Low Turnout Elects Repugs: Get the Fuck Out and Vote

Yes, low turnout elects them in primaries, too, when Democratic voters sit and home instead of voting for our strongest candidates.

I'm not talking about Bernie vs. Hillary.  I'm talking about the Democratic majority in the state House, which is the only thing standing between us and Haiti. Every state representative in Kentucky is up for re-election. The Dems have a three-vote margin, which is standing with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

Get. Out. And. Vote.  Tuesday, May 17, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.  Find out where here.

Adam Beam, AP:

Kentucky's top election official says she expects 20 percent of Kentucky's more than 3.2 million registered voters to cast ballots in Tuesday's primary elections.

Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said more than 12,000 people have already cast absentee ballots for a host of local, state and federal races. Of those, 7,533 were cast by registered Democrats and 4,821 were cast by registered Republicans.

A 20 percent turnout would be about average for the past three primary elections in presidential election years. Turnout in the 2004 and 2012 primary elections was 14 percent and 13.9 percent respectively. Turnout in the 2008 primary election was 32.2 percent, the same year Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were locked in a fierce battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Kentucky has closed primary elections, meaning only registered Republican voters can vote in Republican primaries and only registered Democratic voters can vote in Democratic primaries. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time on Tuesday.

No, Sam: The Winner of Today's Repug Primary is NOT Jack Conway; He's the Loser

C'mon, Sam.  You've been in Kentucky long enough now to know that repug voters are never fractured, dismayed, discouraged or dissuaded from voting in the general election.  It doesn't matter which piece of shit "wins" the repug primary, because repug voters never vote for the repug nominee in November. They vote against the evulmuslincommieterrist running as the Democratic nominee.

That's what they live for: defeating Democratic candidates.  Nothing - not even the repug nomination of a likely abortionist, because driving your girlfriend to the clinic is the exact same thing - will stop them from turning out in droves to defeat Jack Conway and put a repug - any repug - in the Governor's mansion.

Comer will likely lose the primary today because of the abortion allegations, but if he wins somehow, every single anti-abortion freakazoid who voted for a different repug will be in line at 6 a.m. Nov. 3 to make sure the Democratic candidate goes down to ignominious defeat.

And then they will immediately start working on defeating every Democratic candidate in the state House in November 2016, so that the new consolidated repug regime in Frankfort can get down to the essential, buybull-mandated job of turning Kentucky into Somalia, just like Kansas repugs have done to their state.

Sam Youngman at the Herald:

The sun will come up Wednesday morning, and it will dawn on a fractured state Republican Party.

Going into Tuesday's primary, it is all but impossible to tell which Republican will emerge victorious.

But it's easy to see that the winner of the primary is Conway.

SNIP

They are divisions that have been around in some cases for 20 years, but now they are deeper, far more entrenched and a good reason for Kentucky Democrats to smile for the first time since before last November.

There are always concerns that a contentious primary might leave a party divided in the fall, but this primary has taken an unusually dark turn, and those fears are unusually well-founded.

To be sure, there is still hand-wringing within the Democratic Party. It's what they do, and it is appropriate given the state's increasingly conservative electorate.

There are concerns, born of Alison Lundergan Grimes' disastrous U.S. Senate race, that Conway did not do enough — or really anything — to define himself in the minds of voters this spring as the Republicans ripped one another to shreds.

Ten Percent Turnout is a Crime, Alison: Fix It.

This is not a voter fraud problem; this is a voter apathy problem.

One of every 10 registered voters in Kentucky is expected to vote in Tuesday's primary elections.

Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes says the low turnout forecast is based on about 5,100 absentee votes cast and results from previous elections.

And it's going to keep getting worse until we make voting easy for everybody.

Think Progress:

Vermont is about to become the latest state to advance voting rights after the State House passed a bill to permit citizens to register on Election Day.

The House voted this week by an 87-54 margin to allow Election Day Registration. The Senate already approved S. 29 a month ago, so the bill will now head to Gov. Peter Shumlin’s (D) desk. According to an email from Shumlin’s spokesman Scott Coriell to the Burlington Free Press, the governor is “supportive of the bill,” likely clearing the way for EDR to become law.

