A History Lesson

Voting Rights History Two Centuries of Struggle

Preface

In part, this brief timeline describes an American history of oppression, persecution, and discrimination in regards to voting rights. In all of these cases those affected were not passive victims — rather they fought back with whatever means they had.

Similarly, much of this short summary is presented in the form of legislative and legal milestones. But all of those laws and court cases were the direct result of popular struggles and mass political pressure. In no case did benevolent legislators enact civil rights laws or magnanimous judges rule against discrimination without being forced to do so by we the people.

The stories of the freedom struggles and resistance to oppression that resulted in the milestones presented here would (and does) fill books. A single webpage cannot document the details of those battles, but it is crucial to remember that from every act of oppression grew a hundred forms of resistance. And every victorious milestone on the Freedom Road was achieved with blood, sweat, and tears.

Introduction

The two main issues addressed by the southern Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s were ending the "Jim Crow" system of segregation and winning the right to vote for Blacks (and Latinos, Native-Americans, Asians, and others) in the South and elsewhere.

But the Freedom Movement of the 1960s did not spontaneously spring up out of nowhere, nor did it disappear when its work was "done." Rather the Civil Rights Movement was but one episode in a centuries-long struggle for human freedom and civil rights that continues to this day. The Movement grew out of what came before and evolved into the struggles being waged today. Nothing illustrates this point better than the long battle for voting rights.

Voting Rights Milestones

In essence, the struggle for voting rights in America over the past two centuries has been a two-part battle. The first part was to win citizenship rights for people of color. The second part was to win voting rights for all citizens regardless of gender, economic status, race, or national origin.

1776: Abigail Adams asks the Continental Congress to support women's rights.

Her husband John Adams ridicules her request and vows to fight the "Despotism of the petticoat. "

1776-1828: Struggle to remove religious restrictions

Between the first Continental Congress in 1776 and adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1787 the former colonies evolved into states, some of which barred Jews, Quakers, Catholics, and other "heretics," from voting or holding office. The 1778 Constitution of South Carolina, for example, stated that "No person shall be eligible to sit in the house of representatives unless he be of the Protestant religion." The Delaware Constitution of 1776 stated that: "Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall ... also make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: I, A B. do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration."

When the new United States Constitution is adopted in 1787 (see below), Article VI prohibits religion restrictions: "... but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." But struggles to remove the pre-existing religious bars continue through the early 1800s, with Maryland finally extending voting rights to Jews in 1828.

1787: U.S. Constitution Adopted.

In the debates over adopting the U.S. Constitution there are bitter arguments over who should be allowed to vote. In particular, the slave-states insist that only white males be allowed to vote, yet they simultaneously demand that their Black slaves be counted when figuring up how many members of Congress each state is entitled to.

The Constitutional Convention cannot agree on any national voting-rights standard so they leave it up to each individual state. This results in an absurd system whereby the Federal government determines who can be a citizen for the nation as a whole, but each individual state determines which of their citizens have the right to vote.

Most of the states decree that only white males are eligible to vote, and most limit the vote to those white males who own a certain amount of property. (In other words, if you're an apprentice, or a renter, or homeless, you can't vote.) Since only a small minority of white males own enough property to qualify, the great majority of the population is denied the vote. By some estimates, less than 5% of the population are eligible to vote in the election of 1800.

(Note that under the original Constitution the only Federal office anyone could directly vote for was Congressman because the President was elected by the Electoral College, and Senators were appointed by the state governments. We still cannot directly vote for the President, which is why Bush occupied the White House in 2000 even though Gore received at least 500,000 more votes.)

1777-1807: Women lose the right to vote in all states.

The states of New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey which had previously allowed women to vote rescind those rights. After 1807, no state allows women to vote.

1790: Citizenship limited to "whites."

The 1790 Naturalization Law explicitly states that only "free white" immigrants can become naturalized citizens. Since "white" is defined as pure European ancestry, this effectively prevents immigrants from anywhere else (or immigrants of mixed-race ancestry) from becoming naturalized citizens.

And under the myth that Native-Americans are "citizens" of their "sovereign" Indian "nations" (meaning the reservations), they cannot be citizens of the United States. Therefore, Indians cannot vote.

1788-1856: Struggle to remove property restrictions.

For 68 years there are struggles and movements in the various states to remove the property restrictions on the right to vote. These battles are often bitter and occasionally violent.

1820-1865: Abolition movement to end slavery.

The first African slaves are brought to North American in 1619 (a year before the arrival of the Mayflower). Resistance begins immediately with intermittent slave uprisings and frequent escapes. Often the escaped slaves join Indian tribes who fight to defend tribal homelands against white encroachment and expansion of the slave system.

Political opposition to slavery among whites in the northern states begins to coalesce in the early 1820s. With the founding of the American Anti-Slave Society in 1833, a broad, inter-racial political movement committed to ending slavery commences — openly in the northern states, clandestinely in the south. This "Abolition Movement" grows in size and intensity and is met with increasingly violent opposition from slave-holders and slave states. Abolitionists are arrested, beaten, and murdered, their homes are burned and their presses destroyed.

But within the Abolition Movement there are bitter disagreements regarding the future of freed slaves. Some favor full citizenship including the right to vote, others advocate some form of 2nd-class citizenship without voting rights. Many want to expel freed slaves and send them "back" to Africa (though, of course, the vast majority of slaves have been born in America). In opposition to the Anti-Slave Society, these "colonizers" form the American Colonization Society which sends 20,000 former slaves to Africa where they carve out the nation of Liberia.

1836: Texas denies vote to Mexicans.

After revolting from Mexico in 1836, the short-lived Republic of Texas denies citizenship (and the right to own property) to anyone who had not supported the revolution. All non-Anglos are assumed to be part of that category — even those who had fought for the revolution.

When Texas is admitted to the union as a slave-state in 1845, the Mexicans remaining in Texas are granted U.S. citizenship and property-rights by the Federal government — in theory. But Mexican-Americans who try to independently vote face widespread beatings, burnings, and lynchings — except in cases where large landowners force their employees to vote as a group under supervision of their foremen who ensure that they all vote for the owner's preferred candidates.

After the Civil War, the methods used in Texas and other southern states to deny voting rights to Blacks are also applied to Mexican-Americans.

1848: Mexican-Americans are denied voting rights in the southwest.

Under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ends the Mexican-American war, Mexicans who remain in the new territories conquered by the U.S. are supposed to become full U.S. citizens according to legislation that Congress is supposed to pass.

For California that legislation takes the form of admitting it to the union as a state in 1850. While technically U.S. citizens, Mexican-Americans in both Texas and California are denied the vote through violence and state "voter eligibility" laws. (In other words, in regards to voting there are similarities between the situations faced by Mexican-Americans and "free" Blacks.)

But the territories of Arizona and New Mexico are not admitted to the union as states until 1912. During the 64 years between the signing of the treaty and statehood, Mexican-Americans in those territories are held in a kind of non-citizen legal limbo without voting rights and where their other civil rights can be (and often are) easily violated. And, of course, they also suffer the same kind of violence and legal trickery that is being directed against Mexican-Americans in Texas and California.

1848-1920: Women's Suffrage Movement.

In 1848 the first Women's Rights Convention is held in Seneca Falls, NY. It demands that women be granted all rights as full citizens including the right to vote.

For the next 72 years women — and some male supporters — speak out, petition, lobby, sue, protest, march, and engage in civil-disobedience, for the right to vote. They brave beatings, mob attacks, rape, jail, seizure and destruction of property, forced-divorce (and consequent loss of children), forced-feeding of hunger strikers, and murder, to fight for their right to be full citizens.

1850: Asian immigration.

With the California gold rush, Asian immigration becomes significant for the first time, mostly in the West. Under the "whites-only" clause of the 1790 Naturalization Law, Asian immigrants cannot be citizens — but what about their children born in America? Government officials try to avoid this "problem" by preventing Asian women from coming ashore. Many are sent back, but some avoid detection and manage to get off the ship. And some Asian men marry women of other races — some of whom are citizens — what happens when their boys reach age 21?

1856: Property restrictions removed.

The last state to finally eliminate the property qualification is North Carolina in 1856.

1861-1865: Civil War and Emancipation.

The struggle against slavery eventually leads to bloody Civil War. 360,000 Union soldiers — Black and white — die to defeat slavery. That is 130 out of every 10,000 persons in the Northern states. (For comparison, deaths in the Vietnam War numbered 3 out of every 10,000.)

The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and the 13th Amendment (1865) eventually end slavery as a legal concept (though the actual treatment of share-croppers, tenant farmers, and plantation laborers continues to closely resemble slavery in all but the legal formalities).

But it is still left to individual states to determine who is eligible to vote. Some Northern states extend the vote to Blacks — but most states do not.

1867: 14th Amendment extends citizenship to Blacks.

Under the 14th Amendment all states are required to recognize Black (and white) males as citizens.

But for the first time women of all races are explicitly excluded in the Constitution from full citizenship in regards to voting.

1868: Women petition that womens' suffrage be included in the draft 15th Amendment.

The men of Congress deny their petition.

1870: 15th Amendment extends vote to Blacks.

Adoption of the 15th Amendment in 1870 extends voting rights to Black males — in theory.

In reality, there is massive resistance to the intent of the 15th Amendment, particularly in the Southern states, but also in the North and Midwest. Violence and economic reprisal are used to intimidate and prevent Black men from voting.

The 15th Amendment does not apply to Native-Americans or Asians because they cannot be citizens. Similarly, it does not apply to Mexican-Americans in New Mexico and Arizona because they live in territories that are not yet states. While legally eligible to vote in Texas and California, Mexican-Americans are still denied the vote through violence and economic retaliation.

1867-1877: Reconstruction.

During the Reconstruction period hundreds of thousands of Black men risk their lives and property to vote, and many are elected to office. In fact, for a period in the late 1860s more African-Americans are registered to vote than whites in the states of the former Confederacy.

1877: End of reconstruction, abandonment of 15th Amendment.

Because of widespread cheating on both sides, the vote-count and outcome of the 1876 presidential election between Hayes the Republican and Tilden the Democrat is bitterly disputed — particularly the count in the state of Florida. In the end, all disputed counts are resolved by a special committee appointed by Congress. Republicans outnumber Democrats on the committee by 8 to 7. All disputes are decided in favor of the Republicans by a vote of 8 to 7. Hayes is declared the winner even though most impartial observers believe that Tilden won the popular vote.

It is widely understood that there's a backroom deal with the Democrats who represent the overwhelming majority of white voters in the South. In return for the Democrats accepting Hayes' victory, the Republicans promise that Hayes will remove the troops and officials who have been providing at least some limited protection to Blacks in the South. And that the new Hayes administration will cease enforcing the 15th Amendment and other civil rights laws. This deal becomes known as the "Compromise of 1877." The "compromise" being that the Republicans retain power in Washington while white-racists throughout the country are given free reign to oppress and persecute non-whites.

