Open Left - voting rights

Report Shows 2008 Electorate is Most Diverse in Modern History

project vote — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:36:27 GMT

The 2008 election was the most diverse in modern history, with increases in participation among young people, minorities, unmarried individuals, and other historically underrepresented groups, according to a comprehensive new report by the voting rights group Project Vote. Whether gains by these groups will hold steady in 2010, however, remains to be seen.
Representational Bias in the 2008 Electorate-written by Project Vote researchers Douglas R. Hess and Jody Herman-is an in-depth study that analyzes data from the 2008 general election, and compares them to registration and turnout rates from every presidential election this decade. Historically the U.S. electorate has been disproportionately skewed towards White, older, and more affluent Americans, and while the study shows this is still true, the increasing diversity of the American population was more accurately reflected at the polls in 2008.

"The good news of the 2008 election was the surge in young voters, particularly young minority voters," says Hess. "The only age group that demonstrated an overall increase in participation rate was voters under the age of 30, and that was largely driven by young Black, Latino, and Asian voters."

The voting rate of Black women under 30 increased by 7 percentage points compared to 2004, surpassing the voting rate of White women in that age group. The participation rate for Black men under 30 surged by nearly 11 points over 2004, and surpassed that of White men in that age group. Registration and turnout rates also increased among young Latinos and Asians of both genders.

The report, which analyses data from the U.S. Census Bureau, provides detailed information on registration and voting populations according to race/ethnicity, income, education, age, gender and marital status, residential mobility, and disability status. It also provides registration and turnout rates for each state with comparative rankings. Maine, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia are near the top of the list, with 78-79 percent of their eligible populations registered. New York, Arkansas, Tennessee, Utah, and Hawaii make up the bottom of the list, all with more than a third of their eligible residents still unregistered.

The surge in minority voting is an encouraging sign, says Project Vote executive director Michael Slater, and clearly had a powerful impact on the 2008 election. However, the report finds that significant disparities in participation still exist.

"Voter registration is the key," says Slater. "Roughly 90% of registered Americans from all demographics cast a ballot in 2008. However, nearly a third of all eligible Americans-over 60 million people-are unregistered, and they are disproportionately people of color, lower-income Americans, and citizens under the age of 30."

The report finds that the disparities, while smaller in 2008, still meant that millions of eligible Americans were left out of the process. If the underrepresented populations were registered and had voted at the rates of those in the overrepresented groups, tens of millions of more citizens would have cast a ballot in 2008, including over 5 million people of color, 8 million low-income Americans, and more than 7 million young people.

"It is clear that traditionally underrepresented groups will vote if given access to voter registration and candidates that speak to their issues," says report co-author Jody Herman. "But it is also clear that we need registration reforms that increase access to registration and promote participation among these groups."

This will be particularly important in the coming year, Slater cautions, as the 2010 mid-term elections may erase the gains made in 2008. "Mid-term elections always see a drop in participation, and if the 2009 Virginia election is any indication, the 2010 drop may once again hit these groups hardest. The youth vote dropped by half in Virginia from 2008 to 2009, the 60-and-over vote doubled, and turnout by people of color dropped significantly."

"It is important that government officials and civic organizations renew their commitment to helping underrepresented populations register and vote in 2010," says Slater.

Bipartisan Support for Bringing Voter Registration to the 21st Century Underway

project vote — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:10:50 GMT

Not too long ago, the means of accessing and staying on the voter registration rolls was a highly controversial issue that often got lost in a partisan shuffle. However, after more than two million voters were unable to vote due to problems with their voter registration last year, policymakers and advocates on both sides are finally listening. Whether it is extravagant efforts to automate voter registration on the national level or revamping state voting systems to utilize citizens' access to the Internet, improving voter registration is a glimmering goal in 2009 that brings promise for restoring the democratic process in the years to come.
"We have a voter registration system that doesn't really do what it ought to do," said former general counsel for Republican John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, Trevor Potter, in a National Public Radio report last week. "If we have a law that says you have to be registered in order to vote, then why wouldn't the government do something to put you on the list if you're entitled to be there, and to make sure the list is accurate?" Potter says.

"For now, there's a lot of bipartisan support to do something," NPR's Pam Fessler reports. "Democrats think a more automatic system would make it easier to get people registered. And Republicans think it would reduce the potential for fraud."

Potter, along with Senator John Kerry's general counsel for his 2004 presidential campaign, Marc Elias, and "a number of election officials, experts and interest groups" have assembled the Committee to Modernize Voter Registration, an effort to "upgrade our system and bring voter registration into the 21st century," according to the group's Web site.

The group advocates for automatically enrolling and maintaining current information of eligible voters through government databases. However, despite these preliminary efforts to "inform and discuss" modernizing voter registration, some say it could take years to realize.

"How do we make sure the system is secured and that people can feel confident that their information won't be in some way lost, stolen or otherwise used?" Thad Hall, an election technology expert with the University of Utah, told NPR.

In the meantime, other voter registration improvement efforts are underway on the federal and state levels. Providing for same-day voter registration in Federal elections, companion bills, HR 3957 and S 1986 were introduced in the House and Senate in late October. Both bills are sponsored by legislators from states that have experienced decades of above-average voter registration and turnout, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

"Minnesota routinely leads the nation in voter turnout - usually over 70 percent. ..." said House bill sponsor, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), according to the Minnesota Independent. "Enacting a National Election Day Registration law would do for the nation what same day registration has done for our State - give a voice to all who want to vote."

In support of a similar measure considered in the District of Columbia last week, Senate bill sponsor, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI)blogged about the benefits of Same Day Registration that go beyond getting voters on the rolls - it also helps legitimate voters get counted.

"In addition to increasing voter participation, SDR reduces provisional ballots. When voters who believe they are registered show up at the polls only to find out they are not listed on the voter rolls, they are usually provided a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots are rejected and discarded if it turns out the voter was not properly registered. SDR will allow voters to register on the spot, if they are qualified to vote."

Feingold's bill is currently in the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

On the state level, voter registration overhaul appears to be gaining some headway. Ohio House Bill 260 was heard Tuesday with a number of updates to benefit Ohioans. The bill would not only follow recent state legislative trends to provide online voter registration, but also allow voters to "be automatically given the opportunity to register when they deal with agencies such as the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services," according to the Associated Press. "Ohioans are already given the opportunity to register when they get a driver's license."

Whether through "modernization," same-day-registration, or simply providing more voter registration opportunities for voters, bringing America's voter registration system to the 21st century - that is, making it accessible to all voters - is key in strengthening democracy.

2008 Electorate: Native Americans - Increasing Participation

dreaminonempty — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Apache County, Arizona is home to portions of the Fort Apache and Navajo communities, and was estimated to be 73% Native American in 2007. The Voting Rights Act and its subsequent amendments have had quite an impact in this county. Below, we see a crude measure of turnout - number of voters divided by total population (estimated between census years).

Click to enlarge.

There has been a steady increase in crude turnout in Apache County as one barrier to voting after another has been removed. At the same time, the share of the votes won by Democrats has generally increased.
Ten Second Summary

We can see a progressive feedback loop resulting from the Voting Rights Act, which led to an increase in voting by Native Americans in Arizona among other places, without which Janet Napolitano likely would not have won the governorship. This feedback loop has generated a secondary feedback loop, in that as the power of Native American votes in close elections has become clear, voter turnout has continued to increase.

Low Turnout Historically

Although all Native Americans gained US citizenship in 1924, legal barriers to voting remained for decades. In New Mexico, Native Americans won the right to vote in 1948, but still were mostly barred from voting by literacy tests that weren't banned until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Subsequent amendments mandated language assistance at the polls in many Native American communities, and specifically in Apache County. (In 2000, 58% of people in Apache County spoke Navajo, and 40% of those Navajo speakers spoke English less than 'very well.')

Even after legal barriers were dropped, cultural barriers remained. From the Native Vote 2004 report:

There was, and with some still remains, the fear that "registration" of any kind with a non-Indian government could have only negative consequences. It was also axiomatic within Indian Country that to participate in the election of non-Indian government officials
served only to undermine their own true sovereignty. Finally, and perhaps most importantly within the context of this report, historically, Native Americans simply felt that their voice wouldn't matter.

The report goes on to detail turnout in Native American communities around the country in 2004.

More Turnout Data

We can get a bit of a historical perspective by looking at a few more counties with large Native American populations. For comparison, the crude turnout nationwide was 42% in 2008.

Click to enlarge.

There's no clear trends in turnout in these counties, unlike in Apache County, although there's a tendency for greater turnout in most recent elections. We also can see that there's a general tendency for greater Democratic support over time.

