One of the more evil things the Republicans do is suppress the vote. Unfortunately for them, they cannot yet explicitly restrict the electorate to Republicans (they're working on that), so, every once in a while a Republican is bound to get swept up in the net. And, it was bound to happen, sooner or later, that one of the perpetrators themselves would get hoist up high by their proverbial petard. So, this is really delicious:
Arkansas Attorney General candidate Leslie Rutledge is crying foul over the cancellation of her voter registration form. Rutledge, the Republican nominee for Attorney General, was kicked off the voter rolls after it was discovered that she failed to cancel previous voter registrations in Washington, DC and Virginia, and re-register in Pulaski County when she moved. Pulaski County Clerk Larry Crane, a Democrat, said he was legally obligated to remove her after receiving a letter flagging this issue.
Rutledge and Republican groups are calling the removal a “dirty trick” that was politically motivated. But what happened to Rutledge is in fact very common, and becoming even more common after the state implemented a number of strict voter restrictions, including a controversial voter ID law being litigated in court Thursday.
Democratic Party chair Vincent Insalaco pointed out in his statement that “a thousand eligible voters had their absentee ballots thrown out earlier this year following the implementation of more rigorous voting guidelines.”
…
The Republican National Lawyers Association has also come to Rutledge’s defense, expressing outrage that she was “systematically removed from voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election.” RNLA Chairman J. Randy Evans went on, “The fact is that it is a clear and unmistakable attempt at the most harmful kind of voter suppression in violation of federal law – removing a qualified female voter from the rolls notwithstanding her valid registration and actual votes in the last 4 elections in violation of her civil rights. Democrats should be embarrassed.”
Ironically, the RNLA has been instrumental in pushing mass voter purges across the country, specifically defending the right to purge voters within 90 days of the election.
Rutledge, however, is proud of her role in defending Arkansas election laws accused of discriminating against minorities and low-income voters. “Whether it was concerning Voter ID, Redistricting, Obamacare, or the IRS targeting conservative groups, I sat at the table side-by-side my fellow Republican attorneys and we developed legal strategies to proactively stand against or at times defend our citizens from the overreach of this Administration,” Rutledge wrote in an Attorney General questionnaire.
via Think Progress
Don't you just love the RNLA's description of Rutledge as a “qualified female voter”? I hope the county clerk sticks to his guns. Wouldn't it be loverly to see Ms. Rutledge in court claiming the law she championed was unconstitutional, inasmuch as it was never intended to apply to “qualifed female voter[s]” who were also white and Republican. But what am I saying? In the South, that might be a winning argument.
Post a Comment