Colorlines Infographic on the spread of True the Vote

The First Vote

The Republican Party in its current configuration is openly defying and attempting to destroy the U.S. Constitution. How ironic that the party that once fought for the 15th Amendment is now blatantly and with malice aforethought attempting to take this country back to before 1870, with efforts to disenfranchise a huge segment of the voting population.

The most fundamental right in a democracy is our right to vote. Voting became a right for people of color after fierce struggles during Reconstruction, which resulted in the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The "privilege" of voting that the landed colonial founders did not choose to extend to Native Americans, enslaved Africans, women and white laborers who were propertyless was amended and extended only after battles in both the political and public arena, which continued into the 1960s and are once again a battleground today.

The road to victory for our right to vote was paved in blood.

Right in front of our eyes we are watching successful attempts to erode democracy. We the people, has become "we the corporation," and its shining symbol is vested in the person of Willard Romney—corporate greed personified, wedded to Paul Ryan's tea party express. I have not forgotten the "musings" from teapartiers like Judson Phillips who advocated restricting the franchise to only those who hold property.

You shouldn't forget them either, because the well-funded and well-oiled machine of voter repression, intimidation and disenfranchisement is coming to a ballot box near you.

One wing of this movement calls itself "True the Vote." In essence it should be called "Screw your Vote."

The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR) has issued a chilling report focusing specifically on voter suppression in North Carolina, but tying them in to a national agenda.

Read the full report, written by Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind, with a foreword by Rev. Dr. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP.



The Tea Party and Narrowing the Franchise

Over the past two years, the Tea Party movement has changed the American political and social landscape. It has given a megaphone to unfounded fears of an imaginary white dispossession and resentment. It has helped reshape the anti-immigrant movement. It has helped enforce measures to limit trade union rights. It has unseated Republican Party moderates such as Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, and elevated anti-choice Republicans such as Cong. Paul Ryan. None of the accomplishments threaten the very fabric of democracy, however, in the same way as Tea Party efforts to suppress the vote. In previous reports, IREHR has documented the existence of Tea Party national leaders opposed to voting rights for people without property, and Tea Party leaders who advocate the repeal of the Fourteenth Amendment, and equal rights before the law promised by it. IREHR has pointed out some of the most prominent white nationalists in the Tea Party ranks, and those Tea Partiers who simply act like racists and bigots. In this report, the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights details voter suppression efforts in North Carolina.

Colorlines Infographic on the spread of True the Vote

Colorlines has been following their efforts for months now, and reporting on the push back against them, most recently from Congressman Elijah Cummings Melissa Harris-Perry discussed True the Vote, and interviewed Congressman Cummings.

(Continue reading below the fold.)

