Attacks on the Right to Vote

"One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time.  There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today." - Bill Clinton, 2011 Campus Progress National Convention, Washington, D.C., July 6, 2011

From Maine to Florida to Wisconsin to Texas, Republicans are coordinating an effort to suppress the vote of citizens who typically vote Democratic.  By doing so, they hope to deny Obama a second term and win control of both houses of Congress.  If they can make the 2012 electorate more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate, they will succeed.  Based on the chimera of voter fraud, which is almost non-existent in this country (or, as Think Progress quipped , "only slightly more common than unicorns") , Republicans have been mounting a coordinated assault on the right to vote by enacting measures that will suppress the votes of students, Afrrican-Americans, immigrants, the elderly and the poor.  The Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law examined the 19 laws and 2 executive orders in the 14 states that have enacted these voter suppression measures.  The Center estimated that 5 million voters could be prevented from voting in 2012 because of these laws alone.

It's clear that the Republicans assume that the fewer people who exercise this basic right to vote, the better their chances in 2012.  And they are right.  US voter turnout in the 2008 Presidential elections was 70%; in the 2010 Congressional elections, 42%. Guess who wins if just 42% of the voters show up in 2012.

The primary tactics of this voter suppression effort are:

• Requiring government issued ID cards to vote - it's estimated that 18% of young voters and 25% of African-Americans do not have such ID's.  Six Republican-controlled states have passed laws making this a requirement - Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
• Enacting laws that make it more difficult to register new voters.  Florida's anti-voter law provides for fines for procedural errors in registering new voters.  This had the desired effect - the non-partisan League of Women Voters suspended its voter registration efforts in Florida.  And let's not forget the shutdown of ACORN, the advocacy group for the poor that was so effective in getting lower income people and minorities registered. 
• Decreasing the time period for early voting.  In Florida (rapidly becoming the poster-boy of this voter suppression effort), voting on the Sunday before election day was eliminated.  Maine passed a law that for the first time in 38 years prevents a person from registering the same day that he or she votes.
• Prohibiting or making it difficult for college students who live in-state for most of the year to vote there. (Example: New Hampshire)
• Denying the right to vote to felons who have served their time and probation.  (Example: Florda and Iowa)

Rolling Stone and Mother Jones have been at the forefront of exposing the tactics. Rolling Stone posted a comprehensive investigative report August 30. There is even some indication that the mainstream media and the public are finally picking up on it.  The ACLU and other groups are mounting legal challenges to the new laws, Maine voters go to the polls in November to try to overturn their anti-voter law, and Congressional Democrats are asking the Justice Department to use its authority to block or modify laws that discriminate against minority voters.  Whether these actions will succeed in stopping the anti-voter laws from impacting the election is anybody's guess.  The more roadblocks you put in people's way, the less likely they are to vote.  In addition to the legal challenges, progressive groups in the affected states need to begin now to help potential voters get the proper documentation. 

As a side note, it is strange that we hear nothing from the Tea Party's self-described defenders of liberty about this denial of the most basic right in a democracy.  If ever there were a loss of freedom worth complaining about, this is it.  But then again the Tea Party funders are also helping advocate for the massive Republican voter suppression effort. 

I served on a Federal jury several years ago.  After the trial was over, the judge thanked the jurors for participating and reaching a verdict.  He closed with this:  "The citizen exercises his rights in a democracy most directly in the jury box and at the ballot box."  Let's not allow the well-funded right-wing political machine to deny citizens their most basic right to vote.