(We certainly shouldn't only pay attention to voting rights issues in election years. This one was a blow out, but conservatives know there will be future close calls where disenfranchising a few hundred thousand more voters will turn the tide. What Obama can do is get some good people nominated to the bench quickly so more of these court cases have a chance of being decided in favour of letting people vote. - promoted by Daniel De Groot)
Cross-Posted at Project Vote's Voting Matter's Blog Weekly Voting Rights News Update
by Erin Ferns
As we predicted last December, legislation designed to prevent so-called voter fraud has dominated election law debates in several states this year. Last week alone, Georgia's controversial voter ID law was upheld by a federal appeals panel, the Texas Senate "sparked deep partisan tensions" by eliminating the majority rule in order to aid the passage of a voter ID law, and nine more states introduced numerous voter ID bills.
Yesterday no less an authority than Seeing The Forest's Dave Johnson explored the tangled web binding private equity firm Lazard, its "real estate investment fund" Lazard-Freres Strategic Realty Investors Fund II, and the fund's largest asset--the Atria assisted living facilities business. In discussing my own post about this terrible story, Dave made a point that I myself hadn't considered:
Martin, I think you have it wrong here. Who is Lazard's customer, in this situation?... Lazard's customer is people and companies with a ton of money. They hand the money to Lazard and expect a good return. The seniors under Atria's care are Lazard's product, not their customer! In today's America the vulnerable, elderly, sick and captive are a product to be exploited.
(I've written about the need to unstack the deck, but don't forget that Republicans are working even harder to stack it even further. See the list below of vote suppression legislation - every single bill sponsored by a Republican. - promoted by Daniel De Groot)
Requiring proof-of-citizenship in order to register to vote is the latest addition to voter suppression arsenal. Spurred by Arizona's 2004 implementation of proof of citizenship requirements and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold Indiana's strict voter ID law, proof of citizenship bills - often coupled with voter ID - are gaining traction across the country. With more than 13 million Americans lacking ready access to citizenship documentation and scant evidence of voter registration fraud by non-citizens (or any voter for that matter) leading to illegal votes, proof of citizenship requirements could have a significant impact on the electorate. Wasting no time after the high court's decision, the neighboring states of Kansas and Missouri have swiftly moved forward with efforts to pass such legislation that could take effect in the November election.
Project Vote normally uses this update to give news roundups on voting rights-related stories from the past week. However, with the reverberations from the Supreme Court's Crawford vs. Marion County voter identification decision just starting to filter down into statehouses across the country, we felt it was necessary to spend this update concentrating solely on voter ID, giving progressives a concise summary of the problems associated with it and offer some framing devices to help fight against it.
In the midst of a presidential election year that is seeing record-breaking voter turnout in state after state, the Supreme Court on April 28 ruled in favor of Indiana's draconian voter ID requirement. The controversial law - which requires all voters to provide government issued, photographic proof of identity in order to vote at the polls - threatens to create a legislative domino effect of new voter ID laws ready for implementation before November.
While the question of whether or not voter ID laws disenfranchise minority, elderly and poor voters is being reviewed by the Supreme Court, John Tanner, chief of the Justice Department's Voting Section, says they do not. In fact, in a jaw-dropping twist of analysis, he told the National Latino Congreso that voter ID laws have "the opposite impact"
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