bias, but no one's flat-out lying.

Or, in the case of polls, simply flat-out wrong.

In this case, I've been trying to reconcile a national vote tie with Obama's persistent lead in Ohio and other swing states, which should in fact mirror the country. Ohio should be more Republican-leaning than the average.

As Brit Hume says, something's wrong here, and we don't know what.

What's wrong here are the huge partisan splits in the Democrats' advantage.

How can Obama be tied with Romney, in CNN's final poll, with Independents going +22 for Romney?

Oh, right: Because, CNN projects, Democrats will enjoy an unheard-of +11 advantage in votes.

I feel odd finally rejecting the state polls, and some national polls (D+11, indeed!) -- giving up on finding some way they could be telling a piece of the truth.

They're just wrong. I'm uncomfortable just saying data is wrong but that's where I come down.

One problem I have, though, is that many conservatives still seem to be making arguments based on numbers from 14 days ago, talking up a big Romney national vote lead. In fact, now, thanks to Obama doing a photo op (man, that guy is good at photo ops!), it's now tied.

Still, the assumptions for this tie are very strange. Apparently 2010 never happened, the country never rose up to reject socialism and failure, and 2008's Democratic plurality grew by leaps and bounds.

Apparently the continue majority support for repeal of ObamaCare somehow managed to increase the Democrats' popularity. Apparently the $6 trillion in new debt Obama signed into existence boosted his party's support.

Apparently presiding over a higher unemployment rate than any president ever re-elected (since FDR) has made the Democratic Party the dominant political force in the country.

Bill Clinton, apparently, had it all backwards. He presided over a furiously growing economy with (for a couple of quarters) a sub-4% unemployment rate but didn't manage to realign the country in the Democrats' favor.

But Barack Obama, by keeping unemployment at the 8% level (higher than the very high unemployment he started his term with) has won the hearts and imaginations of the nation for the Democratic Party.

That Clinton. What an idiot. He tried success. Didn't he know catastrophic failure in nearly every detail was the right approach?

Now, Team Obama explains that a growing, rather than shrinking, Democratic advantage in the electorate is possible because they've signed up 1.8 new voters. That's very wonderful.

Trouble is, a WaPo/ABCNews poll found that Obama had lost 9.1 million of his 2008 voters directly to Romney, with 3% more undecided (and they will probably break 1.5 to Romney, 1 stay home, .5 to Obama).

Now, Obama didn't just lose these voters. They're not just staying home. 9.1 million are flipping to Romney -- that's an 18.2 million net swing. Ten times the size of the new voters Obama brags he's signed up. Plus, using my back of the envelope guess as to the remaining 3% of undecided 2008 Obama voters-- that adds another net +3 to the shift to Romney.

So, in total, on election day, we'll find that of Obama's 2008 voters, there's been a net shift of 21 million to Mitt Romney. 10.5 million subtracted from Obama's column, and 10.5 million added to Team Red's.

But you know -- 1.8 million new voters registered.

So how on earth could the nation now be more Democratic than it was in 2008?

It can't be. And it isn't. I simply cannot believe that the 2010 repudiation never happened, that the parties-at-parity that year has not only reversed itself but rebounded +6, +8, and even +11 in the Democrats' direction.

So I have decided the state polls are simply wrong, and the national polls understate Romney's support by 3-4 points.

@benk84 presented this map in an email string; it turns out it was the same map I had made earlier today.

So here's my prediction: Romney 348, Obama 190.

Some other predictions I saw are fuzzing it, predicting a Romney squeaker by 271-267.

I find that scenario unlikely. If the polls are right, then Obama wins. Romney doesn't somehow squeak a hair's-breadth electoral win if the polls are right.

The only way Romney wins is if the toplines in the polls is wrong for whatever reason -- overweighting young and minority respondents, too few people responding to pollsters at all (now it's around 9-10%), and too many of the people responding to pollsters happy to offer the Socially Preferred answer.

The socially preferred answer is "I'm voting for Obama." After all, voting for Obama in 2008 didn't prove you weren't a racist. In 2008, Obama seemed like a reasonably good candidate (for those without any savvy or history or ideological underpinnings).

No, voting for the catastrophically disastrous Obama 2012 proves, beyond any doubt, that you're not a racist.

