Maine Republican Chairman Charlie Webster : We can't let people vote so Democrats can't 'steal elections'
There's one thing that the modern-day GOP and teabaggers have in common with our founding fathers: the idea that voting should be restricted to the "right" people, the people who "deserve" to have a say in how government functions. If they had their way, only white, landed, middle-aged and older men would vote. They're doing their damnedest to figure out how to make that happen.Conservatism by definition is to sign up to be a paranoid loon - In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud
For nearly four decades, Maine has been one of eight states which provides same-day voter registration to voters at the polls. This policy of enfranchising the greatest number of Maine voters is likely to end, however, now that the GOP-controlled state legislature has passed a bill ending same-day registration and Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage is expected to sign it. Worse, state GOP Chairman Charlie Webster explained it was necessary to disenfranchise the thousands of Maine voters who take advantage of same-day registration every election year in order to save Maine from one of his paranoid fantasies:
“If you want to get really honest, this is about how the Democrats have managed to steal elections from Maine people,” Webster told a columnist for the Portland Press Herald in a piece published Friday. “Many of us believe that the Democrats intentionally steal elections.”
Sadly, Maine’s voter disenfranchisement bill is only the latest example of the Republican war on voting that began almost immediately after the GOP took over several statehouses this year. Numerous GOP state legislatures have rammed through “voter ID” laws which disenfranchise thousands of elderly, disabled, and low-income voters. Republicans typically justify these voter disenfranchisement laws by claiming that they are necessary to combat voter fraud at the polls, but in-person voter fraud is only slightly more common than unicorns.
Democrats "steal" elections when more people vote. Fewer people voting, fewer elected Democrats. Never mind that whole democracy thing.
Republicans simply hate the fact that voter drives increase voter participation and when voter participation is up, most people vote Democrat. It is Republicans who have been illegally trying to suppress votes for years - i.e. vote caging.
Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.