Hayes takes office, the troops and officials are removed. Civil rights enforcement ends:

Reign of terror. The Ku Klux Klan and other racist terrorist organizations increase their attacks against African-Americans. Blacks are expelled from office. African-American males who try to vote are fired from their jobs, evicted from their homes, beaten, and in many cases brutally lynched. Black property owners are burned out, Black businesses destroyed, and entire African-American towns are wiped out.

Legal disenfranchisement. New state laws are passed to sabotage and render ineffective the 15th Amendment. Among these are the so-called "Literacy Tests" that make it impossible for non-whites to register, and "Grandfather-clauses" that restrict voting rights to those men whose grandfathers had been eligible to vote — a requirement that descendants of slaves cannot possibly meet.

Poll taxes. Many states impose taxes on voting. Anyone — Black or white — who cannot afford to pay the tax cannot vote. Since the taxes are high and have to be paid in cash, voting is thus limited to affluent white males. In effect, this restores a property requirement for voting.

Segregation laws. Laws mandating separation of the races in education, government services, public facilities & accommodations, restrooms, transportation, drinking fountains and so on are passed throughout the South and Midwest. Known as the "Jim Crow" system, their goal is to force African-Americans into feudal semi-slavery. The many Blacks who resist are beaten, jailed, and murdered. Similar systems are imposed in Western states against Latinos, Native-Americans, and Asians.

Within a few years most Blacks are removed from the voter registration rolls and denied the right to vote. All African-Americans who hold elected office are driven out. In Louisiana, for example, by 1900 fewer than 5,000 African-Americans are registered to vote, down from a high of 130,000.

1870-1923: Asians denied citizenship.

The Naturalization Act of 1870 amends the 1790 Naturalization Law to limit citizenship to "white persons and persons of African descent." Thus the ban preventing Asian and Latino immigrants from becoming naturalized citizens is continued.

But the wave of Asian immigration to California and other Western states in the mid-19th Century begins to weaken the "whites only" provision, particularly in regards to children who are born in the United States and are thus (presumptively) American citizens.

In 1898 the Supreme Court confirms that children of Asians who are born in the United States are automatically citizens. In response to this "yellow peril," over the following decades a series of "exclusion acts," such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and "gentlemen's agreements," and court rulings are put in place to limit (or prevent altogether) any further immigration by Asians.

As with African-Americans, Latinos, and Indians, violence, lynching, and economic retaliation are widely used against Asians whether they are citizens or not.

1878: Woman Suffrage Amendment introduced in Congress.

The amendment is introduced in 1878. It takes 42 years of courageous struggle to finally ratify it in 1920.

1890-1920: Some states grant women the right to vote.

First Wyoming, then Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, and California extend voting rights to women. Other states follow.

1913: 17th Amendment requires direct popular election of Senators.

After decades of political action and public pressure from the Populist movement, a constitutional amendment is passed requiring direct election of Senators by the people rather than Senators being appointed by state legislators.

1920: 19th Amendment extends right to vote to women.

After an epic 72-year struggle, women finally win the right to vote. But prejudice and discrimination against women candidates and office-holders continues for decades.

1924: Native-American citizenship.

Congress passes legislation extending United States citizenship to all Indians born in the United States. Many states continue to deny Native-Americans the right to vote using the same kinds of legal fictions, violence, and economic retaliation that is used to deny the vote to Blacks, Latinos, and Asians.

1942-1952: Asian citizenship rights.

In order to strengthen the U.S. military during WWII, Filipinos in the United States and the Philippine Islands are declared to be American citizens in 1942. This means that they are eligible for military service and the draft. (In 1946 this citizenship declaration is revoked by the Recision Act in order to deny Filipinos their veteran benefits, voting rights, and of course citizenship.)

To strengthen the WWII alliance with China, the Chinese Exclusion Acts are overturned in 1943.

In 1946 the exclusion acts against immigrants from the Indian subcontinent are repealed. In 1952 all remaining Asian exclusion acts are replaced by the immigration "quota system" that allows for some Asian immigration but greatly favors European immigrants.

1944: "White-only" Primaries Ruled Unconstitutional.

After the "Compromise of 1877" ends Reconstruction, most southern Blacks are denied the vote. Out of loathing for Lincoln (a Republican), fury at their defeat by the hated "Yankees" in the Civil War, and rage at Emancipation of their Black slaves, southern whites refuse to vote for any Republican for any office — ever. Thus the "Solid South" comes into being — only Democrats can be elected. White southerners proudly declare themselves "Yellow-dog Democrats," meaning that if the Democratic Party nominates a yellow dog for office they will vote for the dog before they vote for a Republican candidate.

In practical terms, the "Solid South" means that the real election is the Democratic Primary because the Democrat who wins the nominatation inevitably wins the general election. In many southern states, the white-controlled Democratic Party decrees that only whites can vote in the Democratic primary. This effectively disenfranchises the few Blacks who have managed to register to vote because they are prevented from voting in the only elections that have any meaning (the primaries).

In 1944, NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall wins Smith v. Allwright in the U.S. Supreme Court which rules that "all-white" primary elections are unconstitutional.

1945-1960: GIs fight for civil rights.

When Black, Latino, and Indian GIs return from the battlefields of WWII (and later Korea), they demand that all American citizens have the right to vote regardless of race. They had fought and died for democracy abroad, yet they cannot vote at home. (One out of every eight American GIs was an African-American; Latinos and Native-Americans also made up significant portions of the armed forces, which for the most part were organized on a segregated basis.)

On local, state, and federal levels GIs fight against the laws, customs, and oppression denying them the vote and other civil rights. Before WWII the NAACP numbered around 50,000 members, in the post-war years it swells ten times to over 500,000.

But the racists who hold economic power and political office — particularly in the U.S. Senate — are too strong. Most legislative remedies are blocked and few court cases are successful. For the most part, the GI movements are defeated and suppressed. Many GIs who had fought to free Europe from Nazi tyranny find themselves imprisoned for demanding the right to vote, and others are viciously murdered — often by police and sheriffs.

Yet despite a wave of repression, they do manage to eliminate the poll tax in all but 5 states. And in 1948 the armed forces are de-segregated.

1948: State laws denying the vote to Native-Americans are overturned.

In one of the post-war period's few successful legal challenges, the Federal courts overturn the last state laws (Maine, Arizona, New Mexico) that explicitly prevent Indians from voting. Violence, economic retaliation, and different kinds of legal tricks continue to be used to prevent Native-Americans from voting.

1954-1960: Early Civil Rights Movement activity.

In the early 1950s, a number of school desegregation cases are filed in the federal courts by courageous students and parents who risk life and property by opposing the segregation system. In 1954 these cases are consolidated and won with the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v Board of Education.

In 1955 and 1956 African-Americans opposed to segregation boycott the city busses in Montgomery Alabama and Tallahassee Florida. These successful boycotts mark significant victories against segregation in the deep south.

Hundreds of voting-rights lawsuits are filed in state and federal courts. Most are either defeated, or if won they are left unenforced. But Citizenship Schools, voter education projects, and "I'm a registered voter — Are you?" campaigns begin to proliferate among African-Americans at the grass-roots level across the south.

1960-1965: Civil Rights Movement demands the right to vote.

With the explosion of the direct-action phase of the Civil Rights Movement — sit-ins, freedom rides, marches, boycotts — voting rights and segregation emerge as the two central issues, intertwined and inseparable.

Participatory direct-action organizations such as CORE, SCLC, and SNCC take the fight for voting rights and de-segregation into the deepest depths of the racist South — Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia. The slogan becomes "One Man, One Vote," and instead of lawsuits the strategy is to organize people at the grass-roots to directly challenge and defy the entire "whites-only" system by demanding de-segregation and the right to vote face-to-face, county-by-county, state-by-state.

Resistance to Black voter registration and defense of segregation by the KKK and White Citizens Councils is ruthless. And the entire range of law-enforcement — from the cop on the beat to FBI Headquarters in Washington — mobilizes to defend the established order. Tens of thousands of would-be voters are fired or evicted, entire tent cities have to be set up to house share-croppers thrown off their land for trying to register to vote. Hundreds, then thousands are jailed. Beatings, burnings, and economic retaliation are wide-spread. Many — the actual number has never been counted — are murdered. This resistance to civil-rights is co-ordinated and orchestrated by powerful political and economic interests.

But the Movement soldiers on, we bury our dead and weep for our wounded but we don't turn back. The Movement explodes in Albany, Americus, Birmingham, Bogalusa, Cambridge, Canton, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Danville, Gadsden, Gainesville, Greenwood, Greensboro, Hattiesburg, Jackson, McComb, Monroe, Montgomery, Nashville, New Orleans, Rock Hill, Ruleville, St. Augustine, Selma, Shreveport, Tallahasse, and a thousand other towns and hamlets. It is a mass Movement of people, not lawyers or lobbyists (though they too play important roles).

1964: 24th Amendment ends poll taxes.

The 24th Amendment prohibits poll taxes in federal elections.

1964-1965: Freedom Summer and the Selma to Montgomery March

During the "Freedom Summer" of 1964 close to a thousand civil rights workers of all races and backgrounds from across the country converge on Mississippi to support voting rights and confront segregation. This is followed in August by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's challenge to the whites-only Mississippi delegation at the Democratic convention in Atlantic City. The self-evident justice of that challenge is ignored by Johnson and Humphrey and the challenge is denied.

A few months later mass protests and marches begin in Selma Alabama. Thousands of African-Americans put their lives on the line by attempting to register to vote in Selma and surrounding counties. They are met with savage violence from police and Klan. They face beatings, gassing, jailings, and murder. Mass marches in Selma, Montgomery, Demopolis, Marion, Camden and elsewhere are viciously attacked. Jimmie Lee Jackson, Rev. James Reeb, Viola Luizzo, and Jonathan Daniels are murdered. But the people refuse to back down and the movement grows as thousands of Americans from all walks of life come to Selma in support. 25,000 people — of all races — march to the Statehouse in Montgomery Alabama, the "cradle of the Confederacy."

1965: Passage of Voting Rights Act.

It takes 57 days of floor-fighting and mass protests in the streets of Washington to break the filibuster by Southern Senators determined to block the Voting Rights Act. For just the second time in history, a southern filibuster on a civil-rights issue is defeated on a bitterly divided vote. The Act is passed.

Though in some respects weaker than what had been hoped for, among other provisions the Voting Rights Act:

Outlaws voting phony "requirements" — such as "literacy tests," — designed to deny the vote to people based on their race or color. This applies not only to Blacks but also to Indians, Asians, and Mexican-Americans.

Authorizes the Federal government to take over registration of voters in areas where local officials have consistently denied voting rights to non-whites.

Establishes that fluency in English cannot be made a requirement for voting eligibility.

