After the voters spoke last November by turning out in record numbers, we enter a new year with a new president and multiple new agendas for election administration in the states that bring both excitement and concern from voting rights advocates. Whether the discussion is about upholding the landmark Voting Rights Act, the disenfranchisement that comes with voter ID, or even the distribution of provisional ballots, the conclusion remains the same: we should work to protect and facilitate every eligible citizens' right to vote, not impede it.
Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters
Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
"I think the days of ballot box stuffing are more or less gone." - Allen Raymond, former GOP operative
Voter fraud by individuals has been a major partisan debate in recent elections, inspiring multiple states to consider or pass laws that purport to stop it, including "no-match, no-vote" list maintenance procedures and strict voter ID requirements. Despite federal findings that the act of casting an illegal ballot is exceedingly rare, partisans often cite large scale voter registration drives as voter fraud culprits, and perpetuate the myth of voter fraud by spreading the fear that such votes cancel out legitimate ones. With rising registration rates - particularly among historically underrepresented Americans - it is no surprise that partisans are spreading this myth, and the media often perpetuates the hysteria by printing stories on the small numbers of bad registration cards submitted by large scale voter registration drives (including the 1.2 million submitted by Project Vote voter registration partner, ACORN).
We recently wrote about the Department of Veterans Affairs decision to open its facilities to voter registration drives after months of urging by voting rights groups and elected officials. This week, however, "VA voter suppression continues," as AlterNet's Steven Rosenfeld wrote Tuesday, with voter registration efforts being blocked in California and the VA general counsel criticizing the pending Veterans Voting Support Act (S. 3308), which would bolster federal protection of voter registration opportunities for all wounded veterans. With just three weeks left to register voters in most states, advocates say now is the time to support voter registration efforts in VA facilities and, most importantly, it needs to be explicitly protected from now on through federal law.
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