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By Wendy R. Weiser By Wendy R. Weiser July 18 at 2:55 PM

Wendy R. Weiser directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Even before the microphones are turned on, the White Houses new voter fraud commission has already done significant damage to American democracy.

By now, most are familiar with the slapstick launch of this so-called bipartisan group, which is set to have its first meeting Wednesday. It was announced in a hurry two days after the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey before half its members were selected. Its led by two Republicans and stacked with some of the nations most notorious promoters of vote suppression. Prime among them is its vice chair, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), whose ill-conceived and ill-executed request for state voter data remains a debacle.

Given the commissions fiasco-filled first weeks, its easy to dismiss it as a joke. That would be a mistake. The panel is already having a big impact, and it is in no way benign.

Much of the damage so far flows from Kobachs data request, which has overwhelmed election offices and forced them to spend an inordinate amount of time, money and energy dealing with the commission instead of doing their jobs. State officials have had to compile detailed responses to the letter, engage lawyers to make sure they dont run afoul of state laws and mobilize to reassure citizens that their personal data will be safe. One state official told the Brennan Center for Justice that his office has spent 50 percent of its time in recent weeks responding to calls from concerned constituents.

The request faces no fewer than 10 legal challenges over multiple alleged infractions. Already one commissioner has resigned. And last week, in publishing the first set of public comments, the White House publicly released the addresses and phone numbers of individuals who expressed concern over the privacy of their data.

The farce is also wasting federal resources. Taxpayers will spend at least half a million dollars on the commission, even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in February that no federal funds should go toward any examination of voter fraud.

Even more disturbing, the commission has already accomplished one of the main goals critics accuse it of harboring: making people less likely to vote.

Election administrators across the country are reporting that, in response to Kobachs request, voters are asking to be removed from the rolls. The director of elections in Denver said her office has seen more than a 2,000 percent increase in voter registration withdrawals. And the Seminole County, Fla., supervisor of elections a Republican said that in his 12 years in office, he has never had to talk so many people out of giving up their right to vote, telling them: Please dont let an action or policy you disagree with have the effect of silencing your most powerful tool to change or affirm it: your vote.

Kobach offered a callous, evidence-free response: Those who withdrew their registration could be people who are not qualified to vote or someone who is not a U.S. citizen saying, Im withdrawing my voter registration because Im not able to vote.

The commissions threat to publicize private voter information previously protected by the states has naturally caused anxiety and has deeply shaken confidence in election administration. As has its unprecedented effort to assemble a national voter registry at the White House.

The commission plans to match the voter lists it receives from states against other federal databases, such as those used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, supposedly to identify ineligible voters on the rolls. This threatens to further undermine confidence. Experts believe that any list matches using data the commission is seeking would significantly inflate the amount of improper voting, and findings could allow the commission to falsely claim it has identified widespread fraud.

The effort has thinly veiled ends: to justify President Trumps absurd claim that he lost the popular vote because of millions of illegal voters and to lay the groundwork for laws that dramatically restrict access to voting, including through strict voter-ID requirements and obstacles to voter registration such as requiring documentary proof of citizenship.

The agenda is pre-baked. According to emails made public last week, Kobach told Trumps transition team in November that he is putting together ... legislation drafts for submission to Congress and that he had started drafting amendments to the National Voter Registration Act to make clear that proof of citizenship requirements are permitted.

Every minute local officials spend dealing with this sham is time they cannot focus on pressing problems, such as the need to shore up our systems against foreign actors attempting to interfere in our elections, especially Russia.

And yet, Kobach and crew havent even gotten started. We should not underestimate the further damage they can do to the publics confidence in our election system. Its up to us to ensure this farce doesnt turn into a tragedy.

Originally posted here:
The White House's voter fraud commission has already damaged our democracy - Washington Post

Planet Jackson Hole

DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS: Suppressing Dissent Planet Jackson Hole JACKSON HOLE, WY In police body-camera footage obtained by Democracy in Crisis, the scene in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 20, 2017, shows the war zone our nation really is right now. The balance of power in the battleboth on the streets then and in the ... and more »

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DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS: Suppressing Dissent - Planet Jackson Hole

Armed with candles and Polish and EU flags,thousands of Poles gathered in front of the country's supreme court in Warsaw. They were there to support the country's judiciary in the face of the government's push to reform it. The protesters projected a statement onto the court building: "This is our court."