Even racists will hire a highly competent black man. But only the most anti-racist people in the world will re-hire the incompetent one, the one who seems to spend the bulk of his time golfing and chatting up Sir Paul McCartney.

So, once you've made that determination, that there's something simply wrong with these 2008 or higher Democratic splits and the toplines are just plain wrong, you have to just look at deeper numbers like Independents, Republican enthusiasm and solidarity, and Democratic defection rate.

As well as Democrats lagging their 2008 early-vote pace, and Republicans boosting their own.

And if you want to talk about ground game, let's talk about ORCA.

And all that forecasts a big Romney win.

Dixville Notch: I completely forgot about Dixville Notch, that New Hampshire sub-hamlet that always votes at 12:01 am on Election Day.

In 2008, Dixville projected Obama the winner, 15 for Obama, 6 for McCain.

This year? 5-5.

Ten Obama voters stayed home. Apparently one McCain voter did too.

(I'm now being told Dixville Notch only has 10 registered voters now. Well, still going from three to one Obama to a tie.)

Wisconsin: I've been thinking about Wisconsin. I think like this:

The Scott Walker recall was effectively a presidential-year turnout mobilization effort on both sides.

Now, Walker's opponent was not the most attractive candidate. Then, Barack Obama's not the most attractive candidate. He has a thing called a record, and it is woeful.

So if Wisconsin delivered a seven point win for a Republican candidate just this past June, why do people think Wisconsin "leans Democratic"?

It is true that some Democrats voted for Walker on the theory that the recall efforts just weren't fair.

Still, if you don't like a candidate, you don't really get into second-order questions like "what's fair?" for that candidate.

So Wisconsin just delivered a huge Republican victory to Walker (and before that, to Supreme Court Justice Prosser), but now, five months later, the state is so Democratic that it won't elect a strong and attractive Republican candidate (with a favorite son as the Veep candidate) over a failed Democratic one?

Of all the polls I don't believe, Wisconsin is the one I don't believe the hardest. This is a state which has gotten used to voting Republican and, I might say, gotten rather good at it.

But they're going to vote for Obama?

I just don't believe it. Honestly, I can see Obama winning Ohio. I have bought into The Narrative on Ohio -- autobailout, Obama's ads killed Romney for six months, blue-collar white males flipping over to the Socialist view of the world, etc.

But Wisconsin? If Ohio has been trending Democratic, certainly Wisconsin has been trending Republican.

What was Walker's plan in Wisconsin, by the way? Cut spending, balance the budget, reform the processes by which so much money goes out the door to schools and such, cut taxes.

And... it's working.

But they're going to look at Romney and Ryan and say, "Well, sure, we like when Walker does that on the state level, but on a national level, that's just crazy"?

I don't see it.

Oh, and in 2000, with the Democrats running on Clinton's record (albeit with Clinton's sex scandals), the state barely went Gore, and was only called for Gore days after the election.

But now they're like, "Oh yeah, we gots to have us more Obama"?

Posted by: Ace at 07:58 PM | Comments (423)
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Now you might think that the one place you could go and not hear anything more about the election and polls would be a foreign country - but you'd be wrong.

There's been fairly regular coverage all during the day here in Germany and in fact they actually covered an Obama rally in OH live. The media here is so biased that it makes MSNBC seem fair-mindedly middle of the road. Just one of the minor forms of bias is the fact that Obama statements  are generally translated directly into German while Romney statements are always summarized (negatively) by analysts. As best I can tell from my limited German Mitt Romney is actually George Bush wearing a CEO skin and he hates dogs, brown people, and uninsured children.

So it's not surprising that Romney is losing here to Obama by 92% to 8%. I suspect even a Pol Pot-Jeff Dahmer ticket could eke out at least 5% support. The few Germans I've talked to about the election seem genuinely mystified that Romney is considered to even have a shot at beating Obama. The media has left Germans completely unprepared for anything other than an Obama victory so I suspect that Wednesday morning to going to be quite schockierend for them. And then I'll get to find out whether schadenfreude really does taste better in it's native land.

Here's another view from Germany.

And it's as bad in France but at least Le Monde has broached the mere possibility that Obama could lose to Le Mormon. 

All that said - don't get cocky kids.

