voting

Saturday 20th of April 2024

1%ers say You don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar in taxes. … A million in taxes, you get a million votes. Tom Perkins, billionaire venture capitalist © 2015 Kwiple.com
1988 Presidential election It was clear for example in 1988 that the politifcal process had already become perilously remote from the electorate it was meant to represent. It was also clear in 1988 that the decision of the two major parties to obscure any possible perceived distinction between themselves, and by so doing to narrow the contested ground to a handful of selected “target” voters, had already imposed considerable strain on the basic principle of the democratic exercise, that of assuring the nation's citizens a voice in its affairs. Joan Didion, Political Fictions © 2017 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election Eligible and actual voters   Eligible Actual Totals voters voters Eligible: 231,556,622 100%   Didn't: 95,214,088 41%   Voted: 136,342,534 59% 100%  Clinton: 65,514,395 28% 48% Trump: 62,853,497 27% 46% Others: 7,974,642 3% 6%   As of December 7, 2016.  Eligible based on data from heavy.com; actual on data from uselectionatlas.org © 2016 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election Virginia had already removed 41,637 voters from the Crosscheck list—tens of thousands of voters whose only crime was having a common name. If all Crosscheck states follow Virginia's pattern, removing about 12 percent of the voters on their Crosscheck list, over one million voters will lose their right to vote by Election Day, November 2016. Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy [Interstate Crosscheck is a software package funded by Charles and David Koch and used by 30 states to identify nearly 7.2 million people with similar names who it deems “suspected double voters” that the states remove from their voter rolls without arresting or convicting the “suspects”] © 2016 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election We got elected on Drain the Swamp, Lock Her Up, Build a Wall. … This was pure anger. Anger and fear is what gets people to the polls. Steve Bannon, in a 2018 interview © 2023 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election “We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” says a senior [Trump campaign] official. They're aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, October 27, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
2018 midterm elections In the 2018 election, density was the single strongest determinant of who voted Democratic and who voted Republican, with eight hundred people per square mile being the cutoff. Below that number, 66 percent voted Republican. Above it, 66 percent voted Democratic. Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War  © 2022 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election Shortly after election day, the Defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In so doing, the Defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies: a. A conspiracy to defraud the United States … b. A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected result of the presidential election are counted and certified … c. A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one's vote counted … United States of America v. Donald J. Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
American Jews  Jews earn like Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans. Milton Himmelfarb © 2017 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure absentee ballots get counted? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to to end “caging” – i.e., disenfranchising registered voters by sending mail marked “Do Not Forward,” collecting returns, and deleting names © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure ballots with chads get counted? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure electronic voting machines in minority neighborhoods work? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure felons, prisoners, probationers and parolees can vote? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure people with no fixed address can vote? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure mail-in ballots with the wrong postage, Xs instead of dots, folded wrong, etc., get counted? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure Native Americans' votes get counted? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure elections with more than 0.1% “no choice” votes for top-of-the-ticket candidates are investigated? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure provisional ballots get counted? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure registered voters aren't wrongfully purged from the voter rolls? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to make sure people can register on Election Day? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Ask candidates … What will you do to repeal laws requiring voters to identify themselves using a passport, social security card or driver's license? © 2015 Kwiple.com