The demonstration, while moving, cannot paper over the fact that it amounted to a paltry, estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people in a city of nearly two million. Polls give the ruling, conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) a consistent 35 to 40 percent approval rating, while the most important opposition party garners just 22 to 25 percent.

It is no wonder, then, that the PiS and its leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, feel confident in their ability to push through reforms of the supreme court and regular court system, following an already controversial reform of the Constitutional Tribunal.

Read more -Polish court reforms: What Jaroslaw Kaczynski actually proposes

Crude pretext

Their case against the courts has been building: Theylack democratic legitimacy, PiS lawmakers say judges are building a state within a state, lacking a "moral core;" and commit crimes that are covered up by their judicial colleagues. That is why, they say, the chief justice now needs to be appointed by the justice minister and the newly reformed National Council of the Judiciary.

Bartosz Dudek is head of DW's Polish department

It is not uncommon in democratic countries that judges are selected by lawmakers. But it is the fine print that counts, such as when it comes to who confirms the candidates. Generally the opposition also has a say, a check on power that the PiS reforms do not envision.

Pure partisan interests

The ruling party's unwillingness to compromise suggests that when the PiS talks about "democratic legitimacy" it actually means whipping partisans into line.

Much the same as with state media, which has been turned into an instrument of propaganda for the PiS under the banner of "news diversity," there is good reason to fear that when Jaroslaw Kaczynski speaks of "returning the courts to the people," he really means tightening his grip on power by way of his conservative revolution.

In Poland, it is the supreme court that certifies parliamentary elections. Should supreme court justices, as planned, be relieved of their posts and replaced by PiS loyalists, it would be unclear what would happen were the PiS to lose an election. The potential conflict of interest would be a catastrophe for democracy. As such, we can only hope that the thousands of protesters did not carry their candles to the supreme court in vain.

Original post:
Opinion: A catastrophe for Poland's democracy - Deutsche Welle

citizens or even law-abiding citizens. Photograph: Shelby Lum / Times-Dispatch/AP

In the middle of the hot summer, citizens will gather this week in Florida to champion a ballot initiative to end the states permanent felony disenfranchisement.

As we face the daily jaw-dropping revelations about the Trump campaign and administrations actions, keeping our focus on restoring legitimacy to our elections and our democracy has never been more important, and ending the historic wrong of felony disenfranchisement absolutely must be part of our agenda.

It seems unlikely that the Trump-Pence electoral integrity commission will touch this important issue, and any commission that ignores it isnt serious about the legitimacy of our elections.

The right to vote is the most fundamental right of any democracy, granting it legitimacy as a means of government by instilling power in the people and not in politicians. It ensures consent of the governed and holds government accountable to the people: not law-abiding people, or moral people, or any other qualifier, but the people.

This most fundamental right is not and never has been about rewarding good citizens or even law-abiding citizens. It is not a luxury or a reward, handed out by the government as it sees fit. It is a right, and should not be conditioned on anything more than citizenship, and being of voting age.

And yet since the civil war, states have intentionally denied the right to vote to a certain category of citizens those with a felony conviction. Today, felony disenfranchisement bars roughly 6.1 million citizens from the ballot box one in 13 African Americans nationally.

This denial of a right so inherent to democracy and to citizenship is not based on respect for the law, but is rather a historic and deliberate effort to prevent black people from voting.

Proponents of felony disenfranchisement argue that as a felon or former felon, an individual has shown a disregard for the law, and therefore must demonstrate respect for the law before being able to vote on issues related to law. Yet felony disenfranchisement did not originate, nor is it being maintained, out of any high reverence for the law: quite the opposite.

It was invented after slavery, when white elites sought to diminish the power of newly freed slaves. White politicians tied disenfranchisement only to those crimes believed to be disproportionately committed by black people. The sole objective was to prevent black citizens from threatening the power of the white elite an act fundamentally at odds with the very purpose of voting rights.