But....it probably wouldn't be a bad idea get your Victory/Life Day reservations on Endor in before tomorrow evening. And have your pudding bath all warmed up and ready to go.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 07:02 PM | Comments (416)
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Sign up to make voter-mobilization calls from home, at Team Romney.

If you do, maybe sign up tonight so tomorrow a.m. you're already got your sign and are ready to do 45 minutes or an hour of calling before work.

Once you get home from work, if you're on the east coast, there are still calls that can be made to places like Nevada. And, dare I say it, Oregon.

Midday, of course-- lunch, if you've got that luxury -- you might be calling anywhere, from Ohio to Wisconsin to Pennsylvania.

I'm Told... that if you're just joining the effort they won't have you poll watching. You have to be certified and such for that.

But they told me there was stuff to do all day long in the office-- like making calls. As I've said before, they plan to tally up the list of Republicans who've voted and have the headquarters call up the people who haven't. Offer them rides and such if they say they can't get to the polls. Good stuff like that.

Posted by: Ace at 06:33 PM | Comments (108)
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This is actually good advice for Republicans -- remember in 2000, all the networks, even Fox, called Florida before polls there were even closed.

The Republican-heavy Panhandle could vote until 8 PM Eastern, but the genius networks didn't know that, and insisted the polls shut down at 7 PM Eastern-- telling Republican voters in a densely-populated area of the state to not vote.

And then they compounded that by calling the state for Gore.

Telling Republicans the polls were closed when they were still open for another hour was one of the biggest dirty tricks played in the history of politics, and probably turned Florida from a clean Bush win into a very, very narrow, intensely disputed one.

In addition, claiming Bush had lost the election by 7 PM eastern undoubtedly poisoned the spirits of Republicans in more westerly states. And remember, that year, New Mexico was lost by Bush by something like a thousand total votes.

Wisconsin was also not called until the day after the election. People forget that. I did. I only know this because I spent last night reviewing the coverage of Election Night 2000.

While this is good advice, I have to wonder why Obama is offering it. Does he worry that early election day voting is going to go badly against him?

n a conference call this afternoon, President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign had one central message for their supporters when Election Day arrives tomorrow: They should “keep calm,” even if they hear snippets of information favoring Republican Mitt Romney.

“My warning, we need to stay calm for much of the day,” Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Obama’s deputy campaign manager, said, touting thousands of early ballots already submitted by voters. “We’ve already banked a pretty big portion of our vote.”

The fear, she explained, was early numbers leaking before voters have finished going to the polls, creating unnecessary panic and pessimism among Democrats.

By the way, I just got back from making calls for Romney. The place was packed with volunteers. And the people I called were enthusiastic about voting.

It's still not too late to get in touch with a Romney campaign office tomorrow-- they need people poll watching and working the strike lists and making sure that our voters get to the polls.

As I said earlier, I think the plan is to have people at the polls marking each Republican who votes, and then relaying these lists back to HQ, where volunteers will viciously harass gently remind voters that they really have to get off their couches and take a simple action in defense of the nation.

This may depend on the local call center, but even if you can only devote an hour or two to the cause, they probably need it.

Plus, it's kind of fun.

Call From Home: This'll get ya started. From TallDave.

Posted by: Ace at 05:41 PM | Comments (379)
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Saints and Eagles.

I do the stupid shit. It's right in my wheelhouse.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:38 PM | Comments (387)
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Here's what I'm giving away. A good guy commissioned a piece of original art by Chris Muir of Day by Day. He offered to send me a hard copy.

Here it is. It's a thing of exquisite beauty.

I can probably get some signatures on it, from Chris Muir and maybe me or whoever else you want.

So, here's how to get this perfectly awesome thing. Volunteer either to phone from home with the RNC, or do a turn in the closest Victory Center, or canvas with Freedom Works, or whatever. Like, if you want some of the cobloggers to sign, I'm pretty sure they'd do so. (That would delay getting it out to you, as it would have to be mailed around.)

Take down contact information of whoever you're working with there. Or note what email you signed up with to do from-home voting.

After you've volunteered, write to AcePuddingPalooza at the mail service provided by Google. State where you volunteered and such.

Deadline for emails is 3:00 am tomorrow night (after the election), Eastern time. Midnight Pacific time.

Once I've got some emails I will use a random method of selecting a winner -- and I will in fact be using GameScience polyhedral dice to determine who's the lucky winner -- I imagine a d20 and some lesser die, like a d8 or d12, will be involved.

