Republican SOS candidates running on Voter Suppression platform

Sec of State: Summary of GOP Badness

In best 1984, War Is Peace Freedom Is Slavery tradition, the two Republican candidates for Secretary of State endorse vote suppression and call it "ballot integrity." Here's how highly they thing of the honesty of Iowans:

"If you open the door even a crack, the cheaters come running through," said Dopf...


It's the airport security, guilty until proven innocent mindset.

# Allison would tighten voting laws by eliminating the use of "third party" couriers to deliver absentee ballots. He also favors requiring voters to show photo IDs...

# Dopf favors shortening the period for casting absentee ballots, as well as instructing people to give a reason why they are unable to go to the polls to vote.

# Allison and Dopf object to Gov. Tom Vilsack's executive order last summer that restored the voting rights of tens of thousands of felons who had completed their sentences.

Perhaps that has something to do with these stats from the Campaign to End Felon Disenfranchisement: an estimated 25% of African American citizens in Iowa have been disenfranchised. That's roughly 11,200 in a state that Bush carried in 2004 by about 10,000.

The fact that African Americans vote nearly 9 to 1 Democratic, as well as simple justice, ought to make repeal and liberalization of felon disenfranchisement laws a priority for progressives. Felony convictions account for two-thirds of the "under registration" of African American males, who are also about one-third of all citizens disenfranchised because of criminal records.