Asses So please, get your asses out tomorrow and vote. Donald Trump, June 26, 2016, at a rally to elect Henry McMaster governor of South Carolina © 2023 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated number of votes by which Donald Trump won the state of Wisconsin: 27,000 Of registered Wisconsin voters who lacked voter identification: 360,000 Harper's Index, January 2017 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers In 2012, 66 million voters chose President Obama, 61 million voted for Governor Romney, and 82 million eligible people did not vote at all. Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Percentage of of registered U.S. voters who voted in the 2014 midterm elections: 63 Who say they “definitely” voted: 75 Harper's Index, June 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Portion of voting-age Floridians who have been disenfranchised because of felony convictions: 1/10 Harper's Index, January 2018 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Research … shows that in the 2012 elections the residents of 75% minority zip codes waited more than twice as long to vote as the residents of 75% white zip codes. There was almost no difference in waiting time by average income level. The zip codes with the longest lines were minority zip codes, not poor zip codes. Salvatore Babones, Sixteen for '16 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Studies of voter impersonation show that this simply does not happen in the United States of America. For example, an exhaustive News21 investigation was able to identify just 10 cases of in-person voter fraud occurring voer the 11-year period 2000–10, or less than one per year. That's one case of in-person voter impersonation per year in a country of nearly 150 million registered voters. Salvatore Babones, Sixteen for '16 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers There are 286,266 disenfranchised felons in Alabama, or 7.62% of the state's voting-age population. More than half of those disenfranchised felons are black, despite the fact that African Americans made up only 26.8% of the state's population as of July 2016, according to a US census estimate. Of the more than 280,000 disenfranchised felons in Alabama, 143,924 are black, according to the Sentencing Project. That means that disenfranchised felons make up 15.11% of the state's voting-age African American population. The Guardian, October 4, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Total ballots cast in national general elections between 2000 and 2014: 834,086,926 Total credible allegations of in-person voter fraud during those years: 35 In-person voter fraud as a percentage of ballots cast during those years: 0.0000000419 % (a bit more than 4 per 100,000,000) raw data from Vox, August 2, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Unregistered eligible voters 37% of eligible people with incomes less than $30,000 44% of eligible Asian Americans 46% of eligible young adults (18-to-24-year-olds) based on 2014 data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Voter registration 735,000 couldn't register because of language barriers 1,900,000 couldn't register because they didn't know where or how to 4,100,000 couldn't register because they missed the registration deadline based on 2014 data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Voter turnout   2008 2012 Eligible voters 64% 62% Registered voters 90% 87%  based on data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Voting, race and income   % of % of   population voters Whites in families 27% 35% making $75,000/more     Nonwhites in families 16% 11% making $50,000/less     based on 2014 data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Voting, registration and income   voting voting   rate of rate of   registered eligible   voters voters Income $100,000/more 91% 74% Income $30,000/less 81% 51% Gap in voting rate 10% 23%  based on 2012 data from Demos, “Automatic Voter Registration” © 2016 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say The problem with women voting — and your Communists will back me up on this — is that, you know, women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it. And when they take these polls, it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care. Ann Coulter © 2015 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say The Republicans [in California] don't win and that's because of potentially illegal votes, which is what I've been saying for a long time. I have no doubt about it. And I've seen it, I've had friends talk about it when people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again.  Donald Trump, Nov. 14, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy But the threat we face is a new one; it requires new thinking. Through most of American history, both parties, while excluding large numbers of Americans from the franchise, basically accepted the choice of the electorate — and that is no longer true.  The supreme danger now is not that voters in urban counties will have a harder time  finding a drop box, or that some states will  shorten the mail-ballot application window. The danger is that the express will of the American people could be overthrown. George Packer, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy When in a democracy, one group of citizens can deliberately, purposefully make it more difficult for another group of citizens to vote, they have put a dagger into that democracy. We cannot let that happen. Sheldon Whitehouse, January 19, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Elections Elections aren't stolen in the vote count; they're stolen in the no count. Mary Frances Berry © 2015 Kwiple.com
Electoral College I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better for the U.S.A. Donald Trump, 7:17 PM – 19 Mar 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Facts [N]o reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.  Sidney Powell, on her widely-believed lies about voting fraud by Dominion Voting Systems voting machines and Smartmatic software during the 2020 presidential election © 2023 Kwiple.com