It would be a mistake to assume any increase in turnout is necessarily linked to interest in state or federal politics - the dramatic increase in turnout in Shannon County in 2004, for instance, may be related to the race for president of Oglala Sioux Tribe, in which Cecelia Fire Thunder defeated American Indian Movement activist Russell Means to become the first woman to hold the position of president.

Barack Black Eagle

On the other hand, we do have some data to see what happens when a national politician takes a local interest in a Native American community. Back in the primaries, Obama visited and was adopted with enthusiasm into the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation in Montana.

Here's the historical data for turnout and vote in Big Horn County, Montana, which was about 60% Native American in 2000:

Click to enlarge.

There is a clear increase in both support for the Democrat and turnout in 2008 compared to 2004. There was a 60% increase in the number of votes for the Democrat; this compared to a 20% increase for the state of Montana overall. In precincts on the Crow Reservation, turnout increased by about 20-50% over 2004, the number of Democratic presidential votes increased by up to 85%, and the number of Republican votes decreased by 20-60%.

So Obama's visit clearly paid political dividends. This was not limited to Big Horn County. There was a strong increase in support for Obama in counties with large Native American populations in Montana, North Dakota, and New Mexico. Smaller changes were generally seen elsewhere, with slight decreases in some heavily Native American counties in South Dakota, and in Arizona and Oklahoma. But as Sherman Alexie put it, "I guess that's the puzzling and I suppose lovely thing about Indians' love of Obama. Many have suspended their natural suspicion of politicians for him."

The National Picture

But here we return to a theme: We are not all of us alike. Although support for Obama was strong in the Native American community, it was not uniform (see note below for methods):

Click to enlarge.

(A note about names. I looked at community websites to try to determine the preferred name of each community, and list it first, with other names in parentheses, when there was space. Please let me know if I've made a mistake.)

Native American communities in Arizona, McCain's home, were not as supportive of Obama, although still strongly supportive. What really stands out is the much lower support among Native Americans in the South. There doesn't appear to be much relationship between the importance of gambling to a community's economy and voting behavior.

Overall, about 3/4 of those who listed a tribe on the 2000 census listed one shown above. If we weight by population, we come up with nationwide support for Obama of about 70%. Note that this estimate assumes that somebody who is Navajo but lives in Los Angeles is just as likely to vote for Obama as somebody who lives in the Navajo Nation - an assumption that is not necessarily true.

Note on methods: The estimates above were derived by taking elections results for jurisdictions with more than 85% Native Americans in the 2000 census and calculating a maximum and minimum possible support among Native Americans. For instance, suppose a town voted for 60% for Obama, and was 90% Native American according to the 2000 census. If all non-Native Americans voted for Obama, that means support among Native Americans was 56% (the minimum) but if none of the non-Native Americans voted for Obama, it would be 67% (the maximum). There are four exceptions: the Nimi'ipuu (only 81% Native American), Mission and Colville (regressions used instead) and Cherokee (estimate from regressions and exit poll data). Note also that the census may undercount Native Americans.

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This diary is the sixth in a series taking a close look at the 2008 electorate and exploring three themes: diversity within demographics, progressive feedback loops, and demographic change.

Previous diaries:

Looking Back
Alternate History
Why Republicans Should Be Really Scared
African-Americans - We Are Not All of Us Alike
East and South Asian Americans - Diverse and Growing
West Asian Americans - Rapid Change

Tomorrow: The Islander Electorate: In Need of Representation

Cross posted at DailyKos.

2008 Electorate: Alternate History

dreaminonempty — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:45:00 GMT

A (now long-ago) comment by fladem (pointing out that Obama won all the states that Lincoln won in 1860) led to this diary. What if the last election had taken place under the laws and customs that existed in most states in 1860? In other words, what if only white men could vote in 2008?

Now, that really is an alternate history question, so what we're seeing here on the left is how white men did vote in 2008, an election where everyone voted. On the right, how all those who gained voting rights after the Civil War voted - that is, non-whites and white women.

Click to enlarge.

The take home message: expanding voting rights - a progressive position - resulted in the ability to elect more liberal politicians. Below, more details and what this has to do with unions.
What if?

Looking back at the history of voting rights in this country, it is not a steady progression but rather a generally bumbling path forward. I ask the question here, what if the election of 2008 had been held under the voting laws of prior times? Below, I show estimates of the percent of the 2008 electorate that would have been eligible to vote at the end of each era, and how well Obama did among those historically eligible voters (by applying the restrictions shown in italics to the 2008 electorate). These numbers are estimated from exit polls, using the income cutoff of $50,000 as a substitute for landowners. Note that the restrictions were not uniform across all states - for example, just before the Civil War, a few states did allow free black men to vote.

Colonial: Adult white protestant landowning males
12% of the current electorate, 31% Obama

To be fair, not all colonies and early states restricted voting this drastically, and laws were not always enforced. The numbers above therefore represent a minimum value, and as such, are an exaggeration.

Jeffersonian: Adult white landowning males
21% of the current electorate, 40% Obama

The newly minted constitution did away with religious requirements for voting, but the idea persisted that voters should be limited to white men with a stake in government, as represented by a certain amount of wealth, land, or the payment of taxes. Again, this was not uniform across states.
For example, between its statehood and 1807 New Jersey required only that a voter possess a small amount of cash or property, with no restrictions based on race, religion, or gender.

Jacksonian: Adult white males
32% of the current electorate, 41% Obama

The expansion of the voting universe continued on its rocky course with the elimination of property requirements in almost all states by the Civil War.

Women's Suffrage: Adult whites
69% of the current electorate, 43% Obama

Women starting gaining (or re-gaining) the right to vote starting with Wyoming in 1869 and Utah in 1870 and ending with the 19th Amendment in 1920. Now it starts to get personal: probably a fair number of us knew somebody who could not vote when she turned 21.

Civil Rights: Adults
95% of the current electorate, 52% Obama

Non-whites have been able to vote since the founding of the country in various states at various times, most notably the post-Civil War era, but it took the Voting Rights Act for non-whites to be able to vote nationwide, without massive interference, and, we assume, permanently.

Youth: Even More Adults
100% of the current electorate, 53% Obama

In 1971 the voting age was lowered, and here we are today.

Back to the Story

Broadly speaking, we see that expanding the electorate has taken place in three steps: 1) Extending citizenship to more people 2) Extending voting rights to more citizens and 3) Making sure they actually get to vote.

So is there anything left to do? Certainly. In a post Chris Bowers wrote about two years ago, there's several things that jump out from the post and the comments:

1) Extending citizenship: Immigration reform
2) Extending voting rights: Ending felon disenfranchisement, lowering the voting age, congressional representation for territories
3) Making sure people vote: Same day registration, secure voting mechanisms, national voting holiday

I might add one more: extending voting rights to non-citizens. That whole taxation without representation thing, conservatives should love it, right? Actually, I was surprised to learn that non-citizens voting in this country wasn't all that rare in our history.

Unions

Returning to that post Chris wrote, though, it was more broadly about positive feedback loops: progressive policies that would make it easier to enact more progressive policies. Expanding the universe of voters is one category of positive progressive feedback loops. The first item on the list, however, was the Employee Free Choice Act. Just to throw this in at the end, here's how the union vote shaped up in the 2008 presidential election:

Click to enlarge.

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This diary is the second in a series taking a close look at the 2008 electorate and exploring three themes: diversity within demographics, progressive feedback loops, and demographic change.

Previous diaries:

Looking Back

Tomorrow: Why Republicans Should Be Really Scared - a closer look at demographic change

Cross posted at DailyKos.

What "Liberal" Media? Study Shows Manipulation of Press to Serve Right-Wing Agenda

project vote — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted to Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

Media manipulation by the right-wing to influence public perception has been a decade-long tactic to undermine voter registration in America. While the current media frenzy surrounding the community organization ACORN is only partly related to voter registration efforts, it is important to note that the attacks have been built on a foundation of misinformation and media manipulation by the right-wing over several years, largely surrounding the myth of "voter fraud."
How this strategy has played out was the subject of a recent independent academic study, "Manipulating the Public Agenda: Why Acorn was the News, and What the News Got Wrong." Conducted by Peter Dreier, director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Center at Occidental College and Christopher Martin, professor of journalism at the University of Northern Iowa, the report examines how "the little-known community organization became the subject of a major news story in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, to the point where 82% of the respondents in an October 2008 national survey reported they had heard about ACORN."

In a press release, the authors say that "...repetition of unverified allegations and distortions was the rule in national reporting of a purported 'voter fraud' scandal involving the community organizing group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) during the 2008 presidential campaign."

According to the study, 647 ACORN-related news stories published in 15 news outlets between 2007 and 2008, many of which parroted a plethora of unverified allegations from conservative parties.