1966: Voting Rights Act takes effect.

By the end of the 1965, some 250,000 new Black voters have been registered in the South. By the end of 1966, only 4 out of the 13 southern states have fewer than 50 percent of African-Americans registered to vote. In the following years, Black registration in Alabama grows more than ten-fold, from 50,000 in 1960 to more than 500,000 in 1990. And by 1990, the number of southern Black legislators has risen from 2 to 160 — an increase of 8000%.

But though the legal barriers to voter registration are weakened or overturned by the Voting Rights Act, terror and economic retaliation continue to be used for a few more years against citizens-of-color who try to register to vote, particularly Blacks in the South and Latinos and Native-Americans in the Southwest. The Civil Rights Movement continues the fight, with the "Meredith Mississippi March Against Fear," and mass direct-action campaigns in towns such as Grenada and Natchez Mississippi.

1966: Poll taxes outlawed in state elections.

The Supreme Court finally rules that the use of poll taxes in state elections violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The last remaining poll taxes are eliminated.

1970: 26th Amendment lowers voting age to 18.

Faced with widespread protests against the Vietnam war and growing resistance to the military draft, the voting age is lowered to equal the draft age. (Anti-war protests and draft resistance continue.)

1975: Extension of Voting Rights Act to "language minorities."

The Voting Rights Act is expanded to address voting rights of "language minorities." Based on the determination that voting discrimination against language minorities "is pervasive and national in scope," provisions are added to ensure that citizens who speak languages other than English are not denied their voting rights. For example, non-English voting materials and assistance now have to be provided where needed.

2000: Republican-directed disenfranchisement of Blacks in Florida.

Prior to the election of 2000, Jeb Bush the Republican Governor of Florida — and brother of Presidential candidate George Bush — hires a private company long associated with the Republican party to "purge" the Florida voting rolls of "ineligible" voters. Along with voters who really are ineligible, tens of thousands of legally registered Black voters are illegally stripped from the rolls. When they arrive at the polls on election day, they are told they cannot vote.

This denial of voting rights to African-American voters in Florida is the direct cause of George Bush's supposed 537 vote "victory" in that state. It is this phony "win" (plus the votes of the 5 Republican appointees on the Supreme Court) that makes him President, even though Gore receives 500,000 more votes nation-wide than Bush.

According to the report issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil rights:

Widespread voter disenfranchisement — not the dead-heat contest — was the extraordinary feature in the Florida election.

Violations of the Voting Rights Act occurred in Florida and there was widespread denial of voting rights.

Black voters were nearly 10 times more likely than non-Black voters to have their ballots rejected.

The state's highest officials responsible for ensuring fairness in the election failed to fulfill their responsibilities and were subsequently unwilling to take responsibility.

Had tens of thousands of Black voters not been illegally denied their right to vote, Democratic candidate Al Gore would certainly have carried the state by a comfortable margin — and he would have been President.

Today: Voting rights and the criminal justice system

1.4 million Black men (13% of adult African-American males) are denied the right to vote because they served time in prison. In 5 states (including Florida) more than one-in-four adult male African-Americans are disenfranchised. Latinos and Native-Americans are similarly affected.

From 1980 to 2000 the number of prisoners in the U.S. increased by more than 300% (while total population increased by only 24%). At the present rate of incarceration, the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 6.6% of Americans born in 2001 will spend time in prison. This is the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Despite having served their sentences and paid their penalties, many states disenfranchise ex-prisoners after their release:

14 states disenfranchise former inmates for life.
32 states disenfranchise former inmates while on parole.
29 states disenfranchise former inmates on probation.

Today: Voter Suppression

Beginning with the bitterly-contested Presidential election of 2000, political parties are increasingly devoting energy and money towards "suppressing" the turnout of demographic groups who traditionally favor the other side. The Republican Party is particularly active in targeting naturalized immigrant citizens, Blacks, Latinos, and those seniors who traditionally vote Democratic. Suppression tactics include both legal ploys and outright deceit. Some examples include:

• Voter ID laws. In a number of states, Republicans have passed laws requiring voters to show a photo-ID before they can cast their ballots. These laws discourage voting by the elderly and poor who are less likely to own a car and are thus less likely to posses a valid drivers license or other form of photo ID.

• Targeted voter purges. In Georgia and other states, minority, immigrant, and college-student voters have been disproportionately "purged" from the rolls on various pretexts.

• Deceit. Political "dirty tricks" are increasingly being used by both parties to suppress voter turnout of those who tend to favor the other side. Examples include false notification that polling places have been changed, directing voters to phony email or web addresses where they can supposedly vote online, conducting voter-registration drives and then failing to turn in those forms where a voter registered for the opposing party, mass-mailings of counterfeit absentee ballots with false return addresses, and so on.

Tomorrow: The fight to have our votes count.

In the 19th and 20th Centuries we fought to expand the right to vote. The voting rights struggle of the 21st Century will be to have our votes count. Not the right to have our votes counted — though as we saw in Florida in 2000, that too may be a crucial issue — but rather the right to have our votes mean something.

• The best democracy that money can buy. In the so-called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Republican-appointed 5-vote conservative majority on the Supreme Court decreed in 2010 that secret unlimited corporate funding for political ads is a form of Constitutionally protected "free speech." This decision dramatically shifts electoral influence away from individual voters by allowing wealthy individuals and corporations to covertly buy the election results they want with a flood of cash. At the same time, super-sized corporate campaign contributions given directly to candidates have become a legally-sanctioned form of outright bribery.

• Un-elected global government. As more and more of us have won the right to vote, the power to make critical decisions has been moved out of the hands of elected local, state, and federal officials and into the grasp of un-elected global commissioners appointed and controlled by multi-national corporations. More and more, the vital decisions that affect our lives — decisions on the economy, trade, jobs, environment, worker-safety, privacy, communication, and so much more — are being made by world "trade" organizations such as the WTO, GATT, NAFTA, TRIPS, FTAA, and so on, who debate the issues that affect our lives in secret and issue decrees that cannot be appealed or amended. And their decisions over-ride those made by our elected officials at all levels.

Voter Suppression

John Nichols: Voter ID rule is a poll tax

When Wisconsin legislators passed the most restrictive voter ID law in the country earlier this year, they enacted what legal experts and voting rights activists have correctly identified as a poll tax.

Proponents of the law argued otherwise. They pointed out that eligible voters who could not afford a state ID could obtain one without charge.

With the decision of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to direct DMV employees to refrain from actively informing the public about the ability to receive a free identification card for the purposes of voting, however, the potential that the voter ID law could serve as a poll tax becomes realistic — and legally significant. Notably, the head of the DOT is a former Republican legislator with close ties to Gov. Scott Walker, and the author of the memo on denying information to prospective voters is a political appointee.

The term “poll tax” has a sordid history. With roots in the anti-democratic practice of allowing only the landed gentry to vote, poll taxes became even more notorious when they were associated with the efforts of Southern segregationists to deny the franchise to African-Americans. A critical turning point came in 1962 with the ratification of the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed poll taxes in federal elections.

In 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court used the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to rule that poll taxes were unconstitutional for state and local elections.

And a lot of people thought that poll taxes would be buried along with the rest of the “Jim Crow” restrictions.

That was not to be the case.

The poll tax argument has been renewed with the national push by secretive right-wing groups, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, to pass voter suppression laws such as Wisconsin’s voter ID bill.

The point of this push is to narrow the franchise by making it more difficult to vote. The presumption is simple enough: A more economically elite electorate is likely to favor the conservative policies favored by groups such as ALEC — and its corporate funders — and so it makes perfect political sense to erect new voting barriers for people with low incomes or limited mobility, students and the elderly.

It does not, however, make legal — let alone democratic — sense.

When the Supreme Court took up voter ID laws in 2008, it held that they were constitutional — so long as they did not cross the poll tax line.

Writing for the high court majority, Justice John Paul Stevens explained that Indiana’s voter ID law was acceptable because the ID documents were free.

What’s different about Wisconsin’s law? Citizens face a higher burden. They must either pay for their ID or they must work their way through a bureaucratic maze expressly designed to deny them information about the fact that they have a right to a free ID.

This is a classic poll tax structure. While the law on the books may suggest flexibility, the implementation of the law has been designed to erect barriers to voting by those who cannot afford the fee.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times. jnichols@madison.com

Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/john_nichols/article_86cd87d4-c567-5621-9289-cde13f9c0c31.html#ixzz1XgB92i63

GOP voter suppression evident in New Mexico

JOHN GREENFIELD |
Posted: Saturday, September 03, 2011 - 9

Karl Rove has never been accused of being stupid. Machiavellian and cunning yes, but never stupid.

He is the architect of the don't-get-out-the-vote scheme whereby Republicans have made it their goal to suppress the votes of low-income, young, and minority voters through restrictive legislation and rulings, all based on the mythical specter of voter fraud.

If you want to see the extent of this effort, just Google "Republican voter suppression" and you will see that it is nationwide. New laws in Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and others have put roadblocks in front of these voting segments to make registration and voting as difficult as possible.

We all remember the Rove-engineered firing of Albuquerque U.S. Attorney David Iglesias for refusing to open an investigation into "fraudulent voting" because there was no "fraudulent voting." Here in New Mexico, our governor, who has frequently been slapped down by the New Mexico Supreme Court for her illegal actions, is trying to put up more roadblocks to voters.

State Secretary of State Dianna Duran, Susana's faithful ally, has signed onto the scam by presenting 64,000 names of "illegal voters" to the New Mexico State Police for investigation. I'm sure the state policemen are diligently digging through this list, doing the job that county clerks are supposed to do.

Duran also claimed that 37 foreign nationals voted in last year's election. It's been almost a year since the election, and we're still waiting, breathlessly, for the identification and prosecution of these foreigners.

Fortunately for all New Mexicans, the Democrat-controlled state Legislature sees this for what it really is, a back-door revival of Jim Crow-era poll taxes and literacy tests. They will kill any attempt to make it more difficult to register and vote.

John Greenfield is a retired Los Alamos computer programmer who lives in Santa Fe.

TPMMuckraker

Voter suppression: September 2011

Lindsey Graham Backs Federal Voter ID Law, Calls Restrictions 'The Future Of The Country'

Ryan J. Reilly | September 8, 2011

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

Congress should follow in the footsteps of state legislatures and pass a federal voter ID law that requires voters to present photo identification at the polls, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Thursday.

Graham defended South Carolina's recently passed voter ID law, which is under review by the Justice Department.

Read more »

PERMALINK | 172 Comments | RECOMMEND (0)
Topics: Civil Rights Division, Civil Rights Division Voting Section, Justice Department, Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, Voter Identification, Voter suppression, Voting, Voting Rights Act, voter fraud, voter intimidation

Hans von Spakovsky

GOP Senators Trot Out Hans von Spakovsky To Defend Voter ID Laws

Ryan J. Reilly | September 8, 2011

Hans von Spakovsky

Democrats will have a longtime civil rights lawyer and a law professor who conducted an extensive study on voter fraud testify at Thursday's Senate hearing on the rash of voter ID laws sweeping states across the country. The Republicans will have Hans von Spakovsky.

