Imagine, If You Will …
The Washington Post is reporting this morning that the head of Trump’s so-called Voter Fraud Commission has made a request of every state’s voter file so he can give it to the Russians. Okay, okay, I just made up that last part.
“The chair of President Trump’s Election Integrity Commission has penned a letter to all 50 states requesting their full voter-roll data, including the name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, last four Social Security number digits and voting history back to 2006 of potentially every voter in the state.”
He says he’s going to make all this information available to the public.
I don’t know how they do it in other states, but in Texas, we don’t have to give our social security number to register to vote. In Texas, voting records are public information, but you need certain information to access them. Here’s how my county does it. And Texas has laws about how that information can be used.
I’m gonna try real hard to think of a way this information would be important to anyone in the federal government except for voter suppression.
Nope, can’t do it.
Now, close your eyes for a minute and ask yourself what would happen if all registered firearms lists had to be released to the public. Yeah, that’s the sound of hell breaking.
In Virginia, we don’t register by party.
1Just look at the person doing the request: the biggest vote suppressor in the world. You might as well give him your bank account routing number while you’re at it.
Grifters gotta grift. And suppressing the vote of “those” people is the very reason for his existence. I wouldn’t give this guy the local word for “water” if I found him dying of thirst in the desert, much less my personal voting info.
2“Integrity commission”. That’s like jumbo shrimp. BTW, California has already given Pence the middle finger. Not happening.
3That’s what happens when Kris Kobhch is an advisor, and he is advising Trumpettes.
4And the whole taxpayer-paid farce is because of Trump’s egotistical fantasy that he got more votes than Clinton, therefore millions of votes must have been fake. As well as an excuse to launch even more voter suppression.
Sometimes I just want to wake up in a country run by sane decent people.
5Well, now! Such cooperation would have to depend on the Governor. Around here I know that Terry McAuliffe would be more than merely reticent. And then there are the citizens involved. They just might see the heavy hand of the federal gubmint and resist like hell. And Malarkey is right. We don’t register by party. We only vote by party. And Trump and his damn Nazi “integrity” **ap would be amazed as to what is not on the voting rolls. So it won’t be all that much of a help to him. Now, back to the Governor. There are a pile of them who would love to sue Trump and his monkeys over this or anything else.
6Some thoughts on your post:
1. If this voter information (quoted below) is made “available to the public.”, or a subset thereof, you have the recipe for the modern version of ‘1930’s style German Brownshirts’ having everything they need to begin rounding up “the other”. Like libruls, Demonrats, etc.
Certain of the more woowoo Rethug ‘base’ groups are already making a lot of noise about “eliminating” those people.
Don’t think so?
How many of y’all thought the Repigs would be doing what they’re doing today? (…hops around, waves arms about…)
“…all 50 states requesting their full voter-roll data, including the name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, last four Social Security number digits and voting history back to 2006 of potentially every voter in the state.”
He says he’s going to make all this information available to the public.”
.
2. Not necessarily just internal to the federal government. The sentence quote above says: “make all this information available to the public.”.
Hint: any wingnuts with some innartoobs connexzeeons can download it, and make speshul ‘lists’.
“I’m gonna try real hard to think of a way this information would be important to anyone in the federal government…”
.
3. Guess what…in many states (like Texas) there aren’t any such lists of “registered firearms” kept. Nobody in the TX DPS or whatever, hopefully, knows what firearms we’all have in our possession (like my DE, streetsweepers, Barrett, etc., etc. ;] ).
However, as an example, for the first few years of Texas’ CHL (licensed ‘concealed handgun license’) program (now called LTC (license to carry), you could look at the DPS database of permit holders in every TX county, and download it if you wanted. It had full names, addresses, and tel #’s IIRC of all CHL holders (IIRC, there were some exceptions, like judges, etc.).
Guess what redux? This open list became unpopular with many of the ‘guys’ who had previously beamed with pride at being on that exclusive list, wimpy SOB’s.
So they lobbied the hell out of their frennly local Rethug lawmakers, and got the law changed to make that CHL/LTC list inaccessible to the public.
And don’t forget, that LTC has a certain preference over a plain old drivers licence or equiv TX ID, like for voter registration purposes, heheh.
“Now, close your eyes for a minute and ask yourself what would happen if all registered firearms lists had to be released to the public…”
7.
(hope this all makes sense, I ain’t proofreading it again…;] )
Answer: Ken Cuccinelli, Kris Kobach, Charles & David Koch, and Mike Pence.
Question: Name five guys no one in their right mind would ask to hold their empty wallet, while beating the snot out of Donnie. Not that I can name a lone single ONE snacilbupeR/Libertyhysterical that could be trusted with an empty wallet.
8El Jefe says:
” “Integrity commission”. That’s like jumbo shrimp.”
Hey El Jefe, one of the perks of the living on the GOM coast and having connections is getting holt of size 4-12 shrimp, a size 4 is a quarter-pounder, big as a small bass; lobster-sized even.
(shrimp are sized and graded by the number of camaróns in 1 pound uncooked, usual market sizes today run size 18-48)
There really are “jumbo shrimp” around, not easy to come by though.
If y’all have ever prepared, cooked, and eaten rly rly jumbo shrimp like that, you know it’s a treat, yuuummmmmy. The ‘surf’ is as big as the ‘turf’…;] .
