Next week marks the 90th anniversary of the American woman's right to vote. Since the passage of the 19th amendment, women have generally been more likely to turn out to vote than men. However there is one area of federal election law that some states undermine, which disproportionately disadvantages women, particularly low income citizens and minorities.
Resolving a three-year old lawsuit filed against the state of Ohio that charged widespread violations of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), parties in the case have submitted a settlement agreement to the court that should ensure voter registration opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Ohio public assistance clients. Evidence presented in the case had shown that many of Ohio's county public assistance offices were ignoring their responsibilities to provide voter registration to their low-income clients, as required by the NVRA.
More than fifteen years after the passage of the National Voter Registration Act, few states are complying with the law's requirement that voter registration services are provided to those who apply for public assistance. Though highly successful in the first two years the NVRA was implemented, in 1995-1996, registrations through public assistance agencies have steadily declined, and had fallen by 79 percent nationwide in 2007-2008. Project Vote and other voting rights organizations have been working to bring several states into compliance with this key provision of the NVRA, and-as a last resort-have been forced to bring lawsuits in several states to ensure that low-income public assistance clients have access to voter registration services as required by law.
In a major victory for voting rights, low-income voters in the state of Missouri will finally have better access to voter registration opportunities, thanks to a lawsuit settlement announced today by Project Vote, Demos, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
(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.
Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
Monday marked the last day to register to vote before November's presidential election in many states and the conclusion to one of the nation's largest nonpartisan voter registration drives in history. Helping more than 1.3 million of the America's underrepresented young, low-income and minority citizens register to vote, Project Vote and its voter registration drive partner, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), have played a leading role this election cycle in changing the face of the electorate to represent all Americans.
Election experts have already worried that the surge of newly registered voters may cause unintentional chaos through long lines and ballot shortages on Election Day. Now there is increased concern that intentional chaos may be caused by partisan forces using something that millions of Americans access every day - the Internet. Although deceiving and disenfranchising voters through political dirty tricks is a staple partisan strategy to influence election results, the Internet may be making it easier and more effective than ever to spread misinformation, according to CNN reporter, Stephanie Busari.
Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog
Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
With little more than two months left before Election Day, prospective voters are rushing to get registered. And like the way that slugs thrive in moist weather, voter suppression attacks spring up around large-scale voter registration drives. Partisan attempts to shape the electorate, in effect choosing the voters rather than voters choosing their own representatives, seek to impose barriers to voter participation by eligible citizens rather than creating a system that works to facilitate the foundational right of American democracy. Voter ID laws are a particularly favorite weapon in the arsenal of partisans seeking to choose their own voters to the exclusion of other eligible citizens. More than 25 states introduced voter ID bills this year and at least nine have such laws in place for this November's election despite scant evidence of voter impersonation, the ill it is supposed to stop.
(Activism Works! Not only did the good guys win, they got good press, thus shifting the odds for future fights. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
The battle to protect the voting rights of low income and minority citizens was marked by several victories last week. In addition to the "three key battles" on voting rights outlined by Steven Rosenfeld last Friday - Missouri's controversial voter ID defeat, Arizona's agreement to comply with federal voter registration law, and voter ID crusader, Hans von Spakovsky's withdrawal from his Federal Election Commission nomination- on Monday Kansas governor, Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a voter ID bill citing "I cannot support creating any roadblock to prevent our citizens from adding their voices to the democratic discourse that makes our nation great," she said.
(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.
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