A couple of weeks after the election, I'll send it out to you.

I'll also do some minimal-level checking to make sure you really volunteered. I don't think you'd lie; I'm more worried about it idiots on the left spoofing the contest.

The actual pic will be sent out in 2-3 weeks, depending on how long it takes to get into my hands and such.

Anyway, I'm heading over tonight. So, an early night for me on the blog.

Red Staters Needed Too: In case you don't know, if you're in a deep red state, when you go to a victory center, or call from home, they're not going to have you call people in your already-safe state.

They're going to have phone numbers in swing states.

"I live in a Red State" is not a good reason to do nothing.

Take Most of the Day Off Tomorrow... If you want to do some critical in-person canvassing, poll-working, or strike-listing.

"Taking the day off" is of course sometimes not possible, but never hurts to ask your boss.

Other Signatures: I can't guarantee it, but I have some connections to some people in the blogosphere. I might be able to get you some other signatures. If you win, let me know who you want to sign, and I'll see if I can't make that happen.

Some people are pretty good about stuff like this, Glenn Reynolds, for example. Or Jim Geraghty's always up for a lark. Goldberg likes silly stuff.

Can't guarantee that stuff but a lot of people will think it's kind of funny and would be amenable to it.

Posted by: Ace at 03:52 PM | Comments (409)
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Bill Clinton on stump: 'Who wants a president who will knowingly, repeatedly tell you something he knows is not true?' He really said that.

— Byron York (@ByronYork) November 5, 2012

You have to admit, the man is in familiar territory here. Heckuva character reference for Obama, Slick William. more...

Posted by: andy at 03:51 PM | Comments (87)
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I am not -- to put it mildly -- a fan of Mitt Romney. To me, he is, in blood and bone, simply another statist technocrat who will do little or nothing to stop the growth of Leviathan. I fully concur with the estimable and wise Richard Epstein in most of the particulars regarding Mr. Romney.

Romney has wooed conservatives assiduously, even to the extent of taking on Paul Ryan as his running-mate. I have remained immune to Romney's blandishments (I know his record), yet his choice of Paul Ryan kindled a spark of hope in the dead black cinder of my heart. This is why I shall cast my vote for Mitt Romney tomorrow. I find myself once again, as I did in 2008, voting for a Vice President rather than a President. Once again faith must trump bitter experience.

Paul Ryan understands the true dimensions of our fiscal peril. That's rare enough in the precincts of Washington, D.C. But it's not all dollars and cents to him: he understands the role of culture and religion in the American character, and how those things have contributed to the fiscal abyss we now face. The entitlement state says some good things about us as a people: we are caring, kind, generous, and optimistic. But it also says some bad things: we are spendthrift, needy, gullible, and more willing to accept the benefits of a democratic republic than we are the burdens of it. Paul Ryan will need to be the spokesman for a fundamental reform of America's entitlement state, and we could not have asked for a better one. (And let us not forget that should the Senate split 50/50, Ryan will cast the tie-breaking vote.)

As for Mitt Romney.... He gives every indication of being personally a decent and honorable man. But this is true of many men who turned out to be utter villains while in public office. I deplore his record as Governor in Massachusetts, and can only pray that he will live up to the faith small-government conservatives are placing in him. If he wins, his mandate will be to shrink government and not be a custodian of the bloated monster we have now. It will be to fundamentally reform the tax code. It will be to use all his power to repeal the abomination that is ObamaCare. It will be to once and for all explain to Americans why the entitlement state we have now is untenable, and why it must be completely reformed. (I was going to say "abolished" but a libertarian heart does not beat in Mitt's breast -- or Paul Ryan's, for that matter; the most we can hope for is slow and incremental reform.) If he fails in this, he is sounding the death knell of the GOP as far as I'm concerned. This is the last time I will be played for a fool.

I was, I admit, tempted to either sit out this election or to vote for the Libertarian candidate. Bill Whittle convinced me otherwise. Like him, I am tired of being played for a sucker by the milquetoast GOP all these years... but also like him, I am terrified of what four more years of Obama will bring.