"The academic study found that news-media coverage of the voter-fraud charges failed to distinguish between problems with registering voters and actual voting irregularities, which are rare," wrote Chronicle of Philanthropy writer Suzanne Perry, who recently covered "Manipulating the Public Agenda."

"It also found that 80 percent of the stories failed to mention that Acorn was reporting registration irregularities to the authorities; 85 percent failed to report that the group was acting to stop incidents of registration problems; and 96 percent failed to provide deeper context, especially about efforts by Republican Party officials to use voter-fraud allegations to dampen voting by low-income and minority Americans."

A prime example of conservative framing coloring the news, the study notes, is the widely reported August 2009 release of White House and Republican National Committee transcripts and emails. All major news outlet reports on the transcripts - which revealed that former Bush senior advisor, Karl Rove, helped orchestrate the firing of former New Mexico U.S Attorney David Iglesias "for failing to help Republican election prospects by prosecuting alleged instances of voter fraud by ACORN" - failed to discuss Rove's overt plan to attack ACORN's voter registration efforts in New Mexico and other states.

According to the study, this "demonstrates that there are indeed intensive political efforts to influence the national news agenda and to frame news stories by special interest groups."

In the study, Dreier and Martin note that, while the current frenzy is about ACORN, the pattern of manipulation has important ramifications for organizations across the country. "Although the 2008 presidential election is long over, conservative opinion entrepreneurs and the conservative media echo chamber remain fixated on ACORN,and poised to inject their frame about ACORN as an issue in the 2010 and 2012 national elections."

"Were this simply an isolated example of media complicity (witting or unwitting) with political organizations, the attack on ACORN would be of interest only to ACORN, its allies and detractors. But this case has wider implications. Our analysis of the narrative framing of the ACORN stories demonstrates that-despite long-standing charges from conservatives that the news media are determinedly liberal and ignore conservative ideas-the news media agenda is easily permeated by a persistent media campaign, even when there is little or no truth to the story."

In an Oct. 21 feature, the San Francisco Bay Guardian outlined the conservative agenda of using the mainstream media and playing on the public's psyche to promote the Party and its special interests. Bryant Welch, a clinical psychologist, author, and expert on political manipulation, tells the Guardian that "the right-wing commentators' success lies partly in their ability to harness core human emotions such as paranoia or envy."

"This is very, very sophisticated propaganda," says Welch. "I don't think progressives really get it that it's a technique being used all the time."

Republicans approach issues as a marketing challenge, according to George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and author of Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. In the Guardian, Lakoff says that to "counter this tactic...the left would do well to learn how to frame things in moral terms instead of playing defense against right-wing spin masters."

According to the Guardian, Lakoff's advice is to "define the moral imperative behind empowering the people and their government to create a better world, then aggressively push a campaign to do so."

"It's the 'this is the right thing to do' approach," he says.

Gov. Schwarzenegger Approves Engaging Young California Voters Early

project vote — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

The future of voter registration and civic engagement may just stand a chance. California (a populous state of many voters-to-be) will soon allow all 17-year-old citizens to preregister to vote so that they will be automatically enrolled as legal voters once they turn 18. This newer trend in legislation, which boasts bipartisan support, has recently passed in North Carolina and has been successfully implemented in five other states, including Florida.

"AB 30 will benefit the Golden State by encouraging higher voter registration and turnout among California's youth, and by encouraging high schools to become more actively involved in youth engagement and civic education," the New America Foundation - a group that was actively pursuing preregistration in the state - wrote in a press release Monday. "Research shows that people who get involved in the electoral process at an earlier age are much more likely to become lifelong voters. Research also shows that preregistration in Florida has boosted voter registration and voter turnout of young people."

The measure was supported by a wide range of groups, including New America, FairVote, California Association of Student Councils, and California AARP.

"This legislation had multi-generational support," said Pete Martineau, Legislative Advocate for AARP, in the release. "We want to thank the Governor for increasing the opportunities to help us register more of our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to vote. Civic participation is essential for a healthy democracy, and we applaud the Governor for signing AB 30."

Currently, California joins three other states that allow all 17-year-old citizens to preregister to vote. Previously, California allowed only certain 17-year-old citizens that would be 18 by the next election to preregister, a practice followed by as many as 19 other states. The confusing and unspecified age-range hampered proper implementation of the law, hardly maximizing on the potential for engaging new voters.

Three other states permit citizens as young as 16 to preregister, including Florida, Hawaii, and North Carolina, where the newly passed law will become effective in January 2010.

Perhaps inspired by the growing success of passing and implementing preregistration, other parts of the country are pushing similar bills.

"A member of the Massachusetts statehouse leadership announced last week that a similar measure is her top priority in coming weeks," according to FairVote, which referred to House Bill 683 Monday. "And the Washington, D.C. City Council last week unanimously backed pre-registration legislation."

HB 683 is eligible for executive session in the Joint Committee on Election Laws while Washington's omnibus measure, B 345 was read on the council floor for the first time last week. To follow preregistration bills and other election reforms, visit www.ElectionLegislation.org.

How to Make Voter Registration Accessible to All Citizens

project vote — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

After the 2008 election, voter registration has become a focal point for legislators and advocates from all ends of the spectrum. Whichever way it is sliced, the number of registered eligible voters has still declined since 2004. As multiple problems have been cited as the cause for lowered registration rates (including mobility issues, unequal access to registration opportunities, voter caging, and even so-called apathy), voting rights advocates as well as legislators have been vocal about their solutions.

In 1993, Congress attempted to increase voter participation by expanding access to voter registration with the enactment of the National Voter Registration Act. Congress' goals have been partially realized with the Act's best known "motor voter" provision, which has brought a significant number of voter registration applications and updates from citizens who visit motor vehicles offices.

One way the "motor voter" program could be improved, suggests Ventura County Star editor and columnist Tim Herdt, is by expanding the age groups that can take advantage of the convenience. Herdt writes about pending California Assembly Bill 30, which would amend state election law to allow all 17-year-old citizens to pre-register to vote. Pointing out that more Californian's registered to vote through the DMV than by dropping off applications at the county elections offices around the state, Herdt says lowering the voter registration age would only maximize the motor voter aspect of the NVRA.

"Now, think about what age most people receive their first driver's license. It's either 16 or 17, which is too young to vote," he wrote. "There are many reasons why potential voters from 18 to 24 are the least likely to be registered of any age group, but right up there has got to be the fact that at the time it is most convenient for them to register, they are slightly too young to take advantage of it."

Partisanship has been a battle with passing such legislation. However, a handful of states - both red and blue - have adopted preregistration policies. Herdt quotes AB 30 supporter and deputy director of the New America Foundation Political Reform Program, Blair Bobier: "As you look at other states, this has been a thoroughly nonpartisan or bipartisan issue," including Florida, where Republican Gov. Charlie Crist has been a supporter of preregistration.

The preregistration bill is currently on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk.

While the motor voter program has largely been a success, enforcement of other, integral parts of the NVRA have been spotty, particularly in those that target historically underrepresented low income citizens. Voter registration applications through public assistance agencies, for example-a requirement for most states under the NVRA-have declined by 79 percent since the law was first implemented in 1995. Project Vote's Public Agency Registration Project - a joint effort with national voting rights and election reform policy group, Demos - has proven that bringing states into compliance with the law is an effective means of increasing participation. The groups' efforts have helped see states like Missouri go from collecting a dismal 8,000 applications a year to collecting more than 100,000 applications in just eight months, and all it took was following the law.

The recurring theme in overhauling the voter registration system is improving access to underrepresented groups, which can be facilitated by implementing or improving existing law. In a recent blog entry, Demos' Tova Andrea Wang addresses voter registration access for new citizens, citing upcoming elections in New Jersey and Virginia - where 40 percent of Latino citizens remain unregistered - as catalysts for rethinking the voter registration process. Wang suggests that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency responsible for implementing the naturalization process, should be designated as a voter registration agency under the NVRA.

"The government should start to share the burden of ensuring new Americans are registered to vote by having the federal agency responsible for immigrant services agency routinely provide voter registration materials and information to every new citizen upon naturalization," Wang wrote.

"And it's not that new Americans don't want to participate--once they are registered, immigrants vote overwhelmingly. In fact, new citizens who are registered to vote have higher rates of voter turnout than natives who are registered to vote. They just aren't given the tools to take the steps to get registered in the first place."

All Voters are Unequal: Voter ID Law Exposed as Unfair, States Still Follow Suit

project vote — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

When an appellate court shut down Indiana's unequal mandate for polling-place voter ID, it sent a clear signal that-partisan politics aside-election laws should be assessed on whether or not all voters are given equal access to the democratic process. Yet, despite violations of law and the fact that absentee voting is more susceptible to voter fraud activity than in-person voting, other states continue to emulate what was one of the country's toughest voter ID laws.