Read more »

PERMALINK | 22 Comments | RECOMMEND (0)
Topics: Hans von Spakovsky, Voter Identification, Voter suppression, Voting, Voting Rights Act, voter fraud, voter intimidation

Wisconsin

Wis. Official To DMV Employees: Don't Offer People Free Voter-ID Cards Unless They Ask

Eric Kleefeld | September 7, 2011

Image From Laura Gangi Pond / Shutterstock

The Madison Capital Times reports that in the latest development in the controversy over the state's new Voter-ID law, recently passed by state Republicans, a memo written by a state Department of Transportation official instructs employees at the Division of Motor Vehicles not to directly offer applicants the option of a free photo identification card -- but only to assist if people directly ask for it.

The option of free photo identification is necessary in order to prevent the law from clearly becoming a poll tax -- a tax or fee required in order to vote, which was made unconstitutional under the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1964. Unless applicants check the appropriate box on the DMV's new forms, there will be a fee of $28.

The memo written by Steve Krieser, executive secretary at the Department of Transportation, instructs DMV employees: "While you should certainly help customers who come in asking for a free ID to check the appropriate box, you should refrain from offering the free version to customers who do not ask for it."

Fundamental Injustice: Voter Suppression Threatens Democracy

Sen. Dick Durbin calls the recent rash of state voter suppression efforts, "a threat to our democracy." Yesterday he held a hearing on this disturbing trend at which the ACLU submitted a statement for the record.

In recent months, state legislatures across the nation have erected new barriers to the ballot through the passage of a range of highly restrictive voter suppression laws. Regressive measures were introduced in more than 30 states, and thirteen states proceeded to adopt new or expanded barriers to voting.

The newly passed state laws take many different forms, but all have the same result: to undermine our democracy by restricting access to the vote, a right protected by more constitutional amendments than any other. States are chipping away at this core American franchise with laws that require voters to present specific types of photo identification at the polls, make it more difficult to register or conduct registration drives prior to elections, reduce the opportunity for early voting, and disfranchise more citizens with past criminal convictions. These highly restrictive measures make it harder for citizens to get registered and to cast a ballot unless, for example, they have the resources to obtain government identification or to take time off from work to vote during certain hours on Election Day. This is particularly harmful to people with disabilities, people of color, low-income families, students, and senior citizens.

Troublingly, all of these measures have been enacted in the name of reducing fraud — even though there is scant evidence that voter fraud occurs at all, in spite of intensive efforts by the Bush administration's Department of Justice and others to uncover such evidence. As Rep. Charles Gonzales put it at yesterday's hearing, "Despite repeated claims, there are no cases of voter fraud that would be stopped by voter ID laws. The fact is, voter ID laws don't stop fraud, they just suppress voting." No wonder both Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who also testified at the hearing, called these laws "a solution in search of a problem." And while there is no evidence to support this phantom scourge of voter fraud, there is no question that these laws do serve to disfranchise many real voters — with real names and faces.

As Rep. Cleaver also noted at yesterday's hearing, it is regrettable that "as the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial was recently unveiled in our nation's capital … we are still fighting the battle to protect the right to vote — one of the causes Dr. King died for." As we reflect on that cause, we should aim to enact laws that encourage all citizens to exercise their right to participate in our democracy, not exclude them from it. And we must do this by ensuring that every eligible citizen is able to register, cast a ballot, and have that ballot counted.

The ACLU is urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to examine laws in states that are turning back the clock on our fundamental right to vote and to ensure that these laws comply with the Voting Rights Act. You can help by telling Attorney General Holder to fully enforce federal laws and protect every citizen's right to vote.

Learn more about voting rights: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

Americans For Prosperity Accused Of Voter Suppression In Wisconsin Recall Elections

Author Claims People Who “Burden Society” Should Not Get To Vote

Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by billionaires Charles and David Koch, has been accused of attempting to suppress Democratic voter turnout in the Wisconsin Senate recall elections.

Patch.com reported that Charles Shultz, a Democrat who lives in the 10th Senate District, received an absentee ballot application form last week from AFP that contained incorrect information on it. The form instructed him to mail it back to the wrong location by Aug. 11 -- two days after the recall election in his district between Sen. Sheila Harsdorf (R) and Shelly Moore (D) is set to take place, on Aug. 9.

Politico obtained a copy of the AFP mailer, which was also distributed to voters in the 2nd District.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party filed a formal complaint Tuesday with the state's Government Accountability Board over the issue, accusing AFP of "falsely representing the time frame" for the upcoming August 9 recall election. Shultz filed his own complaint with the GAB on Saturday.

AFP may also be getting involved in the increasingly heated ad wars that have been leading up to the recall elections. According to One Wisconsin Now, AFP has reportedly purchased over $150,000 in television ad time in the Green Bay, Madison and Milwaukee areas.

A spokesperson for Americans for Prosperity did not respond when asked for comment on the purchase, but One Wisconsin Now, a non-profit statewide progressive communications network, says the ad buy appears to be an effort to help the six Republican state Senators who were challenged by recall elections after supporting Governor Scott Walker's anti-collective bargaining legislation in early 2011.

Scot Ross, the Executive Director of One Wisconsin Now, said at least one of the AFP-backed ads will air in support of two Republicans, Sen. Luther Olsen (District 14) and Sen. Robert Cowles (District 2). The group has also confirmed a $90,000 AFP ad buy in District 12, currently represented by Sen. Jim Holperin, a Democrat who is being recalled.

Walker's legislation -- which eliminated collective bargaining and other rights for public employees and forced state workers to start paying more for their pensions and health care benefits -- prompted voters to stage mass protests and led to nine total recall elections.

Six Republicans and two Democrats are still trying to keep their seats. One Democrat, Sen. Dave Hansen, fended off a challenge from Republican David VanderLeest in July. If Democrats pick up a total of three new seats in the recall elections, their party will retake control of the Senate and gain an increased amount of influence over Walker's budget legislation.

Spending on the recall elections, much of which is coming from outside groups, is expected to top $20 million. Sen. Alberta Darling, a Republican facing a challenge from Assemblymember Sandy Pasch, is on track to set the record for the most money spent by a state Senate candidate in Wisconsin, having already put more than $600,000 toward her recall effort.

Americans for Prosperity has a history of backing Wisconsin Republicans. The organization previously paid for an ad entitled "Stand With Scott Walker," showing its support for the governor's budget-cutting plan and blaming President Barack Obama for the February protests in the state.

The group also sponsored "Wisconsin Freedom Phonebanks" at the RightOnline Conference in June, in which conservative activists called voters to "get the pulse of the community."

Gov. Walker's ties to the Kochs -- billionaire brothers who are behind the second-largest privately owned company in the United States -- have caused controversy in the past, particularly after an incident where a man believed to be Walker made controversial statements to Ian Murphy, editor of the news site the Buffalo Beast, as Murphy pretended to be David Koch.

In light of the continual protests and recall elections, Walker admitted to making mistakes during his rocky first term but still defended his policy choices. He acknowledged that his controversial budget-cutting decisions could make it hard for Republicans to prevail in the August recall elections.

"If the Republican candidates are outspent two to one, it's pretty difficult," Walker told Reuters about the recall effort, adding that the party will have a better chance of prevailing "if things end up being relatively even and the message gets out."

Most conservatives are slightly more guarded with their personal beliefs on voting. They hide behind “voter fraud.” They use subtle voter suppression tactics like having less ballots or machines in certain neighborhoods. They tend to pick just the right “targets” to ask to prove they have the right to vote. They suggest paying taxes, owning a home, or other qualifiers to limit who should be able to vote.

But it seems the the niceties are over. Now they are starting to just come out and say it.

The poor don’t deserve to vote.

The latest to just give up on the veiled language and simply ask that the right be stripped from the poor? Conservative columnist and author Matthew Vadum. According to Vadum, allowing the poor to vote is like “handing out burglary tools to criminals.”

Via Talking Points Memo, Valdum stated “It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote….Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn’t about helping the poor. It’s about helping the poor to help themselves to others’ money.”

So, if you are on welfare, if you receive unemployment benefits, if you get disability or food assistance, you no longer get to vote because you would vote for people more likely to continue these programs? Wouldn’t it be just as logical then to strip the vote from owners of corporations who benefit from government deregulation? Or the ultra wealthy who vote in politicians who will provide additional tax breaks, or even better, allow they to stop paying taxes on their stock earnings and other non-wage labor?

When it comes to handing out burglary tools to criminals, it might benefit everyone to take a closer look at who isn’t paying their fair share, first.

"H.B. 194, the Voter Suppression Bill, invalidates a vote where a voter properly marks the ballot in support of a particular candidate, but also writes in the name of that same candidate."

Rep. Marcia Fudge says state-approved voter legislation will unfairly invalidate some ballots

A sweeping election reform bill the GOP-controlled Ohio legislature recently passed has stirred widespread opposition. Democrats have even called it the Voter Suppression Bill.

In that spirit, opponents have initiated an effort to repeal the law, House Bill 194, through a voter referendum.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Democrat from Warrensville Heights, sent an email to her supporters on Aug. 22 asking for help collecting the 231,147 valid signatures of registered voters required to put the law on the ballot in November 2012. The signatures must be submitted by Sept. 29 or the law will take effect.

In her email, Fudge laid out several changes the bill makes that she opposes.

"HB 194, the Voter Suppression Bill, invalidates a vote where a voter properly marks the ballot in support of a particular candidate, but also writes in the name of that same candidate," Fudge wrote.

Invalidating a vote, especially when the voter’s intent is clear, definitely is an issue worth examining. So PolitiFact Ohio decided to check Fudge’s claim as she pushes for the law’s repeal.

The section of HB 194 dealing with a redundant write-in vote represents only a small portion of the massive bill. It is clear, however, this piece of the law is not as clear-cut as Fudge conveyed in her email.

The bill defines a ballot as "contrary to law" – such ballots are tossed and not counted – "if the voter marks the ballot for a candidate and also writes in the name of the candidate as a write-in vote," according the nonpartisan Ohio Legislative Service Commission’s analysis of the bill.

However, the bill lays out a scenario in which such a ballot would be counted.

Three conditions must be satisfied. First, the ballots must be centrally counted (we’ll explain this shortly). Next, the write-in name on the ballot must be the same as the candidate marked on the ballot. Finally, at least three of four board of elections members must agree that the name on the ballot is "identical" to the name the voter wrote in.

Daniel Tokaji, an election law expert at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, gave us a quick explanation of the first requirement.

