(Conservative hostility to democracy is becoming increasingly overt. Project Vote shines a light on the most recent developments that ought to alarm all Americans. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Minnesota has some of the most progressive voter registration laws in the country, laws like same day registration and vouching, that are designed to maximize turnout and get as many voices as possible heard on Election Day. Some newly elected members of the Minnesota state legislature, however, have recently announced that they intend to repeal those laws as soon as they take office. These laws, they claim, leave the state vulnerable to voter fraud, so vulnerable they apparently must be repealed immediately, despite their obvious benefits.
Like Don Quixote charging at windmills, believing them to be monsters, these state legislators are gearing up to fight imaginary threats. Voter fraud, contrary to the media perception, is incredibly rare. According to a study by the nonpartisan group Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota, only twenty-six people were convicted of voter fraud in Minnesota in 2008, all of them convicted felons who are restricted from voting. In other words, less than nine-ten thousandths of one percent of Minnesota voters (.0009 percent), were convicted of voter fraud in 2008. At the national level, a report by Dr. Lorraine Minnite, director of research at Project Vote and former assistant professor of American and urban politics at Barnard College, found that only 24 people were convicted of voter fraud between 2002 and 2005.
So, these state legislatures are trying to repeal laws that make it easier for all Minnesotans to vote, on the off-chance that repealing those laws might discourage some twenty-odd convicted felons from showing up on Election Day. Certainly, what little voter fraud there is should be prevented, but not at the cost of repealing laws that provide tremendous benefits to legitimate voters. In 2004, the six states with same day registration had turnout rates almost 12 percent above the national average, but the newly elected Minnesota legislators are more worried about the two dozen felons who might be voting illegally, than the thousands of legitimate voters who may be prevented from voting at all if these laws are repealed.
If the state legislatures want to fix elections in this country, if they want to protect the sanctity of the democratic process, they should not be focused on the .00009 percent of ineligible citizens who vote illegally--oftentimes unknowingly--due to criminal convictions. Instead, they should focus on reforming current law to allow non-incarcerated felons to automatically regain their right to vote and the 50-plus percent of eligible voters who did not even cast a ballot on Election Day, finding ways to increase turnout, not lower it.
Anthony Balady is a legal intern at Project Vote and second-year student at William & Mary Law School. Mr. Balady also serves as vice president of William & Mary's Election Law Society and editor-in-chief of its election law blog, State of Elections.
Well, if this isn't stupidity on stilts what is? Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips has gone so far as to suggest that it could be a good idea if the right to vote in America were once again restricted to the owners of property. To wit: "The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote," Phillips said. "It wasn't you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today," he continued. "But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you're a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you're not a property owner, you know, I'm sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners."
Okay I see the logic here. If you don't own property then you have little or no interest in safe streets, efficient and honest government, the quality of education, national defense, workplace and product safety, clean air and water, ad infinitum. Mr. Phillips points out that the founding fathers put in place "restrictions" that "you obviously would not think about today." Well that is certainly true but is this man so naïve as to think that the founding fathers in their infinite wisdom and their knowledge of world history expected that the country would never change and that the Constitution would not be subject to interpretation and amendment at some future date? Surely they knew enough about history to have understood the rise of world civilization, its ebb in Europe during the Dark Ages and its rebirth, renaissance and expansion thereafter. Does Mr. Phillips think for a moment that the nation's founders perhaps felt that they had arrived at the end of history in 1787 and that the world would remain static thereafter? Thus this astute Tea Party political operative thinks it could be a good idea to disrupt the unbroken link of democratic development in English-speaking societies that extends all the way back to field of Runnymeade and the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and which has continued to expand freedom to ever larger groups of people. Or is this a veiled plea to alter voting rights so as to preclude the political enfranchisement of millions of illegal immigrants now living here that may or may not become citizens in the next decade?
