Still Fighting For The Right To Vote

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

The recent proliferation of laws in states run by Republican legislatures requiring state photo ID’s are tantamount to the “poll tax” and literacy laws of the Jim Crow era that suppressed the African American vote. These new laws go even further by making it difficult to register to vote for the poor, the elderly, the home bound, students, absentee voters and more. The GOP has declared a war on voting:

Newly empowered Republican legislatures have been imposing onerous voter ID laws in at least 32 states, even though in-person voter fraud is virtually nonexistent. Texas went as far as exempting concealed carry permit holders and people born before 1931 from its voter ID law, a transparent admission that such laws can needlessly disenfranchise voters and that the intent of the law was to disenfranchise likely Democratic constituencies. New Hampshire Republicans are trying to ban many college students from voting because they “vote as liberal.” These days, the most important battles over access to the ballot box don’t happen on election day, and they don’t involve dramatic examples of flagrant voter intimidation. They happen in state legislatures, around the basic rules for how to show up and vote on election day.

This is something to consider when Republicans treat the New Black Panther voter intimidation case as an outrage. Not a single voter has said they were intimidated in that case, but Republican legislatures all over the country are actively pursuing policies that could disenfranchise thousands of people because they are more likely to vote for the other side. This also helps explain conservative hostility to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in general — the last thing Republicans want is the federal government intervening to protect the franchise when the GOP is busy trying to restrict it to their own constituencies.

A recent study released from the Brennan Center for Justice estimates that approximately 5 million eligible voters will be disenfranchised by these laws.

New York – New voting laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012, according to the first comprehensive study of the laws’ impact.

Widespread voting cutbacks could have a significant electoral impact in next year’s hard-fought races, the study concludes. Minorities, poor and young voters will likely be most affected.

“This is the most significant cutback in voting rights in decades. More voters may be affected than the margin of victory in two out of the past three presidential elections,” said Michael Waldman, the Center’s executive diector. “In 2012 we should make it easier for every eligible citizen to vote. Instead, we have made it far harder for too many. Partisans should not try to tilt the electoral playing field in this way.”

Voting Law Changes in 2012 analyzes the 19 laws and two executive actions that passed in fourteen states this year, as well as more than 100 bills that were introduced but did not pass (some may still pass). The study shows, among other things:

   The states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012-63 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency.

   Of the 12 battleground states identified by an August Los Angeles Times analysis of Gallup polling, five have already cut back on voting rights (and may pass additional restrictive legislation), and two more are currently considering cutbacks.

Keith and Rep. Keith Ellison discuss the latest GOP-driven voter ID laws introduced in 34 states that are sure to disenfranchise millions of Americans. To reduce the impact of what he is calling “a poll tax – a price to pay before you can vote,” Ellison has introduced a bill that would require all states to offer same-day voter registration for federal elections and another bill that would prevent state officials from requiring photo identification before a citizen is allowed to vote.

Noting that the trajectory of voting has been an “expansion of rights” and that the GOP “is trying to roll this back,” Ellison says he hopes and prays that the Occupy movement will “think about how this voter suppression movement is trying to curtail their rights.” In response to Keith’s suggestion that the voting day be changed from Tuesday to Saturday/Sunday, Ellison calls it “a great idea” and says that he’ll “get working on it.”