He said the reference to centrally counted ballots is another way of referring to absentee ballots. The law singles out absentee ballots because voting machines at the polls are supposed to notify voters if their ballot has a redundant write-in vote.

But some voting machines allow voters to override the notification and submit the ballot with the extra write-in. Those ballots will not be counted, said Matt McClellan, a spokesman at the Ohio secretary of state’s office.

Now to the stickier part.

The elections board in each of Ohio’s 88 counties has four members – two Democrats and two Republicans. If an absentee ballot contains an extra write-in, the bill says three of the four board members must agree that the write-in is "identical" to the candidate’s name on the ballot. That means the ballot would not be counted if the board deadlocks.

"We can easily imagine this leading to shenanigans," said Tokaji, who has been outspoken in his opposition to HB 194.

Tokaji described a potential situation in which the voter’s intent was clear, but two board members of the same political party refused to agree the write-in vote is identical to the candidate’s name on the ballot.

"Under these circumstances, the ballot would not be counted," Tokaji wrote in an email.

The Ohio Democratic Party, which responded for Fudge because the party sent out the email on her behalf, raised similar concerns about the write-in provision of HB 194.

Seth Bringman, a spokesman for the party, wondered if an elections board would consider a write-in identical to the ballot if the voter wrote "Marsha Fudge" and the ballot listed her name as "Marcia L. Fudge."

"While there are some circumstances in which a vote would count if a voter selected a candidate and also wrote in the name of that same candidate, such a case is the exception under the bill, not the norm," Bringman wrote in an email.

Tokaji reached a similar conclusion.

"The bottom line is that in some, but not all, circumstances, a ballot which has both a mark and the name of the candidate written in should be counted. Which is, of course, not to say that it will in fact be counted," Tokaji wrote in an email.

That some ballots could be counted, though, is a point of clarification for Fudge’s statement.

On the Truth-O-Meter, a statement that is accurate but needs clarification rates Mostly True.

The GOP War on Voting

In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year

By Ari Berman

August 30, 2011 7:40 PM ET

As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots. "What has happened this year is the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century," says Judith Browne-Dianis, who monitors barriers to voting as co-director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C.

Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. "I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP's effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

All told, a dozen states have approved new obstacles to voting. Kansas and Alabama now require would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering. Florida and Texas made it harder for groups like the League of Women Voters to register new voters. Maine repealed Election Day voter registration, which had been on the books since 1973. Five states – Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia – cut short their early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all ex-felons from the polls, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters. And six states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures – Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin – will require voters to produce a government-issued ID before casting ballots. More than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such identification, and the numbers are even higher among constituencies that traditionally lean Democratic – including 18 percent of young voters and 25 percent of African-Americans.

Taken together, such measures could significantly dampen the Democratic turnout next year – perhaps enough to shift the outcome in favor of the GOP. "One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time," Bill Clinton told a group of student activists in July. "Why is all of this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate" – a reference to the dominance of the Tea Party last year, compared to the millions of students and minorities who turned out for Obama. "There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today."

To hear Republicans tell it, they are waging a virtuous campaign to crack down on rampant voter fraud – a curious position for a party that managed to seize control of the White House in 2000 despite having lost the popular vote. After taking power, the Bush administration declared war on voter fraud, making it a "top priority" for federal prosecutors. In 2006, the Justice Department fired two U.S. attorneys who refused to pursue trumped-up cases of voter fraud in New Mexico and Washington, and Karl Rove called illegal voting "an enormous and growing problem." In parts of America, he told the Republican National Lawyers Association, "we are beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are colonels in mirrored sunglasses." According to the GOP, community organizers like ACORN were actively recruiting armies of fake voters to misrepresent themselves at the polls and cast illegal ballots for the Democrats.

Even at the time, there was no evidence to back up such outlandish claims. A major probe by the Justice Department between 2002 and 2007 failed to prosecute a single person for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter, which the anti-fraud laws are supposedly designed to stop. Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud – and many of the cases involved immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility. A much-hyped investigation in Wisconsin, meanwhile, led to the prosecution of only .0007 percent of the local electorate for alleged voter fraud. "Our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere," joked Stephen Colbert. A 2007 report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a leading advocate for voting rights at the New York University School of Law, quantified the problem in stark terms. "It is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning," the report calculated, "than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

GOP outcries over the phantom menace of voter fraud escalated after 2008, when Obama's candidacy attracted historic numbers of first-time voters. In the 29 states that record party affiliation, roughly two-thirds of new voters registered as Democrats in 2007 and 2008 – and Obama won nearly 70 percent of their votes. In Florida alone, Democrats added more than 600,000 new voters in the run-up to the 2008 election, and those who went to the polls favored Obama over John McCain by 19 points. "This latest flood of attacks on voting rights is a direct shot at the communities that came out in historic numbers for the first time in 2008 and put Obama over the top," says Tova Wang, an elections-reform expert at Demos, a progressive think tank.

No one has done more to stir up fears about the manufactured threat of voter fraud than Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a top adviser in the Bush Justice Department who has become a rising star in the GOP. "We need a Kris Kobach in every state," declared Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit. This year, Kobach successfully fought for a law requiring every Kansan to show proof of citizenship in order to vote – even though the state prosecuted only one case of voter fraud in the past five years. The new restriction fused anti-immigrant hysteria with voter-fraud paranoia. "In Kansas, the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive," Kobach claimed, offering no substantiating evidence.

Kobach also asserted that dead people were casting ballots, singling out a deceased Kansan named Alfred K. Brewer as one such zombie voter. There was only one problem: Brewer was still very much alive. The Wichita Eagle found him working in his front yard. "I don't think this is heaven," Brewer told the paper. "Not when I'm raking leaves."

A primer on GOP voter suppression: voter caging

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Republican Party has for many years engaged in unlawful voter suppression. The case of DNC v. RNC resulted in a 1982 consent decree in which the RNC agreed not to engage in voter caging and intimidation activities or to target minority voters. Consent Decree (1982).

Despite the consent decree, the RNC began using similar tactics in Louisiana in 1986. Under the guise of fraud prevention, the RNC facilitated voter caging programs and other tactics. The DNC filed a contempt motion to reopen the case and enjoin the RNC from conducting the Louisiana programs. Once again, the RNC voluntarily agreed to a consent decree rather than fight the claims in court. The result was a 1986 decree [PDF] in which the RNC agreed not to do any ballot security programs anywhere in the country without prior court approval. See Consent Decree (1987).

Despite the consent decree, unlawful voter caging accelerated under the Bush-Cheney campaigns in 2000 (Florida) and 2004 (Ohio), with several of the key RNC voter suppression operatives actually given jobs within the U.S. Department of Justice voting rights section. Voter Suppression (epluribusmedia.org); t r u t h o u t Exclusive | Emails Detail RNC Voter Supression in 5 States. The Brad Blog and Greg Palast, among many others, have documented the unlawful GOP voter caging in great detail.

After the 2008 election, the Republican National Committee asked the federal court to vacate or substantially modify the consent decree. The court agreed only to modify the consent decree. Debevoise Opinion (2009); Debevoise Order (2009). The consent decree remains in effect.

If you want to review additional pleadings, see DNC v. RNC Consent Decree | Brennan Center for Justice.

Now we learn this week of a GOP voter suppression effort in the state of Wisconsin, which may have implications for the state of Arizona.

This has been a Republican tactic for many years, and it's running rampant in Wisconsin. Voter Suppression in Wisconsin, Courtesy of the GOP and Americans for Prosperity | Crooks and Liars:

[T]he GOP and Americans for Prosperity are working behind the scenes on a voter suppression scam that is on a far wider scale, but no different than Republicans have used for years.

Here's how it works: A mailer is sent to registered voters. Any mailers returned by the post office are put in a database and those voters are submitted to be purged from voting rolls. Of course, the targets are never Republican voters. They're Democrats, and generally minority voters in particular. Here's a better explanation from the Brennan Center for Justice:

Voter caging is the practice of sending mail to addresses on the voter rolls, compiling a list of the mail that is returned undelivered, and using that list to purge or challenge voters registrations on the grounds that the voters on the list do not legally reside at their registered addresses. Supporters of voter caging defend the practice as a means of preventing votes cast by ineligible voters. Voter caging, however, is notoriously unreliable. If it is treated (unjustifiably) as the sole basis for determining that a voter is ineligible or does not live at the address at which he or she registered, it can lead to the unwarranted purge or challenge of eligible voters. …Moreover, the practice has often been targeted at minority voters, making the effects even more pernicious. [Brennan Center, “A Guide to Voter Caging,” 6/29/07]

The audio file above is a recording obtained by One Wisconsin Now of a meeting of Wisconsin Tea Party leaders. Here's the plot:

According to the statements made on the recordings, Dake lays out the plans, detailing contact between himself and Reince Preibus, the Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair and Mark Block, state director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin:

1. The Republican Party of Wisconsin will use its “Voter Vault” state-wide voter file to compile a list of minority and student voters in targeted Wisconsin communities.
2. Americans for Prosperity will use this list to send mail to these voters indicating the voter must call and confirm their registration information, and telling them if they do not call the number provided they could be removed from the voter lists.
3. The Tea Party organizations will recruit and place individuals as official poll workers in selected municipalities in order to be able to make the challenges as official poll workers.
4. On Election Day, these organizations will then “make use” of any postcards that are returned as undeliverable to challenge voters at the polls, utilizing law enforcement, as well as attorneys trained and provided by the RPW, to support their challenges.

In the case of students, this is particularly insidious, since a student may indeed be a registered voter in Wisconsin but not have the same address, given their tendency to move at the end of a semester. But you can see what's going on here -- it is a concerted effort, funded and pushed by Americans for Prosperity -- to suppress minority and young voters, and in so doing to win an election by strongarm rather than by votes.

One Wisconsin Now has uncovered this plot with evidence, but don't assume this is limited to Wisconsin. I guarantee you it isn't. They are targeting as many states as they can, but particularly swing states. Expect Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona just to name a few to have the exact same operations afoot.

Think Progress has more details after the jump.

Think Progress » Right Wing Foments Voter Fraud Conspiracies, Hatches ‘Voter Caging’ Plot To Suppress Minority Votes In WI:

Documents and audio recordings released yesterday by One Wisconsin Now document an apparent plot by the Wisconsin Republican Party, Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (aka Fight Back Wisconsin), and various other tea party groups to suppress votes from minorities and students in this year’s elections using a well-documented — and illegal— practice known as “voter caging.” The alleged plot offers fresh evidence that long-discredited right-wing conspiracy theories about massive voter fraud supposedly perpetrated by minorities and others remain alive and well in both the official GOP establishment and its tea party base.