Fascists say Fuck the voting; lets get right to the violence. Shoot to kill. See an Antifa? Shoot to kill. Fuck 'em. Done with this bullshit. Roger Stone, to Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen, on his way home from a November 2, 2020 rally for Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican [Stone later said he was “just kidding”] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Fear People react to fear, not love. They don't teach that in Sunday school but it's true. Richard Nixon © 2021 Kwiple.com
Gerrymandering Gerrymandering has a long and unpopular history in the United States. It is the main reason that the country ranked 55th of 158 nations — last among Western democracies — in a 2017 index of voting fairness run by the Electoral Integrity Project, an academic collaboration between the University of Sydney, Australia, and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy  School of Government, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nature, Vol. 546, 8 June 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Home rule The 20th-century movement toward home rule, or letting localities handle most of their own affairs, was once supported by both Republicans and Democrats. What's now become clear is that Republicans dislike local control if they are not in charge of it. The home rule movement has steadily faded in the last few decades as state lawmakers on the right have become more aggressive in invalidating the priorities of elected officials in cities, which have moved leftward in their voting patterns in recent years. New York Times, June 3, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say You put very sexy things like abortion and marijuana on the ballot,  and a lot of young people come out and vote. It was a secret sauce for disaster in Ohio. I don't know what they were thinking. Thank goodness that most of the states in this country don't allow you to put everything on the ballot. because democracies are not the way to run a country. Rick santorum, after Republicans in Ohio and elsewhere who attemped to ban abortion and prevent decriminalizing marijuana were defeated in the 2023 off-year elections © 2023 Kwiple.com
Hypocrites say Voter ID laws are needed to stop voter fraud and voting by noncitizens © 2017 Kwiple.com
Hypocrites say Voter ID laws aren't aimed at Democratic voters © 2017 Kwiple.com
Hypocrites say Voter ID laws don't suppress voting by minorities and the poor © 2017 Kwiple.com
Interstate Crosscheck The most common names in America belong to African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. … Interstate Crosscheck, by matching only first and last names, is a brilliant way to eliminate voters of color. This “laughable” computer program is blocking the right to vote to more Black Americans, Asian- and Hispanic- Americans than the Ku Klux Klan could have dreamed of. Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy [Interstate Crosscheck is a software package funded by Charles and David Koch and used by 30 states to identify nearly 7.2 million people with similar names who it deems “suspected double voters” that the states remove from their voter rolls without arresting or convicting the “suspects”] © 2016 Kwiple.com
Interstate Crosscheck One study of the Crosscheck program found 200 false matches for every accurately identified instance of double voting. The Guardian, June 30, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Amend the Constitution to guarantee felons, prisoners, probationers and parolees the right to vote © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Amend the Constitution to guarantee people without a fixed address the right to vote © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Amend the Constitution to ratify proposed amendments by conducting a nationwide election to be held 120 days after their official publication date, and in which all citizens at least 16 years old on that date are eligible to vote, regardless of their eligibility to vote in any other election © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Cities should pass laws mandating voting in municipal elections, which should be held on the same day as federal elections © 2016 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say I'm a kwipler and I vote © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Make Election Day for national office holders a paid federal holiday © 2016 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Require local elections to be held on the same date as state and national elections  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Vote, dammit! © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Waving the voter fraud flag is intended to divert people's attention from real voting-related concerns: assenting to Constitutional provisions that make 1 person's vote in one state equal to 66 votes in another state disenfranchising minorities and others gerrymandering to render votes meaningless except in a few places hacking of electronic voting machines © 2016 Kwiple.com
