MSNBC’S Harris-Perry Says Voter ID Laws Discriminate Against “Transgender Americans”…

MSNBC doesn't just oppose voter-ID reforms on behalf of blacks. In an interview with the DC gay newspaper The Washington Blade, weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry insisted "voter suppression efforts continue to impact transgender Americans." It came with a lot of leftist lingo.

“They don’t look like what their photo IDs are,” she said. “So if they are self-presenting in front of an election official and they have an ID that says male or female and they’re sort of gender self-presenting in a non-conforming way, of course you end up with the possibility of shame or embarrassment or not being believed to be who you are.” They also don’t have birth certificates with names and gender markers that “are not informative of what their current life is.” Biological truth is an ideological lie:

“All of those things impact the ability of people to have the kind of state-issued ID that is allowable in a lot of these states around voting,” she said. “And so the idea that a person would be a perfectly eligible American citizen who has an opinion about voting and is kept out of it because of those sorts of issues — it goes to the heart of helping us understand that these efforts are really voter suppression efforts, not efforts to keep the election process above board.”

Wouldn't it be easier for election monitors if the "trans voter" presented themselves at the polls in a way that resembled their photo ID? Common sense never gets in the way of the libertine Left.

Harris-Perry complained that some minority actvists are very cool in advocating for "trans people" on this issue. She said she has a better understanding of the issue because she said “her gender non-conforming niece frequently confronts questions when she presents herself as male, but her student ID lists her gender as female.” 

“Because I am tuned into that, I have a sense of it but I don’t think that it has been part of our civil rights framework to say wait a minute yes, race is important here, but here’s how race is at the intersection of all of these other identities as well,” said Harris-Perry.

“We’re only just kind of getting to the back end of the third wave of the feminist struggle. So part of it is ignorance, but that’s only part of it. The other part of it is for many folks they are actively homophobic and disinterested in whether or not these sort of suppression efforts impact LGBT communities and as a matter of political strategy they think talking about it is a bad idea for building the coalitions they hope to build for social action.”

Via: Newsbusters

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Should there be early voting?

Early voting has begun in the 2012 election and some people, like our friend Matt Lewis, seem to think that’s a bad thing. Being opposed to extended voting opportunities is an idea which immediately sets off alarms for me, but it’s worth a moment to examine it as election day approaches.

Matt’s responding to an NBC News story which proclaims that nearly half the nation is already voting. Of course, that figure seems to include absentee ballots, which are not technically “early voting” since they won’t be recorded until election day. Also, there are plenty of people (especially our troops serving overseas) who have no other access to the ballot, so I would hope people aren’t protesting that.

But Matt is more focused on the places where the polls open days – if not weeks – in advance and in person voting is taking place. Follow the link for the full explanation of each, but here are the five points he’s making.

1. It doesn’t work
2. Voters are casting ballots before they have all the information
3. The cost — both to the taxpayer and the campaigns
4. Ballot integrity
5. Community

Item number one isn’t even worth a lengthy debate, in my opinion. The study in question relies on torturing the data with so many vague and glossy “variables” to arrive at a number – rather than just counting the number of votes cast – that it becomes a very murky soup. And the basic premise – that having more days with the ballots open somehow hinders voters – is counterintuitive on its face. They do make a point about it being “harder for the campaigns” to organize their get out the vote strategy, but that’s the problem of the campaigns, not the voters.

A part of me wants to sympathize with Matt on item number two, but this still comes down to a matter of personal responsibility. Something can always happen later. When do you get in on buying a new stock? On the first day or after it’s had time to ripen? Plus, these elections last so long now that you’ve doubtless got all the information you’re looking for prior to the final fifteen seconds before midnight on Monday. You pick when to vote and you live with your choice.

As to number four, ballot integrity, I have to scoff. Matt argues that most early voting is done by mail, “opening the door” to mischief of various sorts. Oregon and Washington vote exclusively by mail and somehow the specter of angry spouses throwing out votes has failed to materialize.

Via: Hot Air

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