Vadum Backs Away from Argument Poor Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Vote

Vadum:

Left-wingers often have problems with reading comprehension.

A case in point is Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog.

In my recent American Thinker op-ed, “Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American,” I argued that it is destructive to register welfare recipients to vote so that they can vote themselves more government benefits. It is even worse that our tax dollars are used to register welfare recipients at welfare offices. It is a policy that would cause the Founding Fathers to roll over in their graves.

Yet Hasen misrepresents my views. He writes

Wow.  Deny the right to vote the poor because they might vote in their self-interest.  I don’t know something more “un-American” these days than claiming that wealth should be a valid criterion for deciding who should get the right to vote.

I never made that argument but Hasen is either too stupid to understand this or he is deliberately sliming me. Of course those who are legally qualified to vote should be allowed to vote but our tax dollars shouldn’t be used to underwrite the destruction of the republic.

So let’s see if I understand this right (since I’m apparently “not the sharpest knife in the drawer”).  In his original post Vadum says: “Registering [the poor] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals.”  His post is called “Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American.”  He says: “It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.” He says we are “well on our way” to the “end of the Republic” because poor people vote.

Now he says that “[o]f course those who are legally qualified to vote should be allowed to vote.”  He says I’m wrong to surmise from his INITIAL argument that he wants to deny the poor the vote.

He only doesn’t want “tax dollars” to be used for the process.  Not sure what that means.  Our entire elections process– on the state and local level–uses tax dollars (we don’t have privatized elections in this country).

I think a fair reading of his initial post is that he wants to deny the vote to the poor.  After all, why would it be “un-American” to register poor voters if “of course” they should be allowed to vote because they have a legal right to do so?   Maybe he means we should do all in our power, short of a legal bar on voting, to discourage the poor from voting as good Americans (apparently because only the poor vote in their own self interest.)

But I guess it is because I’m a “very stupid election law professor” and “useless idiot for ACORN”  (despite my frequent criticisms of ACORN) that I drew the conclusion that he wants to deny poor people the vote.

Readers, you have the quotes and posts.  Draw your own conclusions.

And have a wonderful Labor Day weekend.  I’m heading out to the beach to finish working on The Voting Wars with this incident fresh on my mind.

ADDENDUM:  The reader posts to Vadum’s original post are a cesspool of anti-franchise rhetoric.  My favorite so far:

Great article, thanks for posting it, AT!  I’ve said all along we need LESS people voting.  The conservatives should push for poll taxes (if you’re not willing or able to pay, then you probably are not willing or able to be informed enough to vote), increase the voting age to 21, no voting for anyone who has received government assistance in the past year, and no sufferage for anyone who cannot read.  One person one vote is a recipe for political suicide and the Communist’s dream.

No sufferage for the illiterate, indeed.

 

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