Leftists There’s always a category of leftist who sees voting as a form of self-expression akin to writing a song, rather than the way to choose who gets power. These people often feel only a perfunctory animus against the right, which barely intrudes on their field of vision. They get much more het up about the centre-left, which they are always running up against in big cities, university campuses and, above all, on social media. In the US, the natural home for such people is the Green party, which functions as a vehicle for marginal narcissists to siphon votes from Democrats so that Republicans can win world-changing elections. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, August 31, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Political parties … political parties have no reason to care for those who don't care to vote; this in turn strengthens the impression of the poor (to extent that they can afford any attention at all) that there's nothing in it for them when it comes to politics. Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Racists say The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans. Mitch McConnell, January 19, 2022, wrong both factually, especially when rates of voting among blacks are compared to rates among whites, and for denying that voting laws recently passed by Republican state legislatures were neither intended to nor will they have the effect of suppresing voting by minorities  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Democracy can't be trusted: check it at the door to the voting booth  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Republicans say  Legislators should choose their voters, not voters their legislators © 2018 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Make voting harder © 2015 Kwiple.com
Republicans say People vote for Democrats because they think Democrats will give them free stuff © 2016 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Thank God for people who don't vote © 2016 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Trump up claims of voter fraud and voting by noncitizens © 2017 Kwiple.com
Republicans say We have an urge to purge voting rolls © 2015 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Weaponize the census to guarantee that it undercounts existing and potential Democratic voters © 2018 Kwiple.com
Republicans say Whatever it takes, suppress the black vote, now and forever © 2016 Kwiple.com
Rights Can citizens exercise their basic political rights in a way that gives them a voice and not just a vote? In practice, that often comes down to the question, How many voices are already audible? How many choruses are there that you might choose to join (in particular, ones that don't sing with an upper-class accent)? How many representations of different ideas, interests, and, for that matter, identities? Jan-Werner Müller, Democracy Rules © 2021 Kwiple.com
Rovearian cancer If their [black voters'] share of the turnout drops just one point in North Carolina, Mr. Obama's 2008 winning margin there is wiped out two and a half times over. Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2011, Republican Party fundraiser and strategist, on benefits to Republicans of suppressing votes by voters likely to vote Democratic, later resulting in Republican-led laws aimed at solving the presupposed problem of “widespread” voter fraud in state after state © 2015 Kwiple.com
Slavery Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot. While the legislatures of the south retain the right to pass laws making any discrimination between black and white, slavery still lives there. Frederick Douglass, Speech delivered at the American Arts Society in New York City (May 10, 1855) © 2021 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say The blight of racial discrimination in voting has been halted © 2016 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say One man, one vote – it's what America's all about © 2016 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say Voter fraud is very, very common. Donald Trump, explaining why “the election is rigged” © 2016 Kwiple.com
Snapshot This is how the Republiican Party has gotten votes for fifty years. Trump is just tearing off the mask. Now he just says right out the racism that was only barely hidden for so long. Donald Trump portrayed by Eric Foner (2016) © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union c I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. … Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues; issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation. Lyndon Johnson, March 15, 1965, calling for passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union The poor state of so many Americans is in part a product of plutocratic politics: a relentless and systematic devotion to the interests of the very rich. … a politics of low taxes, low social spending and high inequality is sustainable in a universal suffrage democracy only with a mixture of propaganda in favour of “trickle down” economics, splitting the less well off on cultural and racial lines, ruthless gerry- mandering and outright voter suppression. All this has indeed happened. These are the politics of “pluto-populism” or of “greed and grievance”. They have been stunningly successful in making Republicans attractive to many in the white working class. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 2018/07/17 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Technology In actuality, the most crucial choices about the future of ordinary voters and their children are probably made not by Brussels bureaucrats or Washington lobbyists but by engineers, entrepreneurs, and scientists who are hardly aware of the implications of their decisions, and who certainly don't represent anyone. But voters can't see them or address them, so they lash out where they can. Yuval Noah Harari © 2016 Kwiple.com
Technology To put the matter bluntly, if we had the polarized politics of today  but the information technology of the 1950s, we almost certainly would not have seen the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, at the United States Capitol. Millions of Republican voters would  probably not have believed the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump and demanded from state legislatures new restrictive voting rules and fake election “audits” to counter phantom voter fraud. Richard Hasen, New York Times, March 7, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpism In 2016, after several counties in North Carolina suffered severe flooding, the state tried to distribute federal disaster-relief food-benefit cards on the day of the presidential election, to give poor people a choice between eating and voting. Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk © 2019 Kwiple.com