While it has long been held (and proven) by voting rights advocates that voter ID is harmful to voters that do not have or cannot obtain required ID (primarily young, low income, and minority voters), the Indiana court's recent decision was based on entirely different criteria. The case was brought on the argument that "Indiana's Constitution requires all voters to be treated uniformly, and that the ID law treats absentee voters and in-person voters differently," wrote Sheila Kennedy, a professor of law and public policy at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs in an Indianapolis Star opinion editorial Monday.

"The court unanimously agreed. If the legislature wants to keep the law, in other words, it'll have to apply it to all voters, not just those who show up in person."

However, "partisan politics" shroud the very simple argument that all voters should have the law applied fairly as voter ID supporters scramble to keep the voter ID battle afloat.

In response to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel's declaration that the judges' decision was "preposterous...partisan politics," Kennedy wrote that his "rhetoric is unfortunate on a number of levels. It betrays unfamiliarity with the arguments involved, and -- worse -- paints judges as no more than partisans in robes. Such attacks, as the Indiana Bar Association pointed out, undermine the legitimacy of the judicial system."

"In other words," she wrote, "the judges weren't the ones playing politics."

This year, 25 states introduced variations of Indiana's law in their own legislatures. Many failed to see the light of day, but battles are expected in at least five states next year, including Oklahoma, Kansas, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Mississippi.

Mississippi has battled voter ID in the state legislature for years and-in an attempt to circumvent the legislature in 2010-had plans to put an initiative on the state ballot for voters to decide. However, last week, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann announced that a Republican sponsored voter ID referendum would not be on the ballot until November 2011 due to complications with state law regarding signature gathering, according to the Associated Press. Hosemann's office collected almost 19,000 signatures while the state Republican Party has 40,000. Ninety thousand signatures are required to put the voter ID initiative on the ballot.

The postponement of the referendum is raising suspicions among some. "With statewide elections coming in 2011, GOP officials may be counting on a voter ID referendum to help boost its turnout," a Mississippi publication, the Greenwood Commonwealth editorialized Monday. "There is arguably a lot more at stake for the party in 2011 than the congressional elections in 2010.

"That said, the delay could serve a useful purpose if it focuses the public's attention and that of lawmakers on where the problem of voter fraud really lies - absentee balloting."

Indiana Voter ID Law Found Unconstitutional and Disenfranchising

project vote — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted to Project Voting Matters Blog

One of the country's most contentious voting rights issues came back into the spotlight last Thursday when an Indiana court struck down the state's strict photo voter ID law as unconstitutional. The law, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008, was found be in violation of the Indiana Constitution because it treated voters unequally.
According to the Indianapolis Star, the three-judge panel held that the law-one of the country's toughest voter ID requirements-unfairly exempts absentee voters (the main source of voter fraud) and residents of state-licensed care facilities that happen to be polling places. This exemption, the court contends, is in violation of the state constitution's Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause, which provides that "the General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens."

"Under Indiana law, the court said, it might be reasonable to regulate absentee balloting more stringently than in-person balloting," the New York Times reported. "But the voter ID law does the opposite, the judges said, by imposing 'a less stringent requirement for absentee voters than for those voting in person.'"

Voter ID laws have gained a reputation for being the product of partisan politics, with Republican policymakers pushing such measures to fight the extremely rare phenomenon of polling-place voter fraud, while Democratic leaders assert that voter ID unnecessarily disenfranchises the country's young, minority, and low-income voters. Evidence of either have been difficult to prove on a substantial scale, though plaintiffs challenging the law in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Crawford v. Marion County Board of Elections were "primarily criticized for their failure to generate firm evidence of disfranchisement," according to a recent Indiana University School of Law report that examines and documents voter disenfranchisement as a result voter ID in Indiana in 2008.

"Our research helps begin to fill this gap in the plaintiffs' case and presents the clearest evidence yet that photo identification has a disfranchising impact on hundreds of persons who want to have their democratic voice heard."

The report surveys "92 counties in Indiana to determine how many persons arrived at the polls without valid identification, cast a provisional ballot, and then had that provisional ballot counted." Out of 2.8 million votes cast in Indiana on Election Day 2008, it was determined that at least 900 votes were not counted due to lack of sufficient ID. (More than 1,000 people arrived at the polls without valid ID and voted provisionally - only 137 of those votes were actually counted.)

"The major difference between the state court decision and the Supreme Court's decision ...is that the state court was interpreting the Indiana Constitution, while the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution of the United States," the Times reported. "Generally, state courts are given the last word in interpreting their own constitutions."

In spite of both evidence of disenfranchisement and violations of the Indiana Constitution, state officials "ridiculed the decision and said it would be appealed to the State Supreme Court," according to the Times. "At a news conference, Gov. Mitch Daniels, a second-term Republican, called the ruling 'preposterous' and said that 'there's nothing in the Indiana Constitution that goes beyond what the federal Constitution provides here.'"

The controversial - and now unconstitutional law - set a precedent for more than 25 state legislatures that introduced similar measures during the 2009 legislative sessions. So far, Utah is the only state to enact such a bill this year, which was reportedly implemented with few problems, though it was tested in a low-turnout election, according to the Associated Press last week.

CA Measure to Improve Youth Voter Engagement Goes to Governor

project vote — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted to Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

The California Legislature approved a bill last week to extend voter registration privileges to 17-year-old citizens. If signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bill would help put California youth on the road to a lifetime of democratic participation.
Nearly half of all eligible voters under age 30 nationwide were not registered to vote in 2008. Assembly Bill 30 extends voter registration opportunities to all 17-year-olds, not just those who will be 18 by the next election, as current California law allows. This change would "make implementation of preregistration more efficient and streamlined, and should lead to less confusion," wrote Elizabeth Wu of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy group, in a press release Tuesday. AB 30 would more effectively reach young people in high school civics classes and voter registration drives, and ultimately get them on the rolls in advance of turning the legal voting age of 18.

Voter registration is "one of the largest barriers to voting," said Steven Hill, director of the foundation's Political Reform Program, because "citizens often become energized by candidates or issue campaigns in the last weeks of an election only to find they are not registered to vote." The idea of allowing young people to register in advance not only has them ready to participate upon turning 18, but it also instills civic duty at an early age.

"Research has demonstrated that developing good 'political engagement' habits at a younger age will increase the likelihood of civic participation as an adult," said Hill. "AB 30 will help break the 'disengagement cycle' that often prevents young people from developing habits of participation that carry over into their adult years."

While several states like California already permit certain 17-year-old citizens to preregister to vote, only five extend the opportunity to all 16 or 17-year-olds. States with laws similar to the pending AB 30 include Louisiana and Oregon. Preregistration is also extended to citizens as young as 16 in states like Hawaii, Florida, and most recently, North Carolina, which passed House Bill 908 into law last month.

Rhode Island also passed a preregistration bill earlier this summer, only to be vetoed by Governor Donald Carcieri. However, FairVote - a voting rights group that has long championed preregistration in the state - hopes that with the "huge majorities in favor of the bill in both the RI House and Senate this year," the General Assembly will override the governor's veto, according to a July blog entry. Proving to be a popular year for preregistration, a similar measure was adopted by the Michigan House. The pending HB 4261 awaits a hearing in the Senate Committee on Campaign and Election Oversight.

To monitor the California and Michigan bills, visit www.ElectionLegislation.org.

Restoration of Civil Rights Gets Attention in Wisconsin and Virginia

project vote — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted to Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

Last month, we reported that citizens are becoming more sympathetic to voting rights restoration as they realize disenfranchisement of released felons does not just unnecessarily punish the ex-offender, but also the voice of their communities. This news resonated recently in the states of Wisconsin and Virginia - one of which has hopes of restoring the rights of some 40,000 ex-offenders while the other is criticized for "lagging" in restoration of civil rights.
"Ex-offenders are expected to re-integrate, pay taxes and become law-abiding citizens, but are prevented from helping to create the laws they must obey," said Paige Hodges, a grant writer for Total Action Against Poverty in Virginia's Roanoke Times Tuesday. "The most fundamental expression of democracy -- the right to vote -- is marred in our state's constitution by legalized, permanent disenfranchisement."

Virginia is one of only two states that permanently bar felons from voting, resulting in the disenfranchisement of 300,000 citizens that have completed their sentences. "Convicted felons in Virginia who want their rights back must petition the governor in what can be a lengthy process," according to Roanoke Times reporter, Lawrence Hammack. "Once they are out of prison and off probation, there's a waiting period of three years for nonviolent offenders and five years for violent offenders and drug dealers."