Mitt Romney is an unpalatable choice, but only taken in isolation and on his own terms. Compared with Barack Obama, he is the only possible choice. This is not an occasion for the grand, doomed gesture. I know what I want: a nation that is sober, thoughtful, thrifty, proud, culturally strong, and confident both within and without. With a President Mitt Romney, I at least have the hope of seeing such a thing come to pass. Under a second Barack Obama term, that hope would be snuffed out. I cast a vote for Mitt Romney not on his record, which I hate; but rather on the hopes that he will behave differently as President.

We can choose to be free citizens who control our own government, or we can be dependent vassals to an increasingly-overbearing federal government. Citizen, or subject. We must choose.

And we must remember that our children will bear the consequences of the choice we make.

If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. -- Abraham Lincoln

---

UPDATE: For those who think I'm being too downbeat, you might want to read this piece by Paul Rahe over at Ricochet. Professor Rahe has been predicting a Romney avalanche since August, and is seeing nothing at this late stage to change his opinion. Michael Barone likewise predicts a substantial Romney victory. The preference cascade may be in full swing.

Posted by: Monty at 03:17 PM | Comments (382)
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This is just breaking but here's the Executive Order Andrew Cuomo just issued.

The relevant part.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, ANDREW M. CUOMO, Governor of the State of New York, by virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 29-a of Article 2-B of the Executive Law to temporarily suspend and otherwise alter or modify specific provisions of any statute, local law, ordinance, orders, rules or regulations, or parts thereof, of any agency during a State disaster emergency, if compliance with such provisions would prevent, hinder or delay action necessary to cope with the disaster, hereby temporarily suspend and otherwise alter or modify, for the period from the date of this Executive Order until further notice, the following:

Section 8-302 of the Election Law is temporarily suspended and otherwise altered and modified so that a voter seeking to vote by affidavit ballot need not affirm that such voter is duly registered in the election district in which such voter seeks to cast an affidavit ballot if such voter is registered to vote within one of the federally declared counties or New York City.

Section 9-209 of the Election Law is temporarily suspended and otherwise modified so that every board of elections in the State shall transmit the affidavit or provisional ballot of any voter who resides in one of the federally declared counties to the board of elections wherein such voter is registered to vote to be canvassed with other affidavit and absentee ballots for the election district wherein the voter resides.

Subparagraph (iii) of Paragraph (a) of Subdivision 2 of Section 9-209 of the Election Law is temporarily suspended and otherwise altered and modified so that the board of elections for the county in which such voter resides shall cast and canvass such ballot, if it determines that such voter was entitled to vote regardless of the fact that the voter may have appeared in the incorrect polling place, provided that such vote shall not be cast and canvassed for such contests for which the person was not entitled to vote at such election.

FURTHER, the State Board of Elections shall promptly instruct county boards of elections on the proper implementation of this Executive Order including requiring such boards:

1. to instruct poll workers to provide affidavit ballots and guidance to voters; and

2. to provide notice and guidance to voters in accordance with this Executive Order: (a) that indicates that voters who reside in the counties of Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk, or Westchester, or in New York City may receive and complete an affidavit ballot at any polling place in New York State; and (b) that the voterÂ’s vote will count for the office of President and United States Senator and it will also count for any other candidate for office and district as well as any ballot initiative that appears on the official ballot in the voterÂ’s home district.

This isn't as bad as I first thought. Initially it seemed as if you evacuated your home in Brooklyn but were staying with relatives in Syracuse you could just walk into a polling place there and demand to vote.

What Cuomo is saying is you can go into a polling place in Syracuse fill out a provisional ballot and that the election officials in Syracuse have to send it on to the Kings County (Brooklyn) Board of Elections.

Presumably when they are counted at some future date poll watchers from either party could challenge those votes, as they can challenge any provisional ballot.

Since NY is going to go to Obama and Kirsten Gillibrand is going to beat Wendy Long, it won't delay anything in those races. It could create some problems in House races, especially in Nassau and Suffolk counties where they were several close races last time.

More troubling to me is the fact that there's a provision of NYS law that lets the Governor unilaterally, "temporarily suspend and otherwise alter or modify specific provisions of any statute, local law, ordinance, orders, rules or regulations, or parts thereof, of any agency during a State disaster emergency". That sounds...dangerous.

Also, the law only allows Cuomo to do this if the law in question. "would prevent, hinder or delay action necessary to cope with the disaster". I'm not sure how keeping the election laws in place really touches on coping with a disaster.