With the abovementioned commentary in mind, what then would be the political rights and obligations of the roughly one third of American households that rent rather than own their homes and apartments. Would they become second-class citizens? In a national emergency would they be exempt from military service or subject to a lesser commitment due to not having the same level of investment in American society? Would it be ethical to ask the guy who rents his home to fight and die for America even though he could not vote for its Commander in Chief? Would they be entitled to lower levels of Medicare coverage and reduced payouts from Social Security? What about the big property owning families in New York, Chicago and other major American metropolitan areas, would they be entitled to more votes as they own far more property than the single family home owner in the hinterland? What about all of those who live in mobile homes where they own the trailer but not the land beneath it, would they even have a vote?
I could go on with the hypothetical questions but I am sure you can plainly see just how absurd Mr. Phillips is in promoting this idea and how out of place in time is his theory on political suffrage. So not to be too glib, but is this supposed to be one of intended policy products of the great Tea Party effort to "take our country back"? Do members of the Tea Party Movement actually think they will expand their appeal within the body politic with leaders who advocate the political disenfranchisement of one third or more of America's households? I know there are many within the Tea Party Movement who believe that the 2010 election was "only the beginning" and that the best is yet to come. I for one think 2010 may more likely represent the high water mark of the Tea Party Movement and that comments like those of Judson Phillips will only work to undermine the appeal of the "Movement". Ideas such as these can only contribute to the idea that the Tea Party Movement is little more than a passing fad at best or that it is a collection of bizarre and disaffected political personalities at worst.
(More on the many layers of voter suppression & the war on democracy. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Expanding ballot access to all voting-age citizens, particularly the millions who are living and working in our communities with past felony convictions, has been the foundation of many advocates' pleas to make American life equitable. Whether wrapped in an argument to fend against racism, classism, or even "overcriminalization," felon advocates' main issue boils down to preserving the civil rights of every citizen who participates in society, no matter their personal history.
Congress has been paying attention to the federal government's apparent tendency toward "overcriminalization" or "penchant for writing new laws to criminalize conduct that could be addressed with fines or other remedies," that ultimately overfill prisons and unfairly restrict otherwise productive citizens of important rights, such as voting, according to a McClatchy Newspapers report earlier this month.
For example, Abner Schoenwetter, a seafood importer, spent six years in prison for agreeing to purchase lobster tails that violated harvest regulations in Honduras. Now, the 64-year-old Florida man "is a convicted felon with an ailing wife, no job or right to vote and three years of supervised release ahead of him."
"We're talking about people's freedom and the way it affects people's faith in their government or lack thereof. We've got to get this cleaned up," said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) at a hearing in the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing recently.
"Overcriminalization" particularly hurts citizens in states with more restrictive rules on felon disenfranchisement. All but two states restrict convicted felons from voting rights at some point in their sentences, leaving four million citizens voiceless, but "free" in our communities, a disproportionate number belonging African-American or low-income neighborhoods. Earlier this year, Congress attempted to address this issue by setting a federal standard for disenfranchisement rules with the introduction of the Democracy Restoration Act. But, the bill hasn't progressed since March.
Overcriminalization and the lack of a federal standard for disenfranchisement rules exacerbates the criminal justice system's inherent racial and economic biases that affect the quality of life of both the released convicted felons as well as the communities to which they return.
Schedule conflicts, work commitments, and transportation issues are just a few reasons why some voters don't show up on Election Day. To help remedy this issue, 32 states have enacted Early In-Person (EIP) voting laws, which have been overwhelmingly favored by voters. While this trend is mainly absent in the northeastern United States, Maryland is currently test-driving its new law this week, perhaps creating a precedent for surrounding states.
"It's a little bit of variety for the voters," said Anthony Gutierrez, director of Maryland's Wicomico County Board of Elections in The Daily Times. The "variety" of voting options didn't come easy to the state, which introduced early voting laws not once, but twice over the last few years.
(This is virtually the same sort of Bush-Administration type of move by the Obama DOJ I described yesterday with respect to undermining progress on the greeenhouse gas front. Again, this is a situation in which there is NO GOP obstructionism that one can point your finger at. This all a matter of internal Obama Administration decisionmaking. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
A two-year battle in the courts concluded this week when the Department of Justice approved Georgia's controversial voter verification system that was originally struck down in 2009 as inaccurate, unreliable, and worst of all, discriminatory against people of color and naturalized citizens. The decision leaves voting rights advocates dismayed as to why the DOJ would allow the state to implement this arguably overzealous and potentially disenfranchising procedure.