Although advocates commend Governor Tim Kaine for restoring the rights of more ex-offenders than any governor since 1938, they say that "the system remains too cumbersome" with only 3,958 felons that have regained their civil rights, not to mention a racial disparity in the voters the disenfranchisement law affects.

"It takes at least six months to conduct criminal background checks and complete the paperwork for each case," Hammack wrote. "That means if everyone who is eligible were to apply, it would take more than 200 years to process all the applications, according to a study by the Advancement Project, a policy and legal action group committed to racial justice."

"It's a Jim Crow-era law that has no business being in our constitution," said Hodges, who is working with other communities groups to organize an event this week to help "spread the word to convicted felons who may be eligible to have their rights restored."

Illustrating the disenfranchisement laws that blatantly targeted African Americans in the development of the state constitution in 1902, Hammock included a disturbing quote from then Delegate Carter Glass: "This plan will eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this state in less than five years, so that in no single county ... will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government."

As in many states with strict disenfranchisement laws, the African American population is most impacted. According to the Advancement Project report, "about half of the convicted felons barred from voting in Virginia are black...even though blacks constitute less than 20 percent of the state's voting-age population," Hammock wrote.

This very issue was recently discussed in Wisconsin where African Americans make up a majority of its 40,000 disenfranchised parolees that would potentially regain their voting rights if Assembly Bill 353 gains traction, according to a Wisconsin Public Radio report (a written summary can be found at Fox 21 KQDS).

This year brings higher hopes for passing a bill to extend voting rights to parolees, according to WPR, as it not only expands the electorate to include more citizens, but also saves the state money. According to state elections board director Kevin Kennedy, the bill would actually save the state $13,000 by eliminating the need to generate lists of ex-offenders for poll workers to review. Assembly member and bill sponsor, Tamara D. Grigsby (D-18) said the "simple act of voting makes ex-offenders feel more connected to their communities and is an important step to rehabilitation," KQDS reported.

Monitor Wisconsin Assembly Bill 353 at Project Vote's election bill tracking Web site, www.ElectionLegislation.org.

Revitalization of DOJ's Civil Rights Division a Promising Sign for Voting Rights

project vote — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

by Michael McDunnah

A New York Times story this week reported that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is planning to return the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to its historical mission: protecting the civil rights of Americans. According to the article, the new attorney general is committed to "a revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies...where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly," including housing, employment, lending practices, and voting rights.
That Attorney General Holder is committed to refocusing the Civil Rights Division on enforcement is admirable and encouraging. That these plans represent such a "reshaping" of the DOJ that they become front-page news, on the other hand, is a sad testament to the tainted legacy of the Bush Administration and a reminder of just how far the department Holder has inherited strayed from its intended purpose over the previous eight years-particularly in the area of voting rights.

As the Times editorialized yesterday, "the Bush administration declared war on the whole idea of civil rights, in a way that no administration of either party had since the passage of the nation's civil rights laws in the 1960s." For most of the decade we saw a DOJ that was more interested in suppressing voting rights than protecting them-one that refused to investigate or prosecute real rights violations, and instead brought its significant power to bear on attacking voter registration organizations attempting to empower eligible minority and low-income Americans.

The most egregious example of this partisan repurposing of the DOJ came to be known as the U.S. Attorneygate scandal. Earlier this month the House Judiciary Committee released thousands of pages of documents-including transcripts of interviews with former White House adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers-that provide the most damning evidence yet of how the White House brought unprecedented political pressure on the DOJ to pursue a partisan effort to hamper voter registration efforts and suppress turnout at the polls. This far-reaching (and still unfolding) scandal arose out of inquiries into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys, including David Iglesias, the former Republican U.S. attorney in New Mexico. Iglesias has said he was forced from his post when he refused pressure from White House adviser Rove and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to bring trumped-up charges against the voter registration group ACORN in 2004 and 2006. The resulting scandal ultimately led to the resignations of Rove, Gonzales, and several DOJ officials.

"Under the Bush regime," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said in a statement August 11, "honest and well-performing US Attorneys were fired for petty patronage, political horsetrading and, in the most egregious case of political abuse of the US Attorney corps - that of US Attorney Iglesias - because he refused to use his office to help Republicans win elections."

While the U.S. Attorneygate scandal was the most sensational example of the partisan perversion of the DOJ to actively suppress the rights of voters, the Bush era was also marked by selective inaction. While trumped up charges of voter fraud were being investigated, widespread violations of voting rights laws went unchallenged. The least known-and perhaps most important-of these neglected and largely unenforced federal laws is Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act (commonly called the "motor-voter" law), which requires public assistance agencies to offer the opportunity to register to vote with every application for benefits, recertification, or change of address form. While it has the potential to help millions of low-income Americans register to vote every year, this requirement of the NVRA has been largely ignored by many states, and voter registration applications through public assistance agencies are a fraction of what they should be. The DOJ is the only federal agency with both the power and the mandate to compel compliance with the public agency registration requirement of the NVRA yet, despite flagrant non-compliance from more than a dozen states, the DOJ brought only one lawsuit (in Tennessee) between 2000 and 2008.

The current DOJ seems headed in the right direction; the administration has made its commitment to voting rights clear, and the DOJ has indicated that aggressive enforcement of the NVRA is a top priority. The DOJ is already taking the essential first step to facilitate this work in non-compliant states, and to make possible the entire aggressive agenda of civil rights enforcement Holder has proposed: hiring new lawyers. The division's ranks of qualified and dedicated civil rights attorneys were decimated during the Bush years by partisan hiring, firing, and promotion policies, as well as a high rate of turnover. "The Obama White House has also proposed a hiring spree that would swell the ranks of several hundred civil rights lawyers with more than 50 additional lawyers," the Times reports.

There are other signs of progress. Under the Voting Rights Act, states with a history of discriminatory election practices are required to seek federal approval before changing election rules. As the Times article mentions, the Bush administration DOJ signed off on a Georgia law requiring voters to provide photo ID, despite its disproportionate impact on minority voters. In May 2009, however, the DOJ blocked a similar Georgia law that would have required voters to provide proof-of-citizenship to register to vote, a law Loretta King, the acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said was "seriously flawed," and "frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian, and/or Hispanic voters to additional, and, more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote."

In its editorial yesterday, the Times summarized the proper and vital role that the Civil Rights Division plays in ensuring that every eligible American can vote. "The division needs to drop the Bush-era obsession with the overblown problem of vote fraud and put the emphasis back where it should be - making sure protected groups are not denied the right to vote. It has to ensure that the voter rolls are not being illegally purged, and that political operatives are not engaging in dirty tricks to suppress the minority vote. It also needs to make state and local governments comply with the 'motor voter' law, which requires registration to be available at motor vehicle bureaus and welfare offices."

As Holder says in the Times report, "the wounds that were inflicted on this division were deep, and it will take some time for them to fully heal." But the voting rights community can take hope from these first, encouraging signs that the attorney general and the administration are committed to restoring the integrity of the DOJ, revitalizing the Civil Rights Division, and aggressively protecting and enforcing our nation's hard-won voting rights laws.

El Paso County, Colo. Exemplifies Voter Reg. Turnaround for Low Income Citizens

project vote — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted to Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

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.
But one Colorado county is proving what can be accomplished through voluntary compliance with the NVRA, and demonstrating that-no matter how "busy" or "underfunded" a program may be-expanding access to the democratic process for low-income residents is as simple as it is priceless.

"I know it's an additional workload issue," says Rick Bengsston, Acting Director of El Paso County Department of Human Services ."But if it becomes part of the daily process, it really isn't that difficult to get this done."

Earlier this summer, Project Vote was working with Colorado officials to bring the state into compliance, and determined that the densely populated El Paso County was seriously out of step with the NVRA. After being notified of their noncompliance in all four public assistance sites-which provide TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid, and other benefits-Bengtsson and the Colorado Benefits Management System collaborated to integrate voter registration with regular services.

As a result, the number of clients offered voter registration services at El Paso County agencies has increased sevenfold since April. How did they make such a quick turnaround?

According to Bengsston, it was simply by making voter registration a part of the every day workload, and by holding offices accountable. "The first thing we did was make sure we had sufficient [voter registration] forms in stock," Bengtsson said. Then, they made sure every site attached voter registration applications to every public assistance form, and implemented a staff training on the NVRA and how to apply it to public assistance services.

Finally, to keep all sites accountable for providing voter registration services, Bengtsson appointed the Dept. of Human Services' quality assurance specialist to monitor voter registration at all public assistance sites in addition to the public assistance data she was already collecting.

"She now is collecting, reviewing, and tabulating the [voter registration] numbers, so she can report back to each of our managers to ensure that the appropriate steps are being taken, and that forms are being properly filled out and forwarded to the clerk and recorder," he said.

