Pasayten's Methow Valley Bulletin Board

What just happened and where we are
https://plus.briantylercohen.com/p/hous ... irect=true

I think that problem with local officials putting their thumbs on the scale of voter suppression is an ongoing problem. Especially since the Voting Rights Act has been gutted.

Good video Rideback regarding SAVE act. It probably will not get passed, we hope. Most people don't know about the giving of the attestation to the voring official. Hmm, may research that and it could be worth a letter to the editor.
But here is a question I too had, posted by some of the commenters.

Thanks for the explanation. I personally haven't been freaking out too much, if only because it seems as if it would have to make its way through the courts before November to affect this election, even if it did pass. But, "to their satisfaction"? But what if they're determined not to be satisfied because they have decided that you are the "wrong" type of person to be voting? Maybe it has been that way before, but doesn't that kind of depend on the good faith of the state or local official, which is fine for me in NYS, but what if I'm someone with a Spanish last name or an accent in FL or TX?

About the Trump posted Obama video. Fact checking
https://www.patreon.com/posts/flash-fac ... dium=email

Speaking of fraud...

I was watching the crazy-arse video Trump reposted last night, the one that had two seconds of the Obamas faces superimposed on the bodies of dancing apes from the Lion King.

There was an interesting glimpse of something messed up in that video:
That IP address is wrong. An IP address where the first octet is "10" indicates a network address that isn't routable and connected to the greater internet. Yes, you can use address translation to connect with outbound services, but nobody from the outside world (in New Zealand, Venezuela, or Italy) would have a way to directly connect to that voting machine with that network address.

So I'm wondering if this stuff is all fake. It certainly is not likely to be the actual logs from that voting machine.

Pal, watch the video
https://annepmitchell.substack.com/p/ab ... dium=email

A reasonable and thoughtful person might well oppose the SAVE act just because it is an enormously costly effort that recklessly interferes with constitutional rights and is being aimed at a tiny problem. As such it is an injudicious use of scarce government resources.

The fact of the matter that non-citizen voting in federal election is vanishingly rare:

https://www.mormonwomenforethicalgovern ... f8QAvD_BwE

After extensive investigations, results indicate that about 0.0001% of votes in the 2016 federal election were cast by noncitizens. After years of inquiries, officials say that though it may occur, noncitizen voting is quite rare.


States regularly conduct audits of their databases to remove voters who have died, committed a felony, moved, or are noncitizens. However, many people are automatically registered to vote when they apply for a driver’s license, and in some cases the system mistakenly registers noncitizens. Most of the noncitizens found on voter rolls have never cast a ballot.

And there are multiple checks in place to make sure that illegal voting by noncitizens remains rare:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ ... ng-illegal

So what exactly is the problem that is being solved here? At the estimated rates about one out of one million votes is being cast unlawfully by non-citizens. Hard to see how that impacts any election outcomes.

I'll go even further. The error rate in our election system implies that something between 1 out of 10000 and 1 out of 100000 votes are miscounted. So that error rate all by itself is a problem that is between ten and one hundred times larger than voting by non-citizens. So an intellectually honest person acting in good faith who was really concerned about election integrity would be interested in how we fix that problem first.

Ken, know it all, how do you know they won't prevent women from voting. Read the details of the SAVE act.
Women cannot take it for granted that they will be able to vote. Birth certificates that do not match their other ID's. Not everyone can afford a Passport and shouldn't have to. And now it's liberal white women that are being blamed for the "ill's" of our society.
Right, like I'm going to cheat on my mail in ballot. At least here in Wa. mail in should be good.
As usual you lash out, call people names.

You guys are such morons! No, PAL nobody is going to prevent married women from voting legally! EVERYTHING requires ID to do these days, voting is no exception......unless that's your only chance to cheat?! Hmmmm

Yes, their intentions are clear.

From a practical standpoint, it seems like a heavy lift to get this passed in the House with a 2-vote majority. And an even heavier lift to get past a filibuster in the Senate. The level of idiocy in both the House and Senate bills (which contradict each other) doesn't help them get the numbers.

There is also a big constitutional question here, with narrow exceptions only states get to decide who is eligible to vote. It is hard to see how disenfranchising tens of millions of people who clearly have the right to vote under the constitution would pass any kind of constitutional test.

This is also a good use case for "soft seccession".

