The midterms in the Hoosier State are set to be among the most raucous in the country. Out of 9 congressional districts, 3 are in grave danger of switching from Republican to Democratic. 3 W's by the Dems would switch Indiana's congressional delegation from majority Republican to majority Democrat. The coattails of these candidates downticket could be disastrous for the state GOP as well, and as you can expect, the governor has taken action to stop the blue tide. Not by governing, of course, but by the soft disenfranchisement of the 21st century equivalents of Jim Crow.
All you Hoosier readers, I'm sure, are well aware of the governor's successful move to pass legislation requiring an ID to vote. And as you probably know as well, this disproportionally affects poor minority voters that vote overwhelmingly Democratic (the governor, of course, as well as the majority of the lege, is Republican).
Interestingly, the governor's move to update the computers in the state local BMV branches (yes, I know, everyone else has a Dept., not a "Bureau") has caused their systems to crash. Even more interestingly, this seems to be primarily affecting... you guessed it... people trying to get their licenses renewed/reinstated.
More than a month later, 2 of the state's 8 BMV branches are still having trouble. Which 2? According to the BMV, the ones in Sellersburg (IN-9) and South Bend (IN-2).
Wouldn'cha know, those just happen to be 2 of the 3 districts most likely to flip!
To be clear, I'm not saying I think Governor Daniels intentionally KO'd the BMV's computers to screw Democratic voters. If that is what he had wanted to do, he probably would've waited until closer to Election Day, since license branches here can print up your driver's license on site while you're there.
I am saying, however, that Daniels enacted a voter ID law to screw Democratic voters. And I am saying that his government's incompetence has led to further Democratic screwing. And I am insinuating that, if there was some choice as to which branches could get fixed first, said decision was made with an eye to further screwing Democratic voters by fixing the safe GOP districts first and making the endangered districts wait longer.
2 comments:
I'm going to be that insufferable person that asks for clarification. As I understood it when I went to stand in line last week for a duplicate driver's license, it was the car license plate and registration that was affected. I see in the Trib article they reference driver's license reinstatements and license plate renewals, which are two quite different things. Insufferability now ending...
Hmm, don't know. I went back and looked again, and I can't tell. If someone can get through the line renewing their license, then it's not as much of a problem as I thought, admittedly.
On the other hand, there is still the possibility of license reinstatements being delayed, which would be an issue.
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