* * *

In the alleged conspiracy uncovered in Wisconsin, Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, whose Wisconsin state chair was previously banned from politics in Wisconsin for three years, would finance a test mailing and other costs associated with compiling the caging list and then coordinate with the Wisconsin Republican Party to undertake an elaborate process to remove voters from the rolls ahead of the election, if possible, or at the polls on Election Day. Tea party groups were to provide the volunteer labor and cover for the activity — with all participants signing an extensive non-disclosure agreement under which they agreed to publicly operate in the name of Wisconsin GrandSons for Liberty, who would also provide some funding for the plan. The Wisconsin GOP would also provide additional funds, trainers for the tea party volunteers and would have a team of lawyers “standing by” on Election Day to respond to tea party volunteers and “bring the police” if necessary. As is typically the case in voter caging operations, the plotters appeared intent on targeting minorities, students, and others from heavily-Democratic areas of the state.

Audio recordings of the tea party meeting where the alleged voter suppression plot was discussed include numerous references by presenters to supposed instances of minorities and college students voting illegally.

* * *

Presenters at the meeting also repeatedly blamed ‘quote unquote Republican’ and Democratic district attorneys, the media, and others for consistently failing to pursue purported instances of voter fraud — especially from the 2004 election in Milwaukee. However, a Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney did in fact pursue such an investigation — which some deemed politically-motivated — of the 2004 election and eventually admitted that he couldn’t find any evidence of a “massive conspiracy.”

What’s more, an exhaustive five-year investigation concluded in 2007 by the Bush administration’s Department of Justice, which was quite keen to investigate such cases, “turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections.” Indeed, the biggest impact of the Department of Justice investigation seems to have been the subsequent politically-charged removal of several U.S. attorneys the Bush White House deemed to have been insufficiently aggressive in pursuing alleged cases of voter fraud.

The total lack of any clear evidence of voter fraud did not stop the right-wing from hysterically and repeatedly invoking the bogeyman of an ACORN-led plot to ‘steal the election for Obama’ in an effort to justify their numerous attempts to disenfranchise voters in 2008.

* * *

While ACORN is now defunct thanks to a discredited right-wing smear campaign led by a convicted criminal [and FAUX News], that has not stopped the right-wing from continuing to invoke it to stir fears over minority voter fraud.

The non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization Demos has just issued a new report examining game changing election laws in swing states, including Arizona. The report, Voting in 2010: Ten Swing States, examines election policies most likely to affect voters and potentially election outcomes in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio. These 10 states were chosen for this report because they are expected to have particularly close elections in at least eight Senate contests and 17 House races, and have each experienced recent problems with—or reforms to—the election process. A summary chart evaluates each state’s practices, and a set of recommendations is offered for improvement of these voting procedures.

The report reviews problematic areas that include: voter registration, identification issues—which can present burdens to those who don’t hold traditional identification such as a driver’s license, provisional ballots, voter suppression and deception tactics, caging and challenge laws, voting for overseas and military voters, and challenges for new citizens and ethnic minorities.

The Swing State review shows mixed results. Arizona tops the list of greatest concern for voting rights and democracy advocates. The climate of fear and ill-will created by the passage of the anti-immigrant bill has many worried that voters of color may be reluctant to cast a ballot, and that Arizona may experience a surge in vote suppression tactics. Making matters worse, Arizona has an onerous proof of citizenship requirement to vote, as well as a history of inconsistently implementing language assistance requirements of the Voting Rights Act.

The "lame stream" media in Arizona, as Sister Sarah would say, devoted hours and hours of coverage to the bogus ACORN "scandal" last year following the lead of FAUX News. It turned out to be a hoax. Have you seen or heard anything in the "lame stream" media in Arizona about the GOP voter suppression documented above? No? You should contact your local news directors, editors and reporters and demand that they report on actual election fraud -- voter suppression efforts by the GOP. Maybe they will be more inclined following the recent GOP Green Scheme Siphon Scandal in Arizona.

The GOP War on Voting

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I have explained several times over the years that the Republican Party has for decades engaged in unlawful voter suppression for which it remains under the supervision of the federal courts under a series of consent decrees. For example, A primer on GOP voter suppression: voter caging:

The Republican Party has for many years engaged in unlawful voter suppression. The case of DNC v. RNC resulted in a 1982 consent decree in which the RNC agreed not to engage in voter caging and intimidation activities or to target minority voters. Consent Decree (1982).

Despite the consent decree, the RNC began using similar tactics in Louisiana in 1986. Under the guise of fraud prevention, the RNC facilitated voter caging programs and other tactics. The DNC filed a contempt motion to reopen the case and enjoin the RNC from conducting the Louisiana programs. Once again, the RNC voluntarily agreed to a consent decree rather than fight the claims in court. The result was a 1986 decree [PDF] in which the RNC agreed not to do any ballot security programs anywhere in the country without prior court approval. See Consent Decree (1987).

* * *

After the 2008 election, the Republican National Committee asked the federal court to vacate or substantially modify the consent decree. The court agreed only to modify the consent decree. Debevoise Opinion (2009); Debevoise Order (2009). The consent decree remains in effect.

If you want to review additional pleadings, see DNC v. RNC Consent Decree | Brennan Center for Justice.

This week I told you about the efforts of the Republican Party to disenfranchise millions of Americans of their right to vote through voter I.D. laws. GOP Voter Suppression: Photo I.D. requirements:

Forty-seven states have enacted 285 election-related laws this year, and 60 percent were in states with Republican governors, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

As you might expect, the usual suspects are behind this undemocratic and un-American effort to disenfranchise American citizens of their right to vote: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the billionaire bastard Koch brothers, among others.

Rolling Stone magazine takes an in-depth look at The GOP War on Voting this month in a must-read report:

As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots. "What has happened this year is the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century," says Judith Browne-Dianis, who monitors barriers to voting as co-director of the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C.

Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. "I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP's effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

All told, a dozen states have approved new obstacles to voting. Kansas and Alabama now require would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering. Florida and Texas made it harder for groups like the League of Women Voters to register new voters. Maine repealed Election Day voter registration, which had been on the books since 1973. Five states – Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia – cut short their early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all ex-felons from the polls, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters. And six states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures – Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin – will require voters to produce a government-issued ID before casting ballots. More than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such identification, and the numbers are even higher among constituencies that traditionally lean Democratic – including 18 percent of young voters and 25 percent of African-Americans.

Taken together, such measures could significantly dampen the Democratic turnout next year – perhaps enough to shift the outcome in favor of the GOP. "One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time," Bill Clinton told a group of student activists in July. "Why is all of this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate" – a reference to the dominance of the Tea Party last year, compared to the millions of students and minorities who turned out for Obama. "There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today."

Continue reading The GOP War on Voting | Rolling Stone.

Keep this report in mind when you hear Attorney General Tom Horne say that Arizona no longer should be subject to preclearance under the Voting Rights Act -- and that he would like to do away with the most significant piece of legislation of the 20th Century, extending the right to vote to all Americans. And beware of tools who write on behalf of right-wing think tanks like the Goldwater Institute (In 2007, the Goldwater Institute urged then secretary of state Jan Brewer to challenge preclearance in court as well), i.e., Robert Robb of the Arizona Republic in this opinion today. Arizona may win historic rule challenge.

September 22, 2010 09:00 AM

Voter Suppression in Wisconsin, Courtesy of the GOP and Americans for Prosperity

If you can't win the vote fairly, suppress voters. This has been a Republican tactic for years, and it's running rampant in Wisconsin. While polls are showing Russ Feingold at a shocking disadvantage to his teabagger opponent Ron Johnson, the GOP and Americans for Prosperity are working behind the scenes on a voter suppression scam that is on a far wider scale, but no different than Republicans have used for years.

Here's how it works: A mailer is sent to registered voters. Any mailers returned by the post office are put in a database and those voters are submitted to be purged from voting rolls. Of course, the targets are never Republican voters. They're Democrats, and generally minority voters in particular. Here's a better explanation from the Brennan Center for Justice:

Voter caging is the practice of sending mail to addresses on the voter rolls, compiling a list of the mail that is returned undelivered, and using that list to purge or challenge voters registrations on the grounds that the voters on the list do not legally reside at their registered addresses. Supporters of voter caging defend the practice as a means of preventing votes cast by ineligible voters. Voter caging, however, is notoriously unreliable. If it is treated (unjustifiably) as the sole basis for determining that a voter is ineligible or does not live at the address at which he or she registered, it can lead to the unwarranted purge or challenge of eligible voters. …Moreover, the practice has often been targeted at minority voters, making the effects even more pernicious. [Brennan Center, “A Guide to Voter Caging,” 6/29/07]

That audio file at the top is a recording obtained by One Wisconsin Now of a meeting of Wisconsin Tea Party leaders. Here's the plot:

According to the statements made on the recordings, Dake lays out the plans, detailing contact between himself and Reince Preibus, the Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair and Mark Block, state director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin:

1. The Republican Party of Wisconsin will use its “Voter Vault” state-wide voter file to compile a list of minority and student voters in targeted Wisconsin communities.
2. Americans for Prosperity will use this list to send mail to these voters indicating the voter must call and confirm their registration information, and telling them if they do not call the number provided they could be removed from the voter lists.
3. The Tea Party organizations will recruit and place individuals as official poll workers in selected municipalities in order to be able to make the challenges as official poll workers.
4. On Election Day, these organizations will then “make use” of any postcards that are returned as undeliverable to challenge voters at the polls, utilizing law enforcement, as well as attorneys trained and provided by the RPW, to support their challenges.

In the case of students, this is particularly insidious, since a student may indeed be a registered voter in Wisconsin but not have the same address, given their tendency to move at the end of a semester. But you can see what's going on here -- it is a concerted effort, funded and pushed by Americans for Prosperity -- to suppress minority and young voters, and in so doing to win an election by strongarm rather than by votes.

One Wisconsin Now has uncovered this plot with evidence, but don't assume this is limited to Wisconsin. I guarantee you it isn't. They are targeting as many states as they can, but particularly swing states. Expect Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona just to name a few to have the exact same operations afoot.

Voter suppression undermines democracy. It is a bully tactic to disenfranchise minority and young voters. If you're as angry about this as I am, consider visiting Save Wisconsin's Vote and taking action.

Voter ID law challenged

August 26, 2011

From the state Senate Democratic caucus, which officially objected to the Justice Department today over South Carolina’s Voter ID law:

“The new Voter ID law discriminates against many voters in South Carolina, and it violates the Voting Rights Act because it disproportionately targets and affects African-American voters. We respectfully ask the Attorney General to object to this voter suppression law,” said Sen. Gerald Malloy.

The controversial law won’t affect upcoming fall elections. It could come into play next year.

It would require voters to produce a valid photo ID when voting, such as a driver’s license, a state ID or a military ID.

The concern is about the law’s impact on the estimated 178,000 in the state who have no such ID. You could get new voter registration cards that include a photo, but Democrats have argued that’s an additional hurdle, especially for seniors and students.