The discriminatory intent and impact of felony disenfranchisement is alive and well today. Those affected by disenfranchisement are disproportionately minorities and low-income citizens, voting groups that trend Democratic.

Moreover, the discriminatory politics and impact of todays mass incarceration cannot be separated from those of felony disenfranchisement. By doubling down on mass incarceration under President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and perpetuating felony disenfranchisement, the Republican party effectively blocks a determinative number of voters from voting, including in key battleground states.

Take Florida, for instance, where felony disenfranchisement bars nearly one in four black Floridians from voting. In tight races, that disenfranchisement can make or break an election. In 2000, an estimated 600,000 ex-felons were prevented from voting President George W Bush won Florida by just 537 votes.

Disenfranchisement is fundamentally undemocratic. And yet only two states in the country fully protect the right to vote and enable people who are incarcerated to vote (Maine and Vermont).

The rest of the 48 states disenfranchise voters, with some states restoring voting rights at certain stages after completion of ones sentence, parole or probation. Disenfranchisement is most illegitimate in Florida, Iowa and Kentucky, where a felony conviction costs a citizen his or her right to vote for life.

The only way to regain the right to vote in Florida, for instance, is to seek clemency from a court or the governor. This process is incredibly time intensive and has a low rate of success. Moreover, in clemency hearings, applicants are granted mere minutes to plead their cases, and can be asked any array of questions unrelated to their original conviction, including about acts of good citizenship and any traffic violations.

Citizens seeking clemency have already served whatever sentence, probation, and parole has been deemed appropriate by a court of law, and are back in society trying to successfully reintegrate. And yet a mere speeding ticket can be used to justify the permanent denial of their right to vote, forever making them a second-class citizen. Imagine if the right to free speech or religion were so conditioned.

There are 23 states that have expanded voting rights for former felons, and ending felony disenfranchisement is actually a bipartisan issue. Just recently, Alabama dramatically reduced the number of felonies that result in disenfranchisement. Florida could be next.

The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition is rallying volunteers of all backgrounds at a gathering this week to build momentum toward next years state ballot initiative, which would automatically restore voting rights upon the completion of ones sentence, parole, and probation.

Supporters of felony disenfranchisement argue that the current system is about preserving respect for the law. But they know better. Felony disenfranchisement has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with politics. It is an excuse to deny voting rights, just like voter ID laws and the literacy tests and poll taxes of old.

When a person is incarcerated, they do not lose their citizenship. We do not disown them and cast them from our borders. As citizens, they have a right to vote, and that right must be protected.

The alternative is to weaken our foundation as a democracy, at the expense of all of us. As citizens, we should seize the momentum building across the country and reject the Trump-Pence voter suppression commission, and instead champion the restoration of voting rights and our democratic legitimacy.

Read more:
America steals votes from felons. Until it stops, our democracy will be weakened - The Guardian

Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro on Monday pledged to defy the government with escalating protest tactics, a day after showing their strength in an unofficial referendum that they said drew more than 7 million votes condemning his rule.

Leaders of the Democratic Unity coalition say they will bring the country to a halt with a 24-hour general strike Thursday, urging workers to stay home and businesses to shut their doors to protest Maduro's controversial plan to overhaul Venezuela's constitution.

They also invited Venezuelans who remain loyal to Hugo Chvez but dislike Maduro, his hand-picked successor, to join them in a unified front to stop the government from moving forward with a July 30 vote to elect delegates for a "constituent assembly" empowered to rewrite the 1999 constitution. Critics see the maneuver as a naked power grab that would amount to a death sentence for democratic rule.

"This is the zero hour," opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara said Monday, characterizing upcoming protest measures as a last-ditch effort to save the country from full-blown dictatorship.

The U.S. government intensified the pressure on the Maduro government on Monday, with President Donald Trump vowing in a statement to "take strong and swift economic actions" if the July 30 vote took place. He called Maduro "a bad leader who dreams of becoming a dictator" and praised Sunday's referendum.

Maduro opponents likened the Sunday vote to an act of mass protest. Of the nearly 7.6 million Venezuelans said to have participated in the balloting - organized by opposition leaders, not election authorities - more than 98 percent voted to reject the government's plan to draw up a new constitution, opposition leaders said. The vote also urged Venezuela's armed forces to uphold the existing constitution and support early elections.