Establishing a system to monitor and evaluate agency compliance is one of the most important steps that Project Vote and its partners recommend to ensure best practices, and Bengtsson agrees. "I think the big point is having one person who is not only accountable for collecting the forms, but knowing that we're in compliance. It helps to have a compliance specialist, someone who is really analyzing and ensuring that we're following the law."

Bengtsson says another important component in keeping this opportunity available for low-income citizens is "helping staff understand the importance" of providing voter registration at public assistance agencies. "It's the law - and it's an opportunity for our citizens to participate in our political process."

Having only learned of the NVRA's mandates earlier this summer, El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark's main mission in providing voter registration at public assistance agencies is to make sure the county is following federal law. While expressing concerns that increasingly high numbers of public assistance clients and declining resources could impede their ability to facilitate voter registration properly, Clark recognizes the importance of voter registration access, particularly for the people that they serve.

"A majority of our clients don't have adequate transportation, and aren't in jobs that allow flexibility to go to the clerk and recorder's office during the day, so there is sometimes more concern about their basic needs than to register to vote," she said. "But I do think that offering the service in the agency - and they do visit us on a fairly regular basis - ensures that they are given the information they need to make the decision about whether they should register to vote or not."

Both Clark and Bengtsson agree that working with other state leaders to efficiently make voter registration part of the state's services is key to successfully helping citizens in need not only get public assistance, but also get a chance to participate in the democratic process.

"I think that our workers really understand the reasons behind the law, and the reasoning is to ensure that citizens who are sometimes disenfranchised have easy access to their fundamental privileges of voting." Clark said.

Restoration of Voting Rights Gains Support across the Nation

project vote — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted to Project Vote’s Voting Matters Blog

The message that democracy works best when all citizens participate – including those reintegrating into society after serving time for felony convictions - is finally being heard by the public, the media, and the U.S. Congress. Whether the message will affect the change needed to enfranchise the millions of Americans who currently cannot represent their communities in the democratic process, it is encouraging to find more citizens recognize the value in voting rights restoration and its impact on rehabilitation.

In light of the July 24 introduction of the Democracy Restoration Act of 2009, which would restore federal voting rights of felons who have been released from incarceration, numerous media outlets and voting rights advocates appear inspired to speak out on the importance of felon voting rights in general.

Calling it "an overdue change" for the 33 states that strip felons of their voting rights post-incarceration, the Detroit Free Press hails the federal bills, HR 3335 and S 1516 as a solution to inequity in both the criminal justice system and voting rights, particularly regarding minorities and the communities to which they return. Of the five million disenfranchised Americans, "nearly two million of them, including more than one in eight black men, are disenfranchised by these vestiges of Jim Crow."

"Democracy requires that voting rights extend to as many people as possible," the Free Press editorialized. "Voting rights rebuild ties to the community. They give people a stake in society and connect them to its norms and values."

The notion that "restoring voting rights of the formerly incarcerated is essential to helping them reintegrate into society and become productive citizens," is widely gaining support, Kathryn Boockvar, a Pennsylvania-based attorney for the Advancement Project, wrote in the Patriot-News. Boockvar, who was writing in support of a state measure requiring prisons to provide released felons with voter registration materials (HB 1072), noted a recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice, which cites a 2006 survey that found 60 percent of Americans agree with this idea.

Such a proposal has become law in at least two states in recent years. In May, the state of Washington lifted a ban that prohibited thousands of felons from voting with the passage of House Bill 1517. Until a couple weeks ago, the state required all felons to fully complete their sentences and repay all legal financial obligations before they were eligible to vote, according to the ACLU Blog of Rights. Blogger Rachel Bloom told the story of a man she called "John," who had "completed his sentence yet remained disfranchised because he had outstanding legal financial obligations, of which almost two-thirds was interest."

"When asked why he wanted to vote, John said he had two reasons: ‘I’m raising my grandkids. It’s been a cycle of jails and institutions for them and I want to show them a different picture...I want to show them what being included in society looks like and yet I can’t provide that while being disfranchised. The other reason is that I personally want a say. Right now, I’m being taxed without representation.’"

A 2006 change in the Rhode Island Constitution allowing probationers and parolees to vote brought about 6,000 more registered voters in the 2008 elections, according to the Providence Journal. The law had previously disenfranchised an estimated 15,000 people who were serving probationary terms that could "run a decade or more in some cases."

"Despite changing laws, there were still many hurdles to getting people back on the rolls," wrote Desiree Evans of Facing South, an online magazine for the Institute of Southern Studies. "For instance, some former felons were unaware and uninformed of the reinstatement of their right to vote in some states. And in other states complicated re-enfranchisement procedures on top of widespread confusion and misinformation about the proper administration of the varying state laws made the process of restoring the vote even more difficult."

Although the fight for restoration of voting rights remains an uphill battle, "voting rights advocates should keep fighting in the courts, state legislatures and Congress," the New York Times editorialized on August 4, noting a federal court’s decision to uphold the Massachusetts ban on voting by convicted felons. A group of prisoners challenged the law, claiming it violated the Voting Rights Act because disenfranchised felons in Mass. are "disproportionately black and Hispanic... partly because of a bias in the justice system."

"Letting the case go forward would not have meant the prisoners would have won," the Times said. "But it would have recognized that the law could violate the Voting Rights Act, depending on the facts that emerged about it in court."

Whether felon voting rights will be changed through state and federal legislation, or through review of the cornerstone Voting Rights Act, one notion remains the same. "The United States aspires to be a nation in which the government rules by the consent of the governed people," the Times wrote. "Prisoners do not cease to be people."

Officials Violate Voting Rights & State Laws by Implementing Stricter Photo ID Requirements

project vote — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-Posted to Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

State and federal law outlines, protects, and facilitates the voting rights of citizens. Under ideal circumstances, these laws make voting equally accessible to all eligible Americans without unnecessary barriers or hurdles. Unfortunately, the right to vote is too often misconstrued by the very officials charged with helping to protect and facilitate that right, leaving voters at best confused, and at worst disenfranchised.
Illustrating the problems that can arise from the improper imposition of election laws (intentional or not), Arkansas has gained some attention for wrongfully requesting photo ID from some voters in the November 2008 election.

On Election Day 2008 Project Vote received calls from concerned voters in Jefferson and Pulaski counties who claimed election officials were demanding photographic proof of identity at the polls; according to Arkansas law the state is only supposed to request ID of voters whose given birth date at the polls does not match that on the precinct voter registration list. Even under those circumstances, a voter is not required to present government-issued photo ID, but is allowed a wider range of options outlined in the Help America Vote Act, including a copy of a utility bill or a paycheck.

In a notice letter sent to Secretary of State Charlie Daniels last week, Project Vote election counsel Donald Wine wrote that "through the inconsistent imposition of a photo identification requirement by these local election officials, Arkansas is effectively denying voters equal access to the voting polls under law." Wine further urged Secretary Daniels to "issue a directive informing all state and local election officials of the correct procedures and directing those officials to abide by the current statute that references the way a citizen can be identified as a registered voter."

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold Indiana's strict photo ID law in Crawford v. Marion County Board of Elections, several other states appeared to circumvent their own state laws by demanding additional ID, according to records from the Election Protection coalition's 866-OUR-VOTE hotline. In fact, voter ID in general kicked up a cloud of confusion last year with hundreds of voters calling the hotline with problems that went beyond the improper request for ID from misinformed poll workers, including inquiries from perplexed voters who were unsure of the exact type of ID that their state requires.

While the inconsistent variety of election laws across the states clearly have an impact on election officials and voters alike-especially if the law relates to controversial issues that affect select communities, such as voter ID and felon voting laws-the emphasis for clearing confusion should first be put on those charged with implementing the rules. Transparency of election law between the state and the citizen starts with the person that voters meet when exercising their right to vote: the poll worker. To ensure every voter that walks into the polls is treated fairly and advised by the same election rules, every state must ensure that poll worker training is uniform across the state to ensure that there are no illegally disenfranchised voters, unwanted media attention, or legal challenges.

Online Voter Registration Reaches Some Citizens, but Won't Close the Electoral Gap

project vote — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog.

Access to voter registration continues to be an issue in the U.S. where only 71 percent of the voting eligible population is registered to vote. With young, low income, and minority citizens lagging behind in voter registration and participation, this fraction of registered voters only represents a skewed picture of the American people.
In an effort to make voter registration more accessible, several states have joined Arizona and Washington this year by passing laws to provide certain citizens the convenience of registering to vote with the click of a mouse. Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Oregon, and Utah are among the states that recently enacted such laws while Kansas has just made voter registration accessible online to eligible citizens in the state, according to the Associated Press. However, a new memo by Project Vote consultants Jody Herman and Doug Hess finds that, while online voter registration is a "welcome new convenience," its impact will most likely be limited in reducing the tremendous demographic disparities that currently exist in the electorate.