Listen up women. Maybe not here with mail in voting but all over the country, if passed means women voting is in jeopardy.

Carlyn Beccia
You have to admire Republicans’ creative labeling. The latest is a doozy. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) is here to “save” democracy. And by “save,” they mean saving it for husbands and not their wives, exactly as Project 2025 intended.
The SAVE Act is a proposed law that changes the required proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections. Here’s the problem: The Act demands documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) before you can register to vote. And what counts as proof? A passport (which many Americans don’t have), a military ID with service records (because obviously, everyone has that lying around), or a birth certificate (but only if it matches your current legal name).
And that’s where married women get thrown under the election bus.
If you changed your last name when you married, your birth certificate still has your maiden name. This means — according to this law — you won’t exist as a voter unless you can prove that the woman born as Jane Maidenname and the woman trying to register as Jane Marriedname are the same person. A marriage certificate? Not good enough because it’s not on the list of acceptable documents.
And don’t even think about using your driver’s license or REAL ID. Unless it explicitly lists U.S. citizenship (most don’t), that won’t work either. Basically, if you don’t have the correct paperwork, tough luck, girl. Go back to nineteenth-century America and do not pass Go.
If this Act becomes law, the National Organization for Women estimates that 34% of female voters could be turned away at the polls for incorrect paperwork. And most of them won’t know it until it’s too late.
Of course, Republicans are pitching it as a way to prevent noncitizens from voting. Back in 2021, Trump claimed that 36,000 ballots “were illegally cast by noncitizens” in Arizona. Musk stoked these fears again during the 2024 election by accusing Democrats of “The goal all along has been to import as many illegal voters as possible.” Pleeeeeease.
Noncitizens voting in a federal election is a federal offense under 18 USC 611: Voting by aliens. That is not to say it never happens. A 2016 analysis by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting.
30 cases of immigrants voting out of 23.5 million votes cast in the 42 jurisdictions reviewed. Terrifying! Call the Gestapo.
Better yet, let’s think about this logically. If you were an illegal immigrant in America, would you risk getting deported, or worse, shipped off to Gitmo for a freakin’ “I voted” sticker? Hey, MAGA, congratulations. You have people who contribute to our economy living in fear. You won. Now, get out of your mom’s basement and get a job in a meatpacking plant because we are about to experience a labor shortage that will make your pork chops cost as much as the black-market kidney. Oh, and eggs have doubled in price.
It’s clear what Republicans are doing. They know that most women don’t lean toward MAGA idiocy, so they are trying to remove us from the voting pool.
Let them try.

When I first wrote about the SAVE Act, it was still “just a proposal.” Now, it has passed the House of Representatives and is sitting in the Senate. Which means this is no longer a scary feminist bedtime story. This is an active voter-suppression bill in motion.
Yes, it still needs 60 votes in the Senate. Yes, it can still be stopped. But it has already cleared a major legislative hurdle, which is exactly why you are suddenly seeing headlines, threads, and influencers treating it as breaking news instead of a slow-moving disaster some of us have been screaming about for over a year.
And if it does get passed? Well, then, you have permission to freak your freak out. Like the kind of freak out that brings hysteria back as an untreatable female condition. But first, a way to circumvent this voter suppression.
1. Make sure your passport is up to date. Don’t feel bad if you never got a passport. 51% of Americans don’t have a passport. Just get it done.
2. Trans people must fill out passport forms correctly. And by “correctly,” I mean the f*cked up Nazi way, which denies your existence. You must check the gender you were assigned at birth. I know. I know. Never obey. But you can’t vote Republicans out of office if you can’t vote.
3. If you are about to get married, do not change your name. Your birth certificate will still work as a valid form of ID if your legal name matches your birth name.
4. If you are about to get divorced, change your name back to your maiden name (or the name that appears on your birth certificate). Changing your name at marriage and divorce is easy. Outside of these two events, it is a legal quagmire of court dates and paperwork. Trust me. I know. I took my ex-husband’s name after I got married. I had to pay fees, fill out a mountain load of paperwork, and appear in court…twice.
The Brennan Center for Justice has called the SAVE Act “the worst voting laws in congressional history.” This act would not only gut mail-in voting but also make voting for women harder than getting an airline refund.
This bill isn’t about election security. It’s about shrinking the electorate.