It’s bad enough that Fox News apparently thinks it’s a neat idea to impose mandatory civics tests before allowing someone to vote but teaming up with serial voter-fraud suspect Ann Coulter for such a proposal is beyond cynical.
As a lower-third banner “just asked,” “Should citizens pass a civics test to vote?” Fox & Friends played a clip from one of Jesse Watters’ unscientific, selectively edited man-on-the-street type interviews “to find out,” host Brian Kilmeade said, how much Americans know about “President Obama’s accomplishments or the Republican presidential candidates.”
The examples of ignorance were people who didn’t know who just-declared Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio is.
“This, along with studies showing Americans are poorly informed on government and politics,” Kilmeade added. “So is it time to revisit a test for people to be able to vote?”
And who better to ask than two-time voter fraud suspect Ann Coulter? Coulter has twice admitted to deliberately voting where she does not live. She has skated from a conviction in each case. (Brad Friedman has an excellent rundown of the complete story) And while Coulter is, presumably, still registered to vote in Florida, her Twitter page says she lives in California and New York.
Coulter's behavior is just the kind of voter fraud Fox becomes oh-so-concerned about every election year (and forgets about once the election is over). Except when it's Ann Coulter.
It’s too early to tell if literacy tests will replace or just be an adjunct to Fox’s 2016 campaign. Regardless, each is clearly designed to restrict voting rights – coincidentally of the kinds of people Fox hates: minorities, the poor, immigrants.
Coulter complained it bothers her “more than I can say” that her vote counts as much as someone who “does not know what’s going on,” as Kilmeade put it. She added, “I just think it should be, well, for one thing, a little more difficult to vote. There’s nothing unconstitutional about literacy tests.” She griped that ballots are being given in “124 different languages and I’m pretty sure Senate debates will not be taking place in Urdu. So what are they voting on?”
Coulter didn’t say anything about requirements to vote where you live.
“My main point is I would let Democrats do all of the vote theft they can get away with but I would limit voting day to one 24 hour period,” our Lady of Sudden Voting Ethics continued.
Kilmeade seemed bowled over by Coulter’s wit and viewpoint.
The other guest, Nomiki Konst, argued we should invest in civic education, “which Republicans are defunding state by state” rather than restrict voting.
But to Kilmeade, that was just one more reason for literacy tests! He thought “a great way” to improve education would be to enforce a civics test “before we allow them to vote.”
Coulter sneered that more education would only mean more “Chinese-style propaganda.”
Watch it below, from today’s Fox & Friends, via Media Matters.
UPDATE: Jesse Watters' Fox Nation has added its voice to the "suggestions."
Either he is an idiot and hasn’t bothered to inform himself about the history of our Country as regards to the reason “racists” enacted “poll-tax’s” to prevent poor uneducated minorities from voting; ooooorrrrrrr he is a RACIST!
Which is it Kilmeade: Are you RACIST, or just REALLY F#*KING STUPID????
I think it’s a two-fer!!!
And I AGREE!
If the spelling on teabaggers’ protest signs is any indication, the majority of them will never pass a literacy test, anyway . . .
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See “Fifty Shades of Coulter” at http://wp.me/p4jHFp-5E.
What Coulter doesn’t seem to understand is that “literacy” has zero to do with listening to a debate. Functionally illiterate individuals can hear and understand quite well, and contrary to what Coulter seems to believe, “literacy” has zero to do with reading or understanding English. And since the US has NO official language, a literacy test done in English has no legal merit.
For the record, the reason why the Feds and more progressive states provide assistance in different languages is primarily for comfort. Someone whose primary language isn’t English may be more easily confused by legalese (hell, English speakers have trouble with legalese and it’s IN English) and most election ballots featuring amendments and other proposals are written in legalese (while Spanish or French or Mandarin versions are actually more concise and accurate when translated into English).