Using Nielsan and Census data, the report examines the limitations - and benefits - of online voter registration by describing the U.S. households that do not have internet access and comparing the findings to voter registration rates in those households based on race/ethnicity, age, educational attainment, and income.

"In most cases, the demographic groups that are already less likely to be registered are also the least likely to have internet access in the home," Herman wrote. Among these groups are low income citizens, those without high school degrees, and Latinos, rendering online voter registration less effective for the very people who need access to the electoral process most. According to the memo:

• Low income households are not only less likely to have internet access (41%), they are also least likely to be registered to vote, compared to other income brackets (65%).
• Educational attainment appears to have an affect on access to both voter registration and internet. Just 36% percent of those without high school diploma have internet access - 41 percentage points lower than the national average. Similarly, this group registers to vote at a rate that is 21 percentage points lower than the national average (50%).
• Black and Latino households are less likely to have access to the internet, with only 63% of households in each group. However, Latinos are disproportionately underrepresented in the electorate, registering at 12 percentage points lower than the national average.

"An additional problem is that online voter registration systems that require an online registrant to have an existing signature in a state database-such as in a driver's license database and/or state voter registration database-will further limit the accessibility of an online voter registration system to disadvantaged groups," according to the report. (A 2007 study on voter ID accessibility in Indiana exemplifies this issue, as voters with only high school education, as well as low-income and minority citizens, were found to be less likely to posses identification required, in this case, to vote.)

While online registration seems to disproportionately reach mostly those who are already overrepresented in the electorate, it may open doors for one group that is notoriously plagued with voter access and participation issues: Youth. Citizens ages 18 to 34 register to vote at a rate of 10 percentage points behind the electorate as a whole. However, young people are most likely to have internet access, with 88 percent of younger households connected to the Web. This may prove beneficial in incorporating America's future decision makers in the electorate.

Irrational Prosecutions the Latest Trend in the War on Voter Registration Drives

project vote — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

This week Project Vote and the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit, on behalf of ACORN, against Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala, Jr. The purpose of the suit is to keep the district attorney from filing a frivolous complaint alleging that ACORN's method of retaining - not paying - canvassers was a violation of state law.
There have been a lot of fireworks surrounding Project Vote and ACORN's highly successful voter registration efforts that helped enfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in 2008. First were the criminal complaints filed against ACORN and two workers in Nevada, and now the impending threats to prosecute ACORN in Pennsylvania raise more hysteria. However, one look beyond the media cries reveals that these cases have nothing to do with so called "voter registration fraud." These cases are based not on charges of submitting fraudulent registrations, but rather on the bogus charge that ACORN violated statutes forbidding compensation to canvassers based on the number of applications they collected.

According to the Pennsylvania statute in question, "a person may not give, solicit or accept payment or financial incentive to obtain a voter registration if the payment or incentive is based upon the number of registrations or applications obtained." The Nevada case involves a similar statute. As investigations against ACORN found no direct violations of existing law, officials in these states have attempted to overreach by narrowly interpreting state statutes to charge that ACORN violated the law for implementing performance standards to determine whether to retain an employee. In reality, ACORN does not, and did not, pay its canvassers based on the number of applications they collected, but does expect individuals it hires to actually collect voter registration applications. By Pennsylvania and Nevada's interpretation of their statutes, however, setting any performance standards-no matter how flexible or reasonable-is a violation of the law, an interpretation that would make it nearly impossible for anyone to conduct a paid voter registration drive in these states.

For such a tortuous stretching of the common sense meaning of a statute, one might look back to tactics last employed in South Carolina in the 1950's to prosecute black demonstrators at lunch counter sit-ins. South Carolina's trespassing statute criminalized "entry" upon any establishment after notice from an owner or tenant prohibiting such entry. This law was used to prosecute two African-American men who had taken seats in a restaurant booth without having received any notice that they were not permitted to do so; after they sat down, employees put up a "No Trespassing" sign and asked the two men to leave. The two men were arrested and convicted by the state, which stretched the word "entry" to include "already sitting in a booth." The convictions were upheld by the state Supreme Court.

In 1964 the case, Bouie v. City of Columbia, reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that, not only was the conflation of "trespass" with "entry" legally faulty, but South Carolina had never asserted this argument before. Therefore, the Supreme Court found "the crime for which these petitioners stand convicted was 'not enumerated in the statute' at the time of their conduct. It follows that they have been deprived of liberty and property without due process of law in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment."

Similar retroactive law-bending tactics are being seen today in Pennsylvania and Nevada. State officials are stretching the statute that prohibits paying canvassers per card (a practice neither ACORN nor Project Vote employs) to claim it applies to any performance standards. In other words, requiring an employee to collect even one voter registration application in order to keep receiving a regular paycheck would be, in the states' view, a violation of state law. Not only does this definition-which has never before been applied in this way-stretch common sense, it would effectively put an end to paid voter registration drives, which appears to be the underlying goals of these tactics.

With five ex-canvassers having already been charged with accepting money under the policy, ACORN-represented by the ACLU and Project Vote-has filed a complaint against the district attorney to enjoin him from criminally charging ACORN for its employee retention policy. They argue that retroactively stretching the statute in the manner proposed by Pennsylvania violates ACORN's right to know that its actions violate the law, and also violate ACORN's free speech rights.

Paid voter registration drives are the most effective way to help give underrepresented communities a voice. Officials who succeeded in applying such twisted interpretations of state laws would make it impossible to run a paid registration campaign, to the disservice of the democratic process and of the communities they serve.

New Project Vote Report Evaluates Fifteen Years of the NVRA

project vote — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:19:36 GMT

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matter's Blog

By Michael McDunnah

Signed into law by President Clinton in May of 1993, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) was hailed by some as "the final achievement of the 1960's voting rights revolution," and proponents estimated that it would add 50 million Americans to the voting rolls. However, in a comprehensive new report released today by Project Vote, The NVRA at Fifteen: A Report to Congress, voting rights attorney Estelle Rogers finds that lack of enforcement, failures of state and federal leadership, and restrictive court decisions have left the full potential of the NVRA unrealized, and have left millions of disenfranchised Americans still awaiting the promise of a truly inclusive democracy.
The stated goals of the NVRA were to increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote, to make it possible for state governments to affirmatively enhance participation, and to protect the integrity of the election process and voter rolls. "This sounds as American as apple pie," says Frances Fox Piven, noted voting rights scholar and activist, in her foreword to The NVRA at Fifteen. "But as Estelle Rogers explains in the report-the first of its kind to comprehensively evaluate the implementation of the NVRA-the reform of American registration procedures has met widespread resistance, some of it attributable no doubt to bureaucratic inertia, and some of it perhaps politically motivated."

During the first two years of its implementation, the NVRA contributed to one of the largest expansions of the voter rolls in American history. But many states have resisted or rejected the mandates of the NVRA since its passage, often challenging them in court, while others have been allowed to ignore their responsibilities due to lax enforcement by the Department of Justice. As a result, fifteen years after the passage of the NVRA, voter registration was once again cited frequently as THE PROBLEM marring the 2008 election. Tremendous disparities in the electorate still remain, controversies rage across the country over voter registration and list maintenance issues, and some seven million Americans-according to the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey-either attempted unsuccessfully to vote or were discouraged from voting by administrative barriers. It is clear that many problems the NVRA sought to address remain uncured, and its full promise remains unfulfilled.

"It is important to assess what has been accomplished and suggest what might be done to achieve the level of civic participation envisioned by the statute's drafters in 1993," Rogers says. The NVRA at Fifteen is the first in-depth evaluation of how four major provisions of the NVRA have-and more importantly haven't-been successfully implemented: the "motor voter" program, establishing voter registration through motor vehicle offices (Section 5 of the NVRA); the creation of a simple, universally accepted mail-in registration form (Section 6); voter registration through public assistance agencies serving low-income families and people with disabilities (Section 7); and the regulation of how states can and cannot remove voters from the rolls (Section 8).

The "motor voter" program is the best known of the NVRA's mandates, and it has also been the most successful, according to Rogers, though "poor training requirements and lack of oversight and accountability of motor vehicle offices have led to problems with noncompliance."

