VoterID

Polishing a turd:

Broad public support for this concept led Republicans in the General Assembly to embark on a months-long process this year to develop voter photo identification legislation. The process included public hearings, hours of expert testimony, dozens of amendments and multiple iterations of the bill.

I got your "expert testimony" right here, pal.

Pulling the wool over the public's eyes:

One reason for sustained support: fully 40 percent of all voters (48% of Republicans) agree that “cases of people voting in the name of someone else are commonplace,” despite the lack of hard evidence.

Not only has this misunderstanding been artificially enhanced by the propagandists on the right, it actually defies logic and common sense. Aside from the occasional unbalanced person, why would anybody risk being arrested (or at least hassled) just to throw one vote in the mix of thousands? It makes absolutely no sense on a cost-benefit scale, which means (wait for it) it would only happen on extremely rare occasions. Like, even more rare than getting struck by lightning. The people polled should understand that, just as they should also understand there must be another reason for Republicans to pursue it.

And by disseminating disinformation, it made liars out of a bunch of misguided volunteers, as well:

RALEIGH, NC–4:55 PM, Friday, April 12, 2013. Late this afternoon, we learned that some of our findings, revealed at the April 10 public Legislative hearing, may be inaccurate; so we plan to issue a full report after completing an audit. While we regret this human error and apologize for any embarrassment it may have caused to the presenters and to election officials, we caution the public against losing sight of the undeniable fact that North Carolina’s voter rolls are so corrupted that, without an effective voter ID law, it will be impossible to know who is really voting.

That's what's known as a logical leap: to admit your information is corrupted by inaccuracy, and then immediately follow that admission with a statement of "undeniable fact". This is not the first time DeLancey has been confounded by the truth:

Apparently the newest copy she has is from the 19th Century:

Section 10 of the North Carolina Constitution states "All elections shall be free." But Jeanette Doran, executive director of the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law, said that doesn't mean free of cost. "That means free of intimidation or coercion. It's not free in terms of dollars-and-cents concept," Doran said.

Good Lord. If these are the folks who are supposed to be looking out for our Constitutional rights, we're up shit's creek with only a waterlogged piece of driftwood to hold onto. And her predecessor is also dumbfounded:

Creating a fictional moderate majority:

House Republicans rolled out their voter ID bill, which was less restrictive than the one vetoed by Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue two years ago. Democrats and others will still hate it, but it will take some of the air out of the opposition. Because of some of the provisions, it is far less likely that grandma, students or poor people won’t be able to vote compared to the earlier version. The GOP had the votes to adopt any voter ID bill they wanted. But House Republicans decided against the hard-line approach.

What Rob has missed (or chosen not to include in his narrative) is that there is no substantial difference between the phrases "won't be able to vote" and "won't vote", as far as how they impact elections, anyway. There's a reason Republicans have different (harsher) versions of the same bill, and Christensen just proved the reasoning for that was sound. It's a basic sales technique (bracketing,) which creates a false "moderate" that can be chosen. And if you want to create a false moderate group of people, you set aside a smaller group via "labeling":

You should be able to copy this image for use as an avatar or profile pic on Facebook or Twitter. Then again, I had a dream that I could fly a few nights ago, and it took like fifteen minutes after waking before I accepted the fact that I couldn't. Bummer.

The NC GOP garners more embarassing national attention:

Whom did you people elect? The people with the brightest bulbs for a nose? The people with the biggest, floppiest shoes? Does every member of the Republican majority in your legislature all arrive at work every morning in the same tiny car?

The writer references three pieces of legislation in this story; the cursive writing bill, the nutty religious freedom resolution, and the effort to punish parents for allowing their college-student children to vote. Only one of those has a chance to seriously impact our rights and, in doing so, it could contribute to even more outrages down the road. Which one is it? Here's a clue:

Draconian measures for imaginary threats:

"We call this restoring confidence in government," Tillis said. "There are a lot of people who are just concerned with the potential risk of fraud." He added a voter ID law "would make nearly three-quarters of the population more comfortable and more confident when they go to the polls."

I dispute those numbers but, even if they are true, where do you think that public perception came from? Several years of propaganda-laced electioneering by fear-mongering Republicans, who don't have the capacity to fix real problems so they
manufacture strawmen to bring down. And like most propagandists of totalitarian regimes, Tillis tries to convince those he's hurting that he's actually helping them:

I bet you won't find a transcript of this meeting:

According to Dye's release, the meeting with Tillis would also be attended by William Gheen of ALIPAC, Ron Woodard of NC Listen, James Johnson & Maurine Johnson of NC Fire, Donna Yowell of Feet to the Fire, and David DeGerolamo of NC Freedom/NC Renegade.

Blocking or curtailing debate in both Committees and on the floor, yet the GOP has time to sit down with borderline psychotic anti-immigrant nutcases. This is the kind of government corporate money buys.