That's the problems with this power grants/grabs...they always get used and they always wind up pushing the envelope of what was intended.

My prediction (as with most things): Lawsuits.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:22 PM | Comments (233)
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In this election and the past couple, we've seen Democrats argue cynically that we mustn't take even the most ordinary measures to make sure that voters are legal voters, because of contrived claims that the simple act of asking for ID is something akin to a lynching.

We are forever told that the "most vulnerable" people in our society -- a rather racist implication by the left; they tend to mean minorities -- simply cannot procure photo ID. Even though every state offers just such an ID for like $10. It's called either a county card or ABC card (Alcohol Bureau of Control). The point of it is so that people who don't have drivers license can prove who they are with a photo ID. Like, if they still want to buy alcohol.

It is true that such steps "burden" people by asking them to perform one bureaucratic step.

It is, however, true that without such steps, voting is on the honor system.

And political operatives, union stooges, and others do not have honor.

It's come to this: Those who are simply attempting to have non-eligible voters struck from the rolls -- so that they can't commit fraud -- are being attacked as racists.

The tea party group "insists that voter fraud is a pervasive problem and has taken it upon itself to employ questionable, and possibly illegal, methods to combat the 'problem'. These methods have turned up no fraud and have posed a serious threat of intimidation of entirely eligible voters," the senators said in a letter today to Husted.

"Working through an affiliated group, the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, True the Vote has challenged hundreds of voters in Hamilton (380 challenges) and Franklin (308 challenges) counties. The overwhelming majority of these challenges were rejected, but not before the voters involved were frightened by the prospect of being denied the opportunity to vote."

...

How were people "frightened"? They're frightened by standard bureaucratic processes? Why are these people "frightened" by such anodyne things?

And True the Vote seemed to have some good reasons for questioning these voters:

Last month, the Franklin County Board of Elections voted 3-0 to reject a Voter Integrity Project request to remove 308 people from the countyÂ’s list of registered voters for reasons as varied as providing incomplete address information, being registered at a vacant lot, or being dead.

Were the people who were dead frightened at the thought of losing their non-right to vote absentee from the Astral Plane?

So, you betcha, between asking someone to once go down to his local department of records and spend 40 minutes or less to procure a county card, or to leave elections to the whims of the Pat Morans of the world -- son of a Democratic Congressmen and filed director of his campaign, willing to take part in a massive vote fraud scheme -- I'm afraid I'll just have to go ahead and suggest people set aside $10 and forty minutes.

Thusfar the left has fought this battle into something of a tie, despite having no leg to stand on, and being perilously close to simply stating, flat out, that illegal aliens should be allowed to vote, or that zealous Democratic partisans should be allowed to vote in the names of the dead or comatose.

But they're not resting on that dubious laurel. They're eyeing up a big pool of natural Democratic voters who typically do not vote.

They're looking to return voting rights to all felons and prisoners.

ItÂ’s 4:00 pm, Friday, Oct. 12, one hour until the end of the last full week of voter registration in Virginia. If your voter registration application isnÂ’t submitted to the board of elections by close of business on Monday, you wonÂ’t be able to vote this November.

For two years, FloridaÂ’s Tea Party Republicans have been working to undo the huge turnout of black voters on the Sunday before Election Day. It didnÂ’t work.

Lukita James, 38, sits in the Henrico Public Library filling out an application much longer than a simple voter registration form. Her 5-year-old son sits quietly beside her, hands folded as Lillie Branch Kennedy and Cathy Woodson assist her with applying to restore her right to vote. James marks down “grand larceny” in the area that asks what felony she was convicted of, the crime that divorced her from her voting franchise.

Virginia is one of four states this year that permanently disenfranchises anyone with a felony conviction, a right only regained by appealing directly to the governor. James is one of 450,000 people disenfranchised under the felony statute, 350,000 of whom are not in jail but in society—242,000 of whom are African Americans.

Although they always couch their arguments in terms of "fairness" and "burdens on the most vulnerable," their actual agenda is to simply permit anyone to vote, whether a noncitizen, a felon, or dead.

For a party that's essentially run on an anti-rape platform this cycle -- as if Republicans disagree -- they sure are eager to return voting rights to rapists.

Posted by: Ace at 01:37 PM | Comments (225)
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