Conyers introduces bill to fight voter caging.
Conyers introduces bill to fight voter caging.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) today introduced the Caging Prohibition Act of 2008, which would outlaw the practice of voter caging, with the following provisions:
– Provides that the right to register to vote or vote shall not be denied by election officials if the denial is based on voter caging and other questionable challenges not corroborated by independent evidence.
– Prohibits persons other than election officials from challenging a voter’s eligibility based on voter caging and other questionable challenges.
– Requires that any voter challenge by persons other than election officials be based on personal, first-hand knowledge.
– Designates voter-caging and other questionable challenges intended to disqualify eligible voters as felonies, crimes eligible for fines up to $250,000, five years imprisonment, or both.
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
That’s great, but no relief for migrants looking for a better life, and documentation proving the fact they belong here.
Congress is beating around the bush. Get to the #1 issue, 110th.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:40 pmHey Conyers, how ’bout IMPEACHMENT!
The only caging I’m interested in is the one that’ll hold Cmdr. Coocoo Bananas and his neo-clod cronies cheney, rumsfeld, rice, etc…
You’re a disgrace to your country, Conyers. You can arrest Sheehan, but can’t think of a way to arrest a massive war criminal.
Retire, Conyers.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:40 pmIf Diebold counts the vote, it won’t matter anyways…
January 17th, 2008 at 4:40 pmWhy should election officials be allowed challenge eligibility based on voter caging and other questionable challenges? If they’re outlawing caging, why would ANYONE be allowed to use that to challenge eligibility?
January 17th, 2008 at 4:44 pmGood.
Come get Kris Kobach out of Kansas and dump him into Gitmo.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:46 pm$250,000, five years imprisonment, or both.
per instance?
retroactive?
January 17th, 2008 at 4:47 pmI thought voter caging was ALREADY ILLEGAL. WTF?
January 17th, 2008 at 4:47 pmReally judyinnm, they’ll led election officials steal the election but nobody else? Right now they’re probably signing up every Rethug as an election official. One hour course and they’re ready.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:48 pmokay…
don’t laugh…
what is voter caging? I’ve heard the term a lot, but when ever it is brought up no one ever mentions what the heck it is.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:49 pmI thought voter caging was ALREADY ILLEGAL. WTF?
Comment by Uncle Ho — January 17, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
I think Conyers’ bill isn’t to make voter caging illegal as much as it will provide a legal basis for ignoring the results.
However, whether it’s already illegal or not is moot. The voter cagers have already moved on to Diebold manipulation. Oh wait…that’s illegal, too. Not that it will stop the Rove clones.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:52 pm“Conyers introduces bill to fight voter caging.”
– - Bob Woodward clears his throat, digs deep, asks, “Whaaaaaa?”
January 17th, 2008 at 4:54 pmwhat is voter caging? I’ve heard the term a lot, but when ever it is brought up no one ever mentions what the heck it is.
Comment by deebaser — January 17, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
Voter caging is basically a dirty trick to disenfranchise voters — mostly used by GOP operatives in recent elections.
Here’s how it works.
1) Target an area of voters likely to vote for the opposition. In the case of the GOP, this would mean Democratic areas — usually black neighborhoods, but can be used anywhere Democrats are concentrated.
2) Send a piece of registered mail to every address in this area — usually a piece of campaign literature, but could be anything, as long as a signature from the recipient is necessary for delivery.
3) Collect all the mail that comes back as undeliverable because no signature could be obtained. It doesn’t matter whether nobody was there to sign or if the recipient just refused to sign for any reason. Make a list of the names.
4) Take your list to the Election Board and challenge the validity of voter eligibility for everyone on the list. Either that, or demand outright that everyone on the list be removed from the voter rolls.
5) When voters appearing on the list shows up to vote, they will be unpleasantly surprised to find they are no longer eligible to do so.
Voter caging does weed out a few people who have moved or who have died and the Election Board has not been notified of that yet. These are people unlikely to show up to vote anyway. More importantly, it weeds out soldiers fighting overseas whose official address is still that of their stateside home, people who were out of town when the voter caging occured, and people who just didn’t want to sign for yet another piece of junk mail.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:02 pm#3 – Absolutely. That is the problem they should be addressing. I really wish everyone in this country registered and voted like they do in Oregon. I just changed my address, which necessitated my re-registering to vote. I filled out a form that had my legal name on it, the last four digits of my social and my Oregon drivers license number and my signature. That’s pretty much all Oregon needs to verify that I am who I say I am. Now I will sit back and wait for them to mail my ballot to me and then I will fill it out and take it into the library and drop it in the drop box without having to take off work on the day of the election and find my polling place. The only problem with the system in Oregon is that they do count the ballots on an opti-scan machine that could be hacked. But, since there is a paper trail to use in the case of a recount, I doubt that anyone would try to hack our election. The only elections they hack is where there are voting machines with no paper trail, so they can’t be verified.
If we don’t do something really soon to outlaw hackable voting machines, our democracy may cease to exist when the Republiscums steal another election.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:03 pm#9. According to SourceWatch, voter caging is a vote suppression scheme in which a mass mailing is sent to a discrete selection of registered voters (Latinos, African-Americans, etc.) with instructions on the envelope “Do not forward.” Mail thus undeliverable is returned to the sender and is used as “proof” in a challenge that the addressee is ineligible to vote.
It’s total crap and it’s about time Congress outlawed the practice.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:03 pm– Provides that the right to immigrate freely shall not be denied by officials if the denial is based on gringo opposition and other questionable challenges not corroborated by the appointed Latino officials within the United States Federal Government.
– Designates immigrant-suppression and other questionable challenges intended to disqualify all mexican immigrants as felonies, crimes eligible for fines up to $250,000 and five years imprisonment.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:06 pm#14. In a voter caging scheme, registered mail is not used because it would be much too expensive for a mass mailing.
In this voter suppression tactic, it is sufficient that the mailed item is returned as “undeliverable.”
Other than that, your analysis is correct.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:09 pmComment by Tomas — January 17, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
This is not an immigration thread. Please provide something thoughtful on the thread topic or leave.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:10 pm#6. Retroactive ( ex post facto) laws are prohibited by the U. S. Constitution. In fact, two Constitutional clauses are involved. The U.S. Constitution’s Article 1 Section 9, C.3 states: ‘No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed,’ and Section 10 says: ‘No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law. . . .’
Now, about Bills of Attainder…….
January 17th, 2008 at 5:12 pmComment by justasking — January 17, 2008 @ 5:12 pm
You were namejacked by Mr. President the other evening justasking, unless you are Mr. President. I wonder which one it is.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:20 pmOkay….now I don’t know what to think.
I just heard that the ACLU is going to take legal action against Cayuga County in Ohio to PREVENT it from switching back to paper ballots from electronic ballots…is the ACLU in on it, too?
January 17th, 2008 at 6:20 pmInterfering with the vote is ALREADY a FELONY. Conyers is writing this new legislation, I suspect, so he doesn’t have to prosecute the Caging that took place.
Conyers has the evidence of Vote Caging in his desk drawer. Greg Palast hand delivered it to him. It should be enough to put Tim Griffin and Karl Rove away for twenty years.
But Conyers no longer feels compelled to live up to his oath of office. He obviously took a secret oath to Pelosi or Reid or somebody. His allegiance is now to them, not the Constitution. He must go.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:27 pmI thought voter caging was ALREADY ILLEGAL. WTF?
Comment by Uncle Ho
It is. But, the new Congress has found it necessary to spend most of it’s time making laws which tell the Bush administration that breaking the law is illegal.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:42 am