Rev. Jesse Jackson has called it “a plan of voter suppression.”

UPDATE: The Justice Department objection can be read here.

12:08 PM, August 26, 2011 |

Democratic state lawmakers ask U.S. Justice Department to be aware of Cuyahoga County absentee ballot dispute

August 31, 2011

By Laura Johnston, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Six Democratic state legislators on Wednesday blasted state Republican officials for "statements and demands which we think threaten to confuse and potentially dissuade voter turnout."

In a letter, state Sens. Mike Skindell and Nina Turner and state Reps. Nickie Antonio, Armond Budish, Mike Foley and Sandra Williams called on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to be aware of a showdown over absentee ballot applications.

"We think this raises the specter of voter suppression," Foley said in a news conference outside the Cuyahoga County Administration Building. "At some point, if things get worse, we're going to ask them (the U.S. Justice Department) to step in."

The Cuyahoga County Council and county Executive Ed FitzGerald decided Monday to spend $350,000 to mail applications to voters, after Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, banned the elections board from sending the ballots.

The same day, Husted dropped a controversial proposal to block absentee voting by people using ballot applications sent at taxpayer expense in Cuyahoga County, while state Auditor Dave Yost questioned Cuyahoga's authority to circumvent Husted's directives.

On Tuesday, in a blog post titled "The wreck of Edward FitzGerald," Yost reprimanded FitzGerald.

"By his actions, Mr. FitzGerald has declared that he is his own law, that his own judgment is the only standard for his official conduct," Yost wrote. "That way lies the lawlessness that has marked the courthouse there in recent years – and a blemish on the career of a man who began 2011 by cleaning up and trimming down Cuyahoga County government."

FitzGerald arrived late to the news conference Wednesday, where County Councilman Julian Rogers and East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton also spoke.

"We're happy for any support from Columbus," he said. "This is really a statewide issue."

In addition to Husted's directive, a state law that could take effect in six weeks would prohibit county election boards from paying return postage on applications or paying postage for completed ballots.

The organization Fair Elections Ohio hopes to get a referendum on the law, but the group must collect more than 230,000 valid signatures by Sept. 29 to get it on the November 2012 ballot.

Voters to get ID lessons

Educational efforts to focus on ballot law

NASHVILLE — State election officials are planning an intensive effort to educate voters about a new law mandating they have a proper photo identification card to cast ballots in next year's elections.

So is the Tennessee Democratic Party, hoping to counter what state Chairman Chip Forrester says is an effort by the Republican-controlled state Legislature to suppress Democratic turnout in the elections of 2012 and beyond.

The new law, which takes effect Jan. 1, was enacted earlier this year with proponents declaring it is needed to prevent voter fraud. It declares some types of photo IDs valid and some invalid.

But state Election Coordinator Mark Goins says the photo ID requirement also has multiple exemptions, both within the new law and in older laws.

Those exceptions, combined with the voter education campaign, should mitigate the number of people showing up at the polls next year with a voter registration card but without the further identification now required to vote, he said.

"If we do our jobs right, we believe it (the new law) will have limited impact," said Goins in an interview.

Goins' office has already conducted telephone conference calls with county election administrators in all 95 counties for an initial briefing on the new law, providing information the administrators will pass on to all election workers.

Coordinated follow-up efforts will aim more directly at voters, including work with citizen and civic organizations such as AARP and the League of Women Voters, public service announcements, and perhaps even direct mailing to targeted groups. An example of the latter would be Tennesseans who have no photo on their driver's license, as allowed under current law for anyone older than 60.

A driver's license with no photo will not be accepted for voting under the new law. But another new law allows citizens to get a free photo identification card at driver's license stations for voting.

Some other legal provisions that come into play, according to Goins, include:

n Any photo driver's license — even if it has expired or comes from another state — will be considered valid for voting purposes for a registered voter.

n People who are indigent and cannot afford a photo ID can sign an affidavit so stating and be able to vote. Even homeless people can legally vote by following the rules, Goins said.

Critics of the new law have noted that there are indirect costs for obtaining a free identification card, notably transportation to a driver's license station, which in some rural areas may be 30 or 40 miles away.

n While some types of government-issued identification are invalid for voting, including college ID cards and county-issued cards, many others are valid. For example, Goins said the identification issued to all workers for private contractors at Department of Energy facilities in Oak Ridge will be considered valid.

n People can still vote by absentee ballot without a government-issued ID. Absentee voting is allowed for all people older than 65 and some others as well, specifically including residents of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.

Shelley Courington of the AARP said the organization, which has 648,000 members in Tennessee, plans to partner with state election officials later this fall to provide information on the topic, including a teleconference following alerts by mail and Internet to all members.

Goins said the March presidential preference primary will provide an effective test run for the new requirements, allowing further education before the primary and general elections in August and November.

"I think it's wonderful that they are planning to educate the public to all the exceptions, exemptions and nuances," said House Democratic Leader Craig Fitzhugh, who opposed the law in the Legislature. "(But) I still believe it's going to be a detriment to people voting."

Forrester said Democrats are already working on their own voter education materials to be distributed by county organizations and "affiliate Democratic groups" that will "explain in simple, straightforward language what steps you can take to get to vote."

The first pamphlet has already been produced, he said, and was distributed at a Democratic rally last weekend in Northeast Tennessee.

Tennessee is one of six states with Republican-controlled legislatures to pass a photo ID law this year, bringing to 23 the number of states with such a requirement in place.

"The first and overarching concern we have is why was it necessary to create this confused mess of a situation to begin with when they (Republicans) know full well that voter fraud is of almost no magnitude at all in Tennessee?" Forrester said.

The reason, he said, is to suppress turnout among groups prone to support Democrats — the elderly and those "not as well off financially" being examples — as "part of a national agenda that Republicans are attempting to implement all across the country."

The Tennessee legislation was sponsored by the chairs of the House and Senate Republican Caucuses, Rep. Debra Maggart of Hendersonville and Sen. Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro, who have repeatedly denied that suppression of voter turnout was a motive. The only objective, they said, was to ensure that people appearing at the polls are who they purport to be and entitled to vote.

Fitzhugh said that, if a photo ID is desirable, pictures should be made when a voter registers after furnishing all the appropriate identification necessary for registration. Such a system could be phased in with relatively little expense or inconvenience, he said.

Good news: ACLU sues Rick Scott to stop 'voter suppression' in Florida

Rick Scott is sued for the fifth time in almost six months, this time for signing a law that civil libertarians say violates the Voting Rights Act.

By Marc Caputo

Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- A pair of liberal-leaning groups sued Gov. Rick Scott on Friday to block an elections law that they say amounts to “voter suppression.”

The ACLU of Florida and Project Vote filed the suit in the hopes that it would stop Miami-Dade County from shortening the number of early-voting days before its June 28 mayoral elections.

The new law shortens the early voting days – but not necessarily the number of total hours – from 14 to eight days. It also requires an out-of-county voter who tries to change his voting precinct on Election Day to cast a provisional ballot, which can be more easily challenged. Also, the law cracks down on third-party registration groups.

One of the plaintiffs, Tampa Sen. Arthenia Joyner, said the bill passed by the Republican-led Legislature is an example of a “rank partisan agenda” that disproportionately hurts minorities.

“It is un-American to make it a burden to vote. Too many people fought and died for this right,” Joyner, a Democrat said. “This is an abomination. And it’s unconscionable.”

But the sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Dennis Baxley, a Republican from Ocala, said the state needs to ensure there’s no fraud.

The lawsuit is the fifth one to name Scott as a defendant in his role as governor. The other suits relate to drug-testing state workers, high-speed rail, constitutional amendments over redistricting and an executive order that froze state rules.

The suit names Scott’s secretary of state, Kurt Browning, who has defended the need for the law – despite praising Florida’s election system in 2008 and 2010.

The suit doesn’t specifically target the substance of the law, but instead revolves around a technicality in the state’s elections map.

Five counties have a special designation under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires Department of Justice approval for voting changes. As a result, the supervisors in those counties –Monroe, Hillsborough, Collier, Glades and Hendry – told the state they couldn’t and wouldn’t implement the law until they received DOJ sign-off, known as “preclearance.” The supervisors and other elections experts say they never remember the state rushing ahead to implement a law without DOJ sign-off.

Browning told the five counties last week that they didn’t have to follow requirements of the new law.

But Howard Simon, executive director of Florida’s ACLU, said the state can’t enforce the law in some places and not others. So the ACLU sued. He said he believed the law more broadly violates the Voting Rights Act but that’s a “battle we will get into down the road.”

Simon said Miami-Dade’s upcoming elections was more of a pressing concern at the moment.

“Under which rules will this election take place? Will people who relocate have to cast a provisional ballot?” he asked. “The election should not take place under rules that have not been sanctioned.”

Department of Justice says ‘ hold up’ to new South Carolina Voter Suppression Law

1 Sep 2011 Author: rikyrah
From ThinkProgress:

Justice Department Puts Hold On South Carolina Voter ID Law
By Travis Waldron on Aug 31, 2011 at 10:25 am

After months of protest from minority groups, voting rights advocates, and Democratic U.S. senators, the Justice Department declined to pre-clear South Carolina’s new voter identification law Monday, putting it on hold until South Carolina can provide further information on the law, the Greenville News reported Tuesday:

South Carolina’s new voter ID law will be on hold until the state can provide more information to the federal Department of Justice, which says it needs more specifics to ensure that the new law doesn’t disenfranchise voters. [...]

In a letter to the attorney general, the voting rights chief asked questions including how many registered voters don’t have a state driver’s license or ID and how they will be notified of the new law’s requirements, what types of evidence will be accepted to prove a voter’s identity and how those who can’t reasonably secure an ID will still be allowed to vote.

Under Section Five of Voting Rights Act (VRA), southern states like South Carolina must have election laws pre-cleared, meaning the laws cannot take effect until the Justice Department approves them on grounds that they will not discriminate against minority voters. By putting it on hold, Justice is asking South Carolina for further proof that its law will not disenfranchise the 178,000 voters in the state who do not have valid IDs — a disproportionate share of whom are racial minorities.

South Carolina’s Attorney General’s Office insists they have the answers to those questions, but as Ian Millhiser has noted, it’s unlikely that any of the voter ID laws taking effect in Republican-controlled states could survive the scrutiny of the VRA, which forbids both laws that specifically target minority voters and those that have a greater impact on minority voters than others.

I wrote a few weeks ago about this law, and how it was furthering punishing our elders who lived under Jim Crow.

And where is the CBC on this?

WHY aren’t they on tv shows ABOUT THIS?

Melissa Harris-Perry did a good segment on this. http://on.msnbc.com/pubGqY via @msnbc

GOP Official Tries to Suppress Student Voters—Despite No Evidence of Fraud

Posted Thursday, September 1, 2011 in Reporting by Brian Stewart

Maine college students are under attack by the chairman of the state’s Republican Party who recently “brandished a list of more than 200 college students he said likely engaged in voter fraud.”