Following Shumlin’s signature, Vermont would become the 13th state (plus Washington D.C.) to enact EDR, including neighbors Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.

Studies have shown significant benefits from allowing citizens to register to vote up through Election Day, rather than imposing an arbitrary deadline well beforehand. Academics found that eliminating registration deadlines improved overall turnout rates anywhere between seven and fourteen percentage points.

This boost would be particularly welcome in Vermont, where voter turnout in 2014 ranked in the bottom half nationally, even with a hotly contested gubernatorial election. Indeed, turnout was the rationale given by the bill’s main sponsor, Progressive Democrat Sen. Anthony Pollina. “Anything we can do to increase voter turnout, we should do,” Pollina said, according to the Free Press. “Frankly, there is no reason not to do it. There is no downside.”

Voter Registration Deadline MONDAY

From KFTC:

There are only a few days left to register to vote in the May primary election!

To be eligible to vote in the May Primary Election your voter registration form must be completed at your local County Clerk's office or mailed and postmarked by Monday, April 20.

Not yet registered or need to update your registration?

Visit your local County Clerk's office or download a voter registration card and mail it in by April 20. For answers to common voter registration questions please see “Voter FAQs” below or visit KFTC's website.

JOIN THE FUN AND HELP US REGISTER KENTUCKY VOTERS!

Many KFTC chapters have scheduled voter registration outreach events leading up to the deadline, so contact your local KFTC organizer to see how you can pitch in. 

Voter FAQs:

• How can I check if I am registered to vote and what party I am registered with?
  
  • Click here to visit the Voter Information Center or call 1-800-246-1399, Hours of operation: 8:00 am-4:30 pm EST 
    
• Where do I register?
  
  • Visit your local County Clerk’s Office. Click here for location listings.
    
  • Download a voter registration card here, and mail it to your local County Clerk’s office.
    
• When are the Primary Election and the General Election?
  
  • Primary Election Day is May 19 and the General Election Day is November 3
    
• Can I update my political party, address, and/or name?
  
  • YES! For name and address changes, complete a voter registration form and submit by April 20. For political party changes please read below:
    
    • Kentucky has closed party primary elections. This means you can only vote for candidates that are running within the party you selected to register with when completing your voter registration form.
      
    • The deadline for Kentucky voters to change their political party for the 2015 Primary Election was on or before December 31, 2014. If you are not registered with the party you cast your vote for during the Primary Election you forfeit the right to vote in either party's Primary. However, if you are registering as a new Kentucky voter this rule does not pertain to you. To find where you are currently registered and what party you are registered as, visit the Voter Information Center here.
      
• How old do I have to be?
  
  • You must be 18 years of age on or before November 3, 2015. 17-year-olds may register and vote in the May Primary as long as they will turn 18 before November 3, 2014
    

For more information regarding voter registration rules and regulations please visit the Voter Empowerment section of our website.

Attention College Students!

You are legally allowed to register to vote in the county where you live and attend college. If you are still registered in your home county here are your 3 options for voting:

1) ABSENTEE BALLOT:

• You are eligible if you will not be in the county you registered to vote
• Absentee ballot request must be submitted to your County Clerk 7 days before the election
• Send request to your County Clerk by email, mail, in person or fax:
• Your absentee ballot must be received by the close of polls, 6pm, on Primary Election Day, May 19th

2) EARLY VOTING:

• You are eligible if you will not be in the county you registered to vote
• A voting machine at the County Clerk’s office is available during the last 12 (or more) working days before the election for qualified voters.

3) ELECTION DAY VOTING:

• Primary Election Day is May 19, 2015
• Click HERE to check your voter registration status and voting location at or 1-800-246-1399
• The polls are open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., local time

Yes, There Are Democratic Alternatives to Alison Lundergan Grimes in tomorrow's Senate primary

DISCLAIMER: Yeah, in a fit of something I posted this a month early back in April, but now it's Primary Day Minus 1 for real, BEYOTCHES, so get yourself and everybody you know to the polls tomorrow OR ELSE.