The least successful, "without question," has been public agency registration-not because it doesn't work, but because states are ignoring their responsibilities to provide it. "After initial success in its first two years of implementation," Rogers writes, "Section 7 has been largely neglected (and in some cases almost wholly ignored) by many state agencies. A lack of authority on the part of chief election officials over state public agencies, and a failure on the part of the Department of Justice to enforce the requirement, have contributed to the pervasive failure of Section 7, to the disadvantage of millions of eligible low-income and minority Americans." (Project Vote and a coalition of voting rights groups have been working to bring several states into compliance with the public agency requirements of the NVRA, which the groups estimate could bring two to three million additional low-income voters into the electorate every year.)

The NVRA's attempts to protect eligible voters from improper purges have also been largely ineffective, according to the report. The NVRA lays out very clear criteria for removing voters from the rolls, but "these standards have been often misunderstood, reinterpreted, or ignored by states, resulting in list maintenance and voter purging programs that have violated the NVRA and disenfranchised eligible voters."

In the report, Rogers recommends several ways to improve the implementation of the NVRA nationwide, including practices that states can adopt to improve their compliance and suggestions for legislative changes Congress could enact to give the law more clarity and teeth. But the report identifies "several other more fruitful routes to improving the NVRA."

The Department of Justice, which is charged with enforcement of the NVRA, has recently been "asleep at the switch," according to Rogers. The DOJ has the responsibility to sue states that are out of compliance, and provide standards and guidance for states to comply, but for many years the Department has "simply has not taken advantage of its substantial authority, and the voters have suffered as a result."

"Finally," Rogers says, "the President of the United States, himself a former voter registration organizer and NVRA litigator, has extensive executive authority to breathe new life into the NVRA by exercising leadership over the Department of Justice and over other cabinet-level departments whose programs are or should be voter registration agencies."

As Rogers states in her conclusion, "if the NVRA were-finally-vigorously enforced and properly interpreted, it could well be the transformative law that its authors envisioned."

To download the full report, click here.

To learn more about Public Agency Voter Registration, click here.

Voting Rights Groups Sue States for Failing to Register Low-Income Residents

project vote — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

By Erin Ferns

Enfranchising America's least represented citizens is as simple as following the law: that's the message Project Vote and a coalition of voting rights groups sent today as they filed lawsuits against Indiana and New Mexico for failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
Under a key provision of the NVRA, most states are required to provide voter registration opportunities to the millions of low-income Americans who apply for or use public assistance programs such as Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or Medicaid. Project Vote estimates that full implementation of this law could improve lagging voter registration rates among low-income citizens by two to three million new voters per year nationwide.

Unfortunately, compliance with the NVRA since its inception in 1993 has been spotty at best, non-existent at worst, leaving third-party groups with the hefty responsibility of picking up the slack by conducting expensive registration drives in disenfranchised communities. The groups believe it is time for government to be doing its job of registering its citizens, and to start by properly implementing and enforcing the NVRA.

The latest offenders under this federal law include the states of New Mexico and Indiana, both of which are being sued for denying hundreds of thousands of residents the opportunity to register to vote. Representing the plaintiffs are Project Vote, Demos, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the NAACP, the ACLU of Indiana, and law firms, Barnhill & Galland and Schwartz, Lichten, & Bright, Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg & Ives, and DLA Piper U.S.

Last week, the Election Assistance Commission confirmed that poor implementation of public agency registration is a "widespread problem," according to today's press releases. Between 1995 and 1996 - the first two years the law was in effect - 2.6 million voter registration applications were collected from people who visited offices for Food Stamps, TANF, and Medicaid. That number dramatically declined in 2007-2008, when fewer than one million applications were collected nationwide, according to the EAC report.

The decline was even more severe in New Mexico, where public assistance agencies-despite steady participation rates-showed a 90 percent decrease in voter registration applications from since 1995.

"In 2007 the average number of adult participants in the Food Stamp program alone was over 103,000, but [the Human Services Department] averaged only 134 registration applications per month," according to the press release. "Project Vote investigations of six HSD offices in January 2009 revealed that none of the offices provided voter registration application forms to their clients as part of the benefits application." Additionally, the complaint alleges that New Mexico has also been neglecting the better known "motor voter" provisions of the NVRA, which require motor vehicle offices to offer voter registration services. Officials from the HSD are among the defendants named in the suit, which also includes New Mexico's Secretary of State, Mary Herrera, officials from the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division, and the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department.

"The NVRA was enacted to ensure that states affirmatively provide all citizens an equal opportunity to register to vote," says Nicole Kovite, director of the Public Agency Voter Registration Project at Project Vote. "By ignoring this vital law, New Mexico is denying this right to thousands of its residents every year."

In Indiana - which has one of the country's worst records for voter registration, particularly among low-income people-evidence of violations of the NVRA were also cited in the coalition's lawsuit against officials from Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration, the co-directors of the Indiana Election Division, and the members of the Indiana Election Commission. Although the state currently has more 300,000 adult participants every month in the Indiana Food Stamp program alone, voter registration applications have declined from 80,000 applications collected in the 1995-1996 election cycle to a dismal 2,519 in 2007-2008.

"Voter registration should primarily be the responsibility of the government," said Jeff Ordower, ACORN's Midwest regional director. "Indiana's noncompliance has not only resulted in thousands of low-income and minority Indiana citizens being denied the opportunity to register to vote, it has also forced ACORN, the NAACP, and other groups to expend considerable effort and resources to take up the slack."

As they did in Indiana and New Mexico, the coalition has sent pre-litigation letters "notifying California, Colorado, and New Jersey that lawsuits may be necessary if they do not bring their programs into compliance," the group said. However, the group emphasizes that states do not need to wait to be sued before finally complying with federal law.

"Recently several states that had been disregarding the NVRA have been forced to comply," according to the coalition. "Last week the State of Missouri settled a similar lawsuit brought by the voting rights groups; since a court order in that suit forced Missouri public assistance agencies into compliance in July, voter registration applications skyrocketed from fewer than 8,000 a year to more than 100,000 in just eight months. In 2008, Department of Justice investigations forced both Arizona and Illinois to take steps to improve compliance."

Celebrate Democracy by Including America's Future

project vote — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

By Ari Savitsky and Erin Ferns

As we celebrate America's independence and the birth of its democracy this weekend, some states are moving toward enfranchising its future voters. A growing legislative trend following the jump in youth voter participation in the 2008 presidential election, preregistration allows soon-to-be voters to take full advantage of registration opportunities when they get their driver's licenses, fosters civic engagement in the classroom, and catalyzes lifelong participation in democracy.
This week, two states have taken steps to allow 16- and 17-year-old citizens to register to vote before being automatically enrolled as legal voters at 18, with one Rhode Island bill going to the governor and another California bill being scheduled for a July 7 Senate hearing. In the spirit of democracy, the following are some points to consider for anyone (including R.I. Governor Donald Carcieri and California's Senate Committee on Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments) that supports fostering a civically engaged generation of future voters.

• The Registration Gap: Once registered, young people turn out and vote at rates similar to the general population. So why is overall youth turnout historically lower? The "key difference," in the words of the U.S. Census bureau, is registration. During the 2004 election, more than 70% of Californians over the age of 25 were registered to vote, compared to fewer than 55% of Californians between 18 and 25 years old. Pre-registration addresses the registration gap by creating access to registration opportunities.
• Voting is a Habit: Past participation is a major factor in determining future participation; as important as education, parental voting patterns, or income. Once you vote, it's hard to stop. That makes the first election in which a young person is eligible to vote extremely important. When young people are registered, they will likely vote as soon as they become eligible and begin a lifetime of engagement.
• Best Practices for Democracy: 16 and 17 year olds are driving, working and paying taxes on part-time jobs. We know that getting young people engaged in civic life is incredibly important. But current registration practices make engagement less effective. Pre-registration would allow more young people to get registered when they get their driver's license, or allow a student in a civics class to take the first step to participation.
• Broad, Bi-Partisan Support: Hawaii, Florida, and Puerto Rico allow 16-year-olds to pre-register to vote. Other states, like Oregon and Maine, allow pre-registration for 17-year-olds. Many more are on their way to enactment. Members of both parties have been strong advocates of pre-registration. In Florida, County Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson, a Republican, helped lead the charge for reform because, "most teens consider a driver's license their first - and most exciting - step to freedom. I [wanted] to make it easier for them to take another exciting step toward freedom by pre-registering to vote as they get their driver's license."

Pre-registration is be relatively easy to administer. Voter registration programs at the Department of Motor Vehicles, utilizing the voter registration mechanisms already in place, can simply be extended to include anyone over 16, actually simplifying the process by eliminating a currently non-uniform age requirement.. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds who pre-register will simply remain "pending" until they reach the age of 18. But while such a change is logistically simple, for a young voter-to-be, taking early action in preparation for their first election as an eligible voter is of profound importance, encouraging pride in California's and America's democratic tradition, and instilling that tradition in the hearts of a new generation of Californians.