The problem?

There’s no evidence that any of the 206 young people who voted in recent elections did anything wrong.

Republican Party chair Charlie Webster is attempting to challenge students’ right to register and vote where they attend school, indicating some had registered in their home state and then re-registered on campus, according to a report this week from the Bangor Daily News.

Earlier this week, Webster offered flawed reasoning for the move:

I get tired of talking about this because the law is clear. If I want to vote, I need to establish residency. I need to register my car and pay taxes in that community. You can’t just become a student and vote wherever you want.

But there’s a clear problem with Webster’s arguments—that’s not the law.

In fact, under Maine law, students are entitled to register to vote where they attend school, permitted they can establish citizenship, age, and residency—the latter of which can be with something as simple as a piece of mail or an oath.

And several precedents indicate Webster’s allegations are unfounded. A 1979 Supreme Court ruling said students can list their dormitory as a residence and, in 2008, former Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe said a proposed bill to bar on-campus students from registering there was unconstitutional.

Some—including Ben Grant, chair of the Democratic Party—say Webster’s list is an attempt to suppress young voters, who often vote Democratic. Grant says:

He doesn’t want students to vote in Maine. Everything else he’s said has been a smokescreen. The key issue is people voting in more than one place and that hasn’t happened.

Voter Suppression: Campus Progress Coverage

Webster’s main issue, though, is students registering in more than one place—something that isn’t illegal and that an official told the Bangor Daily News is “actually fairly common and not just with college students.”

Some of the students Webster alleged committed fraud registered in two states, but have never cast more than one vote in an election.

Christopher Knoblock registered in his Massachusetts hometown when he turned 18 and voted there in February 2008 primary. As a student, he cast his general election vote on campus and again the following year on a same-sex marriage referendum.

Two years later in 2010, he was back home in Belmont, Mass., and voted there. He told the newspaper:

I’m surprised to be on this list and I’m surprised that it’s an issue that I voted in Maine at all. We were encouraged to vote when we were on campus, and we were told that voting on campus was legal. I think this unfairly targets out-of-state students, as it’s much harder for those of us who are out of state to vote via absentee.

Voters have no legal obligation to unregister in one place when they move and re-register in another.

And then there are students like Justin Lynch—also on Webster’s list—who never registered in more than one place. Lynch has only cast votes in Maine and never in his home state of New York. The third-year student called Webster’s tactic “a shocking example of government intimidating young people.”

The Bangor Daily Times asked Webster why he included young people like Lynch, who couldn’t have voted in more than one place if they’d only ever registered in one. He laughed and replied:

“I have no idea whether they obeyed the law,” Webster said. “So I can’t accuse them.”

Only he did accuse them. He explicitly said his cursory research was evidence of “deliberate voter fraud.”

And regarding Webster’s claim that students should "pay taxes in that community” if they want to vote?

Perhaps he is forgetting that many students do pay income taxes—for jobs on campus or in the community—and virtually every student pays sales tax on discretionary spending. At the University of Maine, where many of the students on Webster’s list are enrolled, students and campus visitors contribute upwards of $170 million annually to the local economy. [PDF]

Unfortunately, Webster’s list is one of several unjust efforts to disenfranchise or frighten young college students and other Americans from exercising their right to vote.

Brian Stewart is a journalism network associate at Campus Progress.

Voter suppression bills MIRACULOUSLY appear in 34 states, tea party DEMOCRACY?

Posted in the Columbus Forum

Voter suppression laws SPONTANEOUSLY (?!!!) appear in 34 states now.(This article has some examples but frankly, no one is covering this horrendous story.):
http://prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10711/voter-s...
Tell us this is a coincidence... tell us this IS NOT coordinated... tell us how these voter suppression laws are MIRACULOUSLY appearing allllllllllllllllllllllllllll over ma nation.
Oh look... IT IS COORDINATED by some secretive group known as ALEC who is paying for all this training, organizing and coordination. Who is funding this group that claims to only care about limited government, free markets and Federalism and how does voter suppression protect their idea of "limited government"? So only the rich have the control and all the other chattel are limited, I guess.
What is ALEC? American Legislative Exchange Council. Are they evil and controlled by the same people who have been funding the tea party movement?
Explain why this organization is supporting new voter suppression laws all across the country?
ALEC watch: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...
Here is a voter suppression draft legislation created by ALEC:
http://images2.americanprogress.org/campus/we...
Ohio state "Chairman" of ALEC is John Adams:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/07/22/...

In New England, Attempt to Suppress the Youth Vote Backfires

Voter suppression is a nasty virus that is sweeping the nation. Those who are aggressively pushing this agenda want desperately to stop students from voting. The rumblings are beginning to be heard in Maine. From Talking Points Memo:

The Chairman of Maine’s Republican party has doubled down on his crusade against the apparently widespread problem of voter fraud-committing college students, declaring this week that if students want to vote they should be paying taxes.

“I get tired of talking about this because the law is clear,” Charles Webster said. “If I want to vote, I need to establish residency. I need to register my car and pay taxes in that community. You can’t just become a student and vote wherever you want.”

Back in July, Webster made a list of 200 college students whom he claimed are committing voter fraud because they pay out-of-state tuition rates but are registered to vote in the state.

A list? Where would he even get that kind of information? TPM wrote about it in July:

At a press conference at the Maine State House, Webster gave the media a list of over 200 students — their names redacted — who paid out-of-state tuition rates but were registered to vote in the state.

But

One problem. The University of Maine only allows individuals who previously lived in Maine — those who aren’t just living into the state to attend school — to pay a discounted in-state tuition rate.

And Webster provided absolutely zero evidence that the students — the vast majority of whom were born in the late 80s and early 90s, based on Webster’s list — voted both in their home state and in Maine.

So, the Maine GOP Chairman has made a list, with apparently actual proof, of students who are allegedly voting in both their home state and in Maine.

So far the only case of this happening seems to be this one. From the New Hampshire Union Leader:

The son of House Speaker William O’Brien voted in Maine elections and ran for state office in Maine while a student at Bates College in Lewiston, according to a report in a Maine newspaper.

Yes, that’s the son of Speaker of the NH House, William O’Brien. The same O’Brien who had this to say:

‘Foolish’ college kids ‘just vote their feelings,’ New Hampshire speaker says, “Voting as a liberal. That’s what kids do,” he added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack “life experience,” and “they just vote their feelings.”

Back to the Union Leader story:

According to election results on maine.gov, Brendan O’Brien was nominated by the Republican Party in June 2010 to run for a state representative seat in a district that represents Lewiston, where he was attending Bates College. He withdrew his nomination in July 2010.

Then, in November 2010, he returned to New Hampshire to vote in his hometown, Mont Vernon, the Sun Journal reported. He ended up with dual registration when New Hampshire elections officials didn’t notify Maine officials that he’d voted in another state, the report said.

Another little piece of this puzzle can be found here, in the Mont Vernon town website, listing the names of the Supervisors of the Checklist. Brendan O’Brien’s mother is a supervisor of the checklist in Mont Vernon. The supervisors of the checklist are responsible for updating and maintaining the voter lists.

What we know so far is that Charles Webster, Chairman of Maine’s Republican Party is accusing Maine students of voter fraud, in the hopes that he can prevent college students from voting. He made a list, that appears no actual proof behind it. The only case of a student voting in two states that can be proven is that of Brendan O’Brien, the son of the New Hampshire Speaker of the House, who also wanted to keep college students from voting.

Irony sticks her head in the oven once again.

Maine GOP Chair: Students Should Pay Taxes If They Want To Vote

The Chairman of Maine's Republican party has doubled down on his crusade against the apparently widespread problem of voter fraud-committing college students, declaring this week that if students want to vote they should be paying taxes.

"I get tired of talking about this because the law is clear," Charles Webster said. "If I want to vote, I need to establish residency. I need to register my car and pay taxes in that community. You can't just become a student and vote wherever you want."

Back in July, Webster made a list of 200 college students whom he claimed are committing voter fraud because they pay out-of-state tuition rates but are registered to vote in the state.

According to Eric Russell of the Bangor Daily News, in order in vote in Maine someone has to be a U.S. citizen, be 17 years old to register and 18 to vote, and establish and maintain a residency in the municipality where they would register. In order to establish residency, according to the Daily News:

Students have the right to register in the municipality where they attend school as long as they have established residency. They are then subject to the same residency requirements but cannot be asked to meet additional requirements.

Determining established residency is left to municipal clerks and they can consider the following factors in determining established residency: a direct statement or oath, a motor vehicle registration, an income tax return, a piece of mail listing a current address or any other objective facts.

None of these is required, however.

As TPM wrote in July, the University of Maine only allowed students who had previously lived in the state to get the discounted tuition rate -- and Webster didn't have any evidence that the named students voted in more than one state or didn't establish residency. When asked about the specifics, Webster said at the time: "I only dealt with what was the easiest thing to find."

Maine's Secretary of State said he would investigate the allegations.

"We'll let this play out," Webster said. "I'm willing to take the criticism I'm getting. What I find bizarre is that anyone would think I would bring up something that wasn't a problem."

"He doesn't want students to vote in Maine. Everything else he's said has been a smoke screen," Ben Grant, chair of the Maine Democratic Party, told the Daily News. "The key issue is people voting in more than one place and that hasn't happened."

Maine GOP Chair: Students Who Vote And Pay Out-Of-State Tuition Are Committing Voter Fraud

Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster is claiming that college students who pay out-of-state tuition rates and vote in state are committing voter fraud.

At a press conference at the Maine State House, Webster gave the media a list of over 200 students -- their names redacted -- who paid out-of-state tuition rates but were registered to vote in the state.

Webster said he came up with the list because of opposition from voter rights groups to a law passed by the Republican-led legislature in June which banned voter registration on Election Day. A coalition of groups have launched a petition drive to overturn the law.

One problem. The University of Maine only allows individuals who previously lived in Maine -- those who aren't just living into the state to attend school -- to pay a discounted in-state tuition rate.

And Webster provided absolutely zero evidence that the students -- the vast majority of whom were born in the late 80s and early 90s, based on Webster's list -- voted both in their home state and in Maine.

As the Sun Journal reported:

According to Maine state law, students are eligible to register to vote in the municipality in which they attend school, as long as they have established residency there. There is not a period of time required for a person to establish residency. The University of Maine System has different guidelines to establish student residency. A student may only be granted in-state tuition if he or she has proven that she has established residency for reasons other than academic, regardless of the length of time that he or she has lived in Maine.

The Bangor Daily News reported that Carney failed "to provide any further details such as: How many of the 206 students named actually voted twice? How many of them registered in Maine on Election Day? How many officially declared primary residency in Maine?"

Asked for those