Only in San Francisco!

“In 2001, San Francisco became the first city in the country to cover the cost of sex change surgeries for transgender city employees. In 2007, it became the first city in the country to provide health care for all uninsured residents through its Healthy San Francisco program.

Now, San Francisco is combining those firsts into yet another pioneering move by becoming the first city in the country to cover the cost of gender reassignment surgeries for its uninsured transgender residents.”

http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2012/11/17/san-francisco-to-cover-sex-change-surgeries-for-all-uninsured-transgender-residents/

You should not be concerned about the open and honest manner in which California Registrars count your ballots.

You have every right to observe this process from beginning to end. If you had been one of the three people who have come to observe our canvass, I think you’d know that fact.

The vast majority of voting-process “improvements” that come out of the Democratic Party seem aimed primarily at circumventing the above, and making it easier to stuff the ballot box.

Every study, including one conducted by Bush’s Justice Department, shows that voter impersonation at the voting place is virtually non-existent. Think it through, and you will realize that would be the stupidest, least effective, least efficient, riskiest way to organize voter fraud. California has a long list of different kinds of documents — from drivers licenses to utility bills that can be used to prove identification in certain situations where some proof might be needed.

The recently enacted voter ID laws require very specific forms of ID that are the most burdensome to obtain and excludes the forms of ID that a targeted voter group might actually already have (e.g., student ID or Social Security card). But, in Texas, got a gun permit? That’s okay to use as voter ID. Those laws are totally rigged to reduce voter participation by blacks, Latinos, students, and elderly city dwellers. A Republican legislative leader in Pennsylvania admitted as much and bragged about it. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong. People died in the 1960′s trying to fix this type of voter exclusion nonsense. Look up Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner.

As for early voting, I agree that uniformity among states may not be the right approach. However, there should be uniformity within states. In Ohio, they initially tried to keep early voting in Republican-leaning counties and reduce it in Democratic-leaning counties. Sound fair to you?

Then there’s Florida. The Governor reduced early voting days from 15 to 8, even though they had a 10-page ballot. On election day, people stood in line until 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning to vote. The presidential election had been called before those people ever got to vote. Guess which precincts had the longest lines?

Yes, but the current regime wants to make it easier for some than others.

The less motivated you might call them.

“free and fair elections”

Voter verification will help secure the integrity of our elections. You can call it suppression, but asking someone to prove that they are who they say they are is a far cry from true voter suppression.

The Federal Government does have the right to intervene in elections, but it has no business in the “get out the vote” campaign and requiring a state to hold early voting. If a citizen does not have the sense or want to actively participate in an election it is not the responsibility of the government to make them engage in the process. Its really not that hard to vote, and its not that hard to get an ID. Citizenship requires a little work.

What John W. said.

A huge Amen to Steve’s last two paragraphs. Hopefully, he and other election officials who have not been party to the shenanigans regarding voter ID, voter registration and early voting can help inform and mobilize the public on this.

The phrase “American exceptionalism” is often used in a jingoistic way. Nothing makes us truly exceptional more than our system of free and fair elections. Take away or devalue that for political gain, and we’re just a second-rate country.

The federal government has inserted itself into the electoral franchise through Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Nineteenth, Twenty Fourth, and Twenty Sixth Amendments.

The federal government has inserted itself into the administration of elections through the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (plus amendments), Motor Voter Act of 1993, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

The obvious legislative efforts to interfere with our citizen’s Constitutional rights to freely express themselves through the voting process merits federal attention. The disparate treatment of citizens between the states is an offensive display of partisan manipulation.

As to who should address this issue is another matter. That fact is, we are all witnesses to a national effort to suppress voter registration and voter participation in our various states. Addressing this fact should not be a partisan issue. Sadly, it appears to be just that.