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.
Access to voter registration-the basis of democratic participation-is still limited in the 21st century by overly restrictive, "horse-and-buggy" laws across the country. Despite advances in technology, states struggle with politically charged or neglected election systems when such systems can (and should) simply focus on building a truly representative electorate in modern day America.
Participating in democracy should be a simple exercise for anyone who is a citizen over the age of 18, but as voter registration and turnout stats indicate, it’s not always that easy. On their way to the polls, too many people encounter barriers and obstacles, and too often these impediments are a result of varying, nuanced election administration procedures across the United States. As a new Project Vote report illustrates, examples of many of these election administration dos and don’ts can be found in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Community driven voter registration drives are still the gateway to democracy to millions of Americans. However, after the overall success of voter registration drives in 2008, states have increasingly imposed severe restrictions on voter registration activity. With more than 60 million unregistered Americans missing the opportunity to have a voice in their communities, lawmakers and advocates must recognize the significance of voter registration drives and work to facilitate and improve such practices with the help of effective regulations and modern technology.
Voter registration modernization is a current buzzword in election circles. The idea is that new information tools can make the process cheaper, better, and easier for voters and officials alike. However, at many election forums, this discussion has tended to overlook modernizing the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, the so-called "motor-voter" law.
Hopefully, that is about to change. The NVRA, which is the only federal law requiring states to proactively offer voter registration services, relies on a range of state agencies to help people to register. Overall, it has helped tens of millions of Americans. Yet agencies in many states--particularly public assistance offices-have dropped the ball in recent years. That trend is troubling because millions more Americans would likely register if asked by designated NVRA agencies.
The excuses are not new. Some state agencies do not see voter registration as their job, regardless of the federal mandate. Still others see voter registration as a paper-based process generating too much bureaucratic work.
What is new today is that voter registration services need not follow these antiquated models. Today's paperless information technology and large-scale data management-including practices pioneered in several states at their motor vehicle offices and online-show many cost-efficient, bureaucracy-cutting and more accurate ways to offer registration services. These savings are striking and should resonate in today's tough budget times.
These precedents are detailed in a comprehensive new Project Vote report, Voter Registration Modernization and the NVRA, by Steven Rosenfeld. Several state motor vehicle offices are now using software templates, shared databases, data networks and other tools to overcome hurdles associated with implementing the law. Tasks such as training staff, developing registration materials, offering clients opportunities to register, assisting with applications, sending forms to election offices, and tracking results, have all been transformed and simplified.
As Michigan considers following the dangerous example of Arizona's controversial anti-immigration law, one of the candidates for the state's chief election official is fanning the flames of hysteria in a way that threatens voting rights.
Modernizing voter registration services has been a big theme in policy and government circles since the 2008 presidential election. But a new effort by the Department of Justice to better implement a 20th century voting rights law, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA)-known as the motor voter bill-could make equally big waves, potentially adding millions of voters to official lists.
There is an art in politics to not over-reaching and not over-reacting. But the latest salvo by one of the best-known conservative voting rights activists at his former workplace-the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, which enforces federal voting rights law-crosses a new line: urging states to ignore the DOJ on voting rights.
Some progressives overlook that voting by mail does not always help their longtime constituents.
As state and county officials look for ways to streamline elections during tough budgetary times, many jurisdictions are increasingly relying on mail-based voting-and winning praises from progressives for doing so. But the true litmus test for any election reform should be whether it helps expand the franchise to those whose voices are missing in our democracy. What some groups may overlook in their enthusiasm about voting by mail is that it does not always serve underrepresented or vulnerable populations as well as traditional polls.
What do voters really think about dramatic changes already underway?
by Steven Rosenfeld
Today's political chattering class-television barkers, talk radio hotheads, and even 2010's most visible candidates-keep telling Americans how angry and flustered we have become, and that the solution has to do with reeling in a government run amok.
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