Outrage at the polls in Tennessee

Lately, the Tea Party freaks have been trying to spread their bullshit opinion that only people who own real property should be allowed to vote. Some of them have even said that only folks who pay income taxes should be able to vote - thus excluding people who don't make enough money to have to pay this tax. That would violate the Constitution's ban on poll taxes, but who expects the teagaggers to actually give a shit what the Constitution says?

Turns out though that Tennessee seems to have come very close to quietly reinstating the property requirement - and hardly anybody has noticed. The only difference is that instead of denying somebody the right to vote if they don't own property, Tennessee now lets folks cast extra votes if they do own property.

Under this law, cities and towns are required to allow nonresidents to vote in citywide elections if they own property within city limits. School districts may do the same.

Er. What ever happened to the days of "one person, one vote"? Now large landowners in Tennessee can cast one vote in each city where they own property. In fact, they don't even have to live in Tennessee - or even the United States!

I don't know of anywhere else in America that's had a law like this in modern times. Now we know one of the reasons why elections in the Volunteer State have such fucked-up results these days.

This is reminiscent of some right-wing whack-a-doodle some years back who wrote a book expressing his fantasy of letting folks cast one vote for each dollar they had. That's exactly what this is like - and the courts need to throw this law out at once. In a democratic republic, the limit's one vote per customer, folks.

Think I'm making this up? Here's a website that describes Tennessee's goofy-ass law that gives voting rights to property:

http://www.hawkinscountytn.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=73

Stop denying the poor the voting strength that rich landowners have.