Those anonymous billboards in Ohio and Wisconsin that equate voting with a possible prison sentence are coming down, to be replaced in some cases by new ones that say, “Voting is a right. Not a crime!”
After initially defending the billboards paid for by a “private family foundation,” the advertising company Clear Channel has announced that it will take down the scary billboards. Their message — “Voter fraud is a felony! Up to 3 1/2 years & $10,000 fine” — has been presented now in dozens of neighborhoods of poor and minority neighborhoods across Ohio and Milwaukee. In Ohio, Clear Channel will then put up 10 billboards with the pro-voting message pictured above. In Wisconsin, Clear Channel will sponsor digital billboards that encourage early voting.
On a like note, after pressure from the Jackson Free Press and local lefties, Mississippi’s Republican Secretary of State has added a message — at right, in very small type — on the state’s website that says the voter ID law will not be in effect in November. The law has been put on hold by the U.S. Justice Department.
And in Pennsylvania, advocates for voting rights have sued over a state ad campaign that could make you think you need ID to vote in that state, when that hasn’t been true for weeks now. One look at the ads going around, and it’s easy to see what they mean.
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