Polls open at 6 a.m. tomorrow - Tuesday - and close at 6 p.m.  Acceptable ID include driver's license, Social Security card or personal acquaintance with an election officer.

My personal preference for the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate is Greg Leichty, who is somewhat less conservative than Alison, though I wouldn't call him liberal.

Neither Leichty nor the other Grimes challengers have a chance against the Big Dog's choice, but that's not the point.

The point of voting for someone else in the Democratic primary is to deny Grimes a primary landslide and call to her attention the tens of thousands of Democratic votes she's not going to get in November unless she stops running as a Mitch MiniMe.

Kentucky primary election information here.

Voter Fraud Fraud

As Kentuckians prepare to vote tomorrow, it's a good time to look more closely at the very real national GOP effort to stop Democrats from voting.

Josh Marshall, who recently won the prestigous George Polk Award for Talking Points Memo's exclusive exposure of the U.S. Attorney's scandal, brings us up to speed on the latest bamboozlement. I trust he will forgive me for quoting his post in full, as every word is critical.

For TPM's full coverage of the Voter Fraud Fraud, go here.

Since its inception, TPM has been chronicling the Republican party's efforts to push bogus or wildly exaggerated claims of vote fraud to suppress voting among predominantly Democratic constituencies like the old, the poor and the non-white. And here we have another installment from the GOP vote fraud bamboozlement file.

Two years ago Texas' Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott declared war on what he claimed was rampant vote fraud in Texas. He set up a special vote fraud unit and got a $1.4 million grant from the feds for the work.

Now, two years on, courtesy of the Dallas Morning News, we have a run-down of what Abbot came up with -- 26 cases.

The details tell the story: All 26 cases involved Democrats, and almost were either blacks or Hispanics.

Of the 26, 8 appear to have been genuine cases of fraud, two of which were cases of people actually casting fraudulent ballots, as opposed to bogus registrations.

The remaining 18 cases all involved eligible voters casting legitimate mail-in ballots. The 'fraud' was that others collected the ballots and deposited them in mailboxes without putting their own name and address on the envelope in which the mail-in ballot was sent. These latter instances were almost all cases involving elderly or disabled voters who could not easily mail their own mail-in ballots. In other words, the great majority of the cases in his meager haul were technical violations that non-politicized prosecutor's offices most likely never would have pursued.

The final verdict is one that will be familiar to anyone who's followed this on-going scam. Claims of widespread vote fraud justify big investigations, which more or less transparently target minorities, and find at most a handful of actual cases of wrongdoing.

No one denies there are isolated cases of vote fraud. The question is how organized and widespread it is, whether it's affecting the outcomes of any actual elections, and whether (depending on the answers to those questions) whether the extent of the problem justifies measures which also have the effect of making it either more difficult or more perilous for eligible voters to exercise their rights at the ballot box. The fact that these politicized and morally corrupt prosecutors offices can't come up with more than a trivial number of actual cases makes the answer to the question pretty straightforward.

Remember the larger context too. In the case of the US Attorney firings, most of the dismissals targeted prosecutors who refused to use the power of their office to advance the interests of the Republican party by engaging in these kinds of witch hunts.

Not surprisingly, Abbot is also pushing for a new law in Texas to require photo IDs to be allowed to vote -- the latest gambit to try to shave a few percentage points off voter participation among the targeted groups.

Nor should we forget that President Bush just spent five months in a stand-off with the senate over his efforts to put the country's top voter-suppression guru, Hans von Spakovsky, on the FEC.

Late Update: TPM Reader GS points out that the Texas Observer had a really good piece on Abbott's shenanigans back in April. Give it a look.

So when you approach the poll worker tomorrow, and show the driver's license that Kentucky law demands as proof you are worthy of the opportunity to vote, remember all your indigent, homeless, elderly, disabled and just plain eccentric fellow American citizens who are barred from voting because the fascists in the General Assembly don't think they deserve to vote.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.