Michael Weissenstein and Fabiola Sanchez

Buoyed by those results, Guevara said, opposition lawmakers this week will also name new supreme court justices in a repudiation of the current court, which Maduro has stacked with loyalists. The move seems likely to deepen the standoff between Maduro and the opposition-controlled parliament, with the two sides on a path to developing competing legal systems.

On Monday, Socialist Party officials who back Maduro dismissed the 7.6 million vote tally as wildly inflated, claiming that opposition supporters voted multiple times and that the organizers of the referendum did not bother to actually count the ballots. They did not offer any proof to substantiate their claims.

But Flix Seijas Rodrguez, director of the independent Delphos polling agency, said he was "amazed by the results" of the referendum, given that it was organized in only three weeks and faced significant challenges. The Maduro government blasted the exercise as illegitimate and hurled threats at organizers while attempting to enforce a news blackout.

While waiting to vote at BienMeSabe Venezuelan Cafe and Restaurant, Carlos Eduardo Guzman explains why Venezuelan Americans are lining up to vote in the Venezuelan referendum on July 16, 2017, in Chicago. (Alexandra Wimley / Chicago Tribune)

While waiting to vote at BienMeSabe Venezuelan Cafe and Restaurant, Carlos Eduardo Guzman explains why Venezuelan Americans are lining up to vote in the Venezuelan referendum on July 16, 2017, in Chicago. (Alexandra Wimley / Chicago Tribune)

Anti-Maduro voters also faced the threat of violence. In one Caracas neighborhood, gunmen opened fire outside a polling station, killing one and injuring four.

On July 30, the Maduro government will ask Venezuelans to elect representatives for the constituent assembly. Government opponents see Maduro's effort to rewrite the constitution as potentially a fatal blow to what remains of Venezuelan democracy, particularly if the assembly allows the unpopular Maduro to remain in office beyond 2019, when his term is set to expire.

At least 92 people have been killed in more than three months of unrest and near-daily clashes between security forces and protesters. Opposition leaders said Monday that Venezuela's democracy had reached a tipping point, requiring an intensification of street demonstrations and defections from within the government.

"We interpret [the results] as a message from the people telling us to keep doing what we have been doing, plus much more," said Juan Andrs Meja, an opposition legislator who organized the referendum. "We will respond to that call accordingly."

Some opposition supporters said they were disappointed that the referendum fell short of the 11 million votes they were hoping for. The final reported tally of 7.6 million votes was also lower than the 7.7 million who voted for the opposition in 2015 parliamentary elections.

But analysts pointed out that the referendum was only symbolic, lacking the logistical support and infrastructure of an official election. Only about 15,000 polling stations were set up for the referendum, compared with more than twice as many during ordinary elections.

"This wasn't a presidential election," said John Magdaleno, a political consultant and the director of the Polity polling firm. "It's just an unofficial consultation."

Activists and analysts compared the turnout with the numbers of votes Chvez obtained when he held similar referendums.

Chvez never got more than 6.5 million people to vote in his favor in the referendums, analysts noted, and when Venezuela's economy was humming and he was reelected president in 2012, he obtained just over 8 million votes.

He died of cancer in 2013, and Maduro, his Socialist Party successor, has fared poorly in his shadow.

Despite the latest demonstration of opposition to his plans, few believe that Maduro is willing to change course. Dismissing the referendum results as inconsequential, he called on his opponents to "sit down to start a new round of dialogue" with his government.

Maduro's opponents are boycotting the July 30 vote, and in recent surveys, 85 percent of Venezuelans say they reject changes to the constitution.

"People will be disappointed if they expect the government to react directly to the results [of the referendum] or change anything," said Luis Vicente Len, a political analyst and the director of the Datanalisis polling agency, adding that the large turnout was important nonetheless.

"More than 7 million people participated actively in an act of civil disobedience and ignored the government's allegations that it was an illegal one," he said.

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After protest vote, Maduro foes warn of 'zero hour' for Venezuela's democracy - Chicago Tribune