Trumpism What we’re seeing, I liken it to a land, sea and air attack. The land attack is on voting rights. That is one of the ways that you begin to undermine democracy. The sea attack are these attacks against  teaching critical race theory and “divisive” topics, so you can erase people from American history and  erase the role of various people in American history. And the air attack is the loosening of gun laws  that we're seeing in Texas, Tennessee and Georgia.  This is a full-blown assault on American democracy that’s going after voting rights, that's going after education and that is reinforcing political violence as an acceptable method of bringing about your political aims. Carol Anderson, New York Times Magazine, March 20, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say And then they remind me that there's a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who maybe we don't want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that's a great idea. Cindy Hyde-Smith, 2018 Republican candidate  for Senator from Mississippi, home to many historically black colleges, speaking in Starkville, Mississippi, home to Mississippi State University © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say  I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote. Mark Robinson, 2024 Republican candidate for governor of NC © 2024 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.  So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country. David Lewis, Republican member of the North Carolina committee that gerrymandered the state's congressional districts to so obviously disadavantage minorities and Democrats that a federal judge declared it unconstitutional © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I think I disagree with every single word in H.R. 1, including the words “but,” “and,” and “the.” Everything about this bill is rotten to the core. This is a bill as if written in Hell by the Devil himself. Mike Lee, March 10, 2021, on the proposed For the People election reform bill, which would protect voting rights and the integrity of elections by outlawing major voter suppression tactics favored by Republcians like himself © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say My views are a little controverial when it comes to voter registration. Everyone is wanting to make it as easy as possible and kind of appeal to the lowest common denominatior of the easiest way to get as many people as possible. I see it the exact opposite. I want to make it hard. … I want it to be a privilege to vote. Rachel Hamm, Republican candidate for Secretary of State in California who says she's running because, in a closet in their home, Jesus handed her son, a seer, a scroll telling her to run [It's unclear whether Jesus acted before or after she had a Satanist sacrifice a raven on her lawn] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say There's going to be MAGA in the room counting votes because only MAGA can count fair. Steve Bannon © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say We got elected on Drain the Swamp, Lock Her Up, Build the Wall. … This was pure anger. Anger and fear is what gets people to the polls. Steve Bannon © 2020 Kwiple.com
Voter ID laws Of the eleven states with the highest black turnout in 2008, seven adopted stricter voter ID laws, and of the twelve states that experienced the highest rates of Hispanic population growth between 2000 and 2010, nine passed laws making it harder to vote. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Voter suppression I earned the right to vote. … Whether I use it or not is up to my personal discretion. They don't take away my right to buy a gun if I don't buy a gun. Larry Harmon, a purged Ohio voter quoted in Uncounted  by Gilda R. Daniels  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voter suppression I had to put the $42 where it would do the most good. We couldn't eat the birth certificate. An elderly African-American Texas woman living on a monthly income of $321 who was disenfranchised because she couldn't afford to pay for a copy of her birth certificate, which Texas requires to get a voter ID Quoted in The Great Suppression, by Zachary Roth © 2016 Kwiple.com
Voter suppression It's a vicious cycle — which is exactly the point. First gin up fear about fraud, then use that fear to aggressively prosecute voting infractions, then use those prosecutions to create stricter laws, then use the stricter laws to induce more examples of fraud, then use those examples to gin up even more fear.  The potential impact on turnout is bad enough. But the cumulative effect of restrictive laws corrodes the democratic process itself. Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voter suppression Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn't work out well for Republicans. Donald Trump, 8:20 AM · Apr 8, 2020, endorsing voter suppression © 2020 Kwiple.com