There are a few restaurants that sometimes serve them around (Blackbeards-SPI & NPI, Charlotte Plummers-Fulton, the po’boy place in Rockport- forgot the name again, etc.). C’mon down (fall through spring is best, cooler, less/no crowds).
9Let the states do this ..my state has begun the process. By the way I think Sean Spicer is still registered here and in Virginia…hahaha According to this administration this is illegal!
10We also do not use SS# for registration here.
In my county in Texas, we don’t register by party either. But, when voting in a primary, they ask which party you’re voting in. I’ve always assumed it was ensure no-one voted in both parties. Whether or not party affiliation is recorded, I don’t know. But now I’m really wondering.
11I emailed the Maryland Secretary of State about this, requesting that he tell Kobach to do something anatomically impossible. (Not really, but that’s what it felt like). I also tried calling his office but couldn’t get through; will try again on Monday, if they’re open.
12P.P ,
The voting clerks do more than just ask. In TX a notation is made of your voting in a particular party’s primary in the registrars book, and also on your personal ID card (stamped “Dem” or “Rep”), IIRC.
This info can then later be accessed by others for the purpose of sending you mail, or whatever the gurus do.
Of course in the next primary election you can vote in another party primary and it will get marked down as such.
So you are nominally ‘identified’ by party if you vote in a primary.
I voted in a Rethug primary once, in order to try and get rid of one particularly nasty one. I then got buried in Rethug campaign junk mail for a couple of years, ‘interesting’ stuff, blleeccchhh.
And it is noted down partly to prevent someone from splitting party primary votes (general of course can be split). Here there are sometimes different lines per party, or you just get one party primary ballot and they’re sorted later.
13Well, I’m on Tweety’s list. Florida has closed primaries. That means that, if we want to vote in the primary, we have to declare the party we wish to be affiliated with.
I wish I had had the foresight of an acquaintance of mine. He’s as liberal as they come AND he registered as a Republican lo, these many years ago. So Trump will leave him alone while working as hard as his little fingers will permit to scrub me off the voter rolls.
I would switch parties right now if I thought the R minions wouldn’t smell a rat. Someone switching from D to R THESE days would send even their radar straight off the charts.
14Yeeoouch! Anybody who gets ahold of your full name, date of birth, and social security number can easily obtain a credit card using your name. And if they have your address, they can tell the credit card company a change of address and get the card sent to them.
Don’t be fooled by “only the last four digits” of the SSN. The last four digits are the random part. The first five digits are not random.
This idiot is attempting to destroy the financial security of every voter in the USA.
Never trust a Trump appointee.
15I am not aware of ever having given my SSAN to Colorado to vote. This is the stupidist request I can ever remember from a government official. Especially from one who has a well deserved reputation as a voter suppressor.
16I sure hope not a single Secretary of State gives him that info.
Texas has complied. Abbot is THAT scared, I guess.
17At least 24 states have said they can’t, or won’t, hand over the info.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trumps-voting-commission-asked-states-to-hand-over-election-data-theyre-pushing-back/2017/06/30/cd8f812a-5dce-11e7-9b7d-14576dc0f39d_story.html
You do have to declare a party here in Maryland. At one point my husband decided to switch to Independent, but that didn’t last long. He couldn’t vote in the D primary, which in this county is like not being able to vote at all.
18Waste of time, as the only voter fraud was done by the rePUKEians themselves….called gerrymandering and voter ID!
19Yet another repukelican effort to steal elections. Traitor trump will try anything. Please put that repulsive demented psychopath in a secure facility. My home state, the Commonwealth of Virginia, told traitor trump and his sycophants to get lost.
20imagine, if you will, a “Gun Safety Commission”, established by Pres. Obama, requesting this same information, except for registered gun owners in each state. you would hear the howling on the Moon.
21Well, if anyone wasn’t watching Rachel Maddow just now, the House’s latest budget legislation just defunded the main government agency watchdog group that ensures the integrity of our voting machines. (Sorry mama) Somewhere Tom DeLay is pleasuring himself.
22I contacted our Lt. Gov.’s office as they are in charge of this. Here’s the response I got. ”
At this point the State of Alaska has NOT received any such letter, but we are aware that one is most likely on the way. We will not be releasing any confidential information to them. However, there is some voter information that is public, this includes name, mailing address, political affiliation, and voting history and there is a fee involved. By law we cannot give out confidential Information this includes SSN, date of birth, residence address (if marked private, you must have a different mailing address for this to work, such as PO Box), Voter ID, voter signature, driver’s license number, and place of birth.”
23Yes, the same party who voted for selling all this info $
24Lynne, I hope that Alaska requires payment in advance for the “fee involved.” Charge the feds the same rate we would charge any political outfit wanting the information, but insist on cash up front.
25I’m happy to say New Mexico told them to take a flying leap. Of course they used diplomatic words. I suspect that bunch will need an interpreter for that.
26So guns should not be in a federal registry, but voters should be?
Freedom!
27I can think of another reason the tRump admin wants nationwide voter information…and here it is:
GERRYMANDERING
With a “stacked” SCOTUS, the Repugnants are sure they can expand their gerrymandering agenda in every state (when managed at the national GOP level) and not worry about it in the court system. This would guarantee their total control of election results for decades…assuming we still have elections.
28L.Long –
That’s not voter fraud, it’s election fraud. And unlike voter fraud, which is extremely rare, election fraud is all too common. Which is why the GOP is constantly trying to distract from it.
I thing we should start calling this POS what it is: the Identity Thief Full Employment Act.
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