Republicans Claim the Moral Low-Ground; Top GOP Officials Admit Voter ID Laws Are a Front to Supress the Vote

A sign from a 2012 protest in Tampa, Florida

I suppose congratulations are in order for voting officials from the state of Arizona for finishing  counting the 2.2 million votes submitted state-wide. Sure they finished two weeks after the official date of the Tuesday November 6th election, but who's counting?

Well, according to an LA Times piece by Cindy Carcamo, the 600,000-plus Arizona citizens who's early votes and mail-in ballots were uncounted on the day they really counted. It certainly doesn't come as a surprise that a huge percentage of those people were Latino, African-American and Democrats.

But now it seems the truth of the rash of recent voter suppression laws has become too much of an ethical burden even for a handful of top Florida Republican officials to bear. A truly stunning article in the Palm Beach Post by Dara Kam and John Lantigua has literally blown the cover off the flimsy excuse that voter ID laws are meant to prevent voter fraud.

Both the former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer and ex-governor Charlie Crist have gone on record with conscience-clearing admissions that as far back as 2009 leading Republican strategists were pushing for stricter voter ID laws with the express intent of suppressing minority voters.

According to ThinkProgress.org:
"Another GOP consultant, who did not want to be named, also confirmed that influential consultants to the Republican Party of Florida were intent on beating back Democratic turnout in early voting after 2008.
[...]A GOP consultant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution said black voters were a concern. “I know that the cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves,” he said."

Keep in mind Republican attorneys general along with conservative activists are aggressively seeking to have the Supreme Court overturn the key provision of the landmark 1965 Voter Rights Act; and yes it is 2012.

Suppressing people's Constitutional right to freedom of expression...in the church??