Voter suppression Some of the statements by those supporting the legislation included a Republican chairman [Roy Yelton] who testified before the [North Carolina] House Rules Committee that the photo ID requirement would “disenfranchise some of (Democrats') special voting blocks (sic),” and that “that within itself is the reason for the photo voter ID, period, end of discussion.”  U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals 2013 ruling invalidating North Carolina's voter ID law © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voter suppression They didn't need an address when they took our children and rounded them up into boarding schools, and they didn't need an address when they conscripted us to fight in the military and make a worthy and honorable sacrifice. But now they need our address when we want to exercise our right to vote. Iron Eyes, member of North Dakota's Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, on the Republican legislature's attempt to disenfranchise Native Americans, who typicially vote for Democrats, by requiring registering to vote using an ID having a street address, which don't exist on reservations in the state © 2018 Kwiple.com
Voting The chance you will be allowed to register to vote, to cast a vote, and to have that vote counted is directly proportional to the melanin in the skin of your ancestors. Greg Palast, Billionaires and Ballot Bandits © 2015 Kwiple.com
Voting Does some illegal voting happen? Sure, just as elephantiasis does occur in America. But should elephantiasis be the focus of the National Institutes of Health instead of cancer? Probably not. Stuart Stevens, It Was All a Lie © 2020 Kwiple.com
Voting Donald Trump's Advisory Commission on Election Integrity predictablhy consists of two Democrats and a gang of experienced Republican voter suppression advocates led by: Ken Blackwell, Kris Kobach, Mike Pence, Hans von Spakovsky © 2017 Kwiple.com
Voting If you voted in Portland and you're looking for your teeth, read this The Portland City Clerk is seeking the owner of a set of dentures left in a polling booth Tuesday headline, Portland [Maine] Press Herald, November 9, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Voting In reality, voter ID laws exist to prevent certain types of people from voting: women (whose names change regularly), the young (whose addresses change regularly), the elderly (who often don't have drivers' licenses), and the homeless (who don't have a fixed address). To be effective in swinging an election, a voter ID law … just has to reduce voting in these categories in ways that systematically affect the total vote. Salvatore Babones, Sixteen for '16 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Voting It is time for the United States to take a major leap forward and recognize voting as both a fundamental civil right and a civic duty required of every eligible U.S. citizen.  Miles Rapoport and E. J. Dionne, Jr., Dissent, Summer 2020 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting. Tom Stoppard, Jumpers © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting Lunatics vote in the primaries and Americans vote in the generals. That's why we don't have a Republican president. It's pretty simple. Fran Lebowitz © 2015 Kwiple.com
Voting So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind – it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact – I can only submit to the edict of others. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Give Us the Ballot, We Will Transform the South” © 2016 Kwiple.com
Voting So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome: good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down. Paul Weyrich, Republican religious conservative, New Right founder © 2015 Kwiple.com
Voting So please get your asses out tomorrow and vote. Donald Trump, to a June 26, 2018, South Carolina rally supporting the reelection of Gov. Henry McMaster © 2018 Kwiple.com
Voting This voting system is out of control. There are people, in my opinion, voting many, many times. Donald Trump © 2016 Kwiple.com
Voting Trump asking Kobach to help him restore integrity in voting is like Hitler asking Goebbels to help put out the Reichstag fire. Steven Thrasher, The Guardian, May 12, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Voting Vote theft is class war by other means. Greg Palast, Billionaires and Ballot Bandits © 2015 Kwiple.com
Voting We have noticed that whereas in depressions  or during great bursts of economic reform people vote for what they think are their economic interests, in times of prosperity they feel free to vote their prejudices. Richard Hofstadter, “The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt—1965” © 2020 Kwiple.com
Voting Well, look, we have a couple of problems in this country. Number one, mail-in voting. Mail-in voting will always be dishonest. OK? And it’s a shame that we have it. Donald Trump © 2024 Kwiple.com
Voting You want to limit who  can vote. You want to limit what they can vote for. You want to expand your power over voting in every way you can. Ellen Bravo, an activist for working women, explaining why voter suppression goes hand-in-hand with preemption, by which state governments limit issues local governments can address in their laws © 2016 Kwiple.com
Voting laws Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella because you are not getting wet. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissent in Shelby County v. Holder © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting rights Five unelected Supreme Court justices dis-  mantled an unmistakingly democratizing law,  the VRA [Voting Rights Act], which had been passed and renewed on muitiple occasions.  In 2019, when efforts to restore the VRA were blocked by a Republican Senate majority, that majority represented seven million fewer voters than the Senate Democratic minority that backed it. In January 2022,  when majorities in both houses of Congress  — and more than 60 percent of Americans — backed voting rights legislation, it was blocked by a minority in the Senate. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Voting rights c) the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend- ments to the Constitution are regarded by much of the South as inorganic accretions to the original document, grafted upon it by victors-at-war by force; that d) the South should, if it determines to disfranchise the marginal Negro, do so by enacting laws that apply equally to blacks and whites, thus living up to the spirit of the Constitution, and the letter of the Fifteenth Amendment to it. William F. Buckley, Jr., “A Clarification,” National Review, September 7, 1957  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting rights I don't think there is anything to be gained by any senator to vote against continuation of this act. Antonin Scalia, on reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which he called “perpetuation of racial entitlement” and believed happened without dissenters for the first time in 2006 because senators had become too afraid to be called racist, and not because racial disenfranchisement had become unacceptable © 2016 Kwiple.com
Voting rights If a single statute represents the best of America, it is the Voting Rights Act. It marries two great ideals: democracy and racial equality. If a single statute reminds of us of the worst of America, it is the Voting Rights Act. Because it was — and remains — so necessary. Elena Kagan, dissent in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting rights In forty-eight states, you can't vote if you're in prison, but in every state, you can run for Congress from prison. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, August 6, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting rights  The laws are there, and the rules are there,  and basically the government, the government will stand behind them and give them the the right to vote. We have that. The things they're talking about now are in court. Marc Elias has an awful lot of that that in court. The courts have struck down,  like in Ohio, they struck down gerrymandering. Things are happening. We act like we are going to obstruct people from voting; that is not going to happen. Joe Manchin, January 18,2022, when asked about fears of voter suppression [There is no Constitutional right to vote. Elias is a voting rights lawyer and may not win in court. Ohio's map was overturned because it had a law prohibiting gerrymandering.] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Voting rights The mere fact there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote. Samuel Alito, writing for the Supreme Court's Republicans — Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas — a.k.a. “The Sellout Six” in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting rights [T]he right to vote is inherent to our democracy. Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and say, well, that guy committed a terrible crime – not going to let him vote – or that person did that – not going to let that person vote – you're running down a slippery slope. So I believe that people commit crimes, they pay the price. When they get out of jail, they certainly should have the right to vote. But I do believe even if they are in jail, they are paying their price to society, but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy. Bernie Sanders © 2019 Kwiple.com
Voting rights To the extent that a citizen's right to vote is debased, he is that much less a citizen. Earl Warren, in Reynolds v. Sims © 2021 Kwiple.com
Voting rights We should all support the right to vote – everyone – but not by breaking the rules  to make new rules. Joe Manchin, January 18,2022, supporting voter suppression efforts led by Senate Republicans by sacrificing a voting rights bill sponsored by Democrats on the alter of keeping the filibuster rule as it is © 2022 Kwiple.com
Voting rights Whenever it can, the majority gives a cramped reading to broad language. And then it uses that reading to uphold two election laws from Arizona that discriminate against minority voters. I could say—and will in the following pages—that this is not how the Court is supposed to interpret and apply statutes. But that ordinary critique woefully under- sells the problem. What is tragic here is that the Court has (yet again) rewritten —in order to weaken—a statute that stands as a monument to American greatness, and protects against its basest impulses. Elena Kagan, dissent in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee © 2021 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats say They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. If they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting because they're not equipped to have it. Donald Trump, admitting he's authorized sabotaging the US Postal Service by denying it money needed to function and to support universal mail-in voting during a pandemic because polls show 74% of Democrats but only 22% of Republicans are likely to vote using mail-in ballots © 2020 Kwiple.com
Waste of time We will be asking my Republican friends in Congress and states and cities and counties to stand up, for God's sake. Help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our election and the sacred right to vote. Have you no shame? Joe Biden, July 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Whites With Obama, there was this narrative: “Woo, we have crossed the racial Rubicon! We have overcome! We put a Black man in the White House!” Without looking at the data that shows that a majority of white people did not vote for Barack Obama and that they have not voted for a Democratic candidate for president since 1964, the year Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. Carol Anderson, New York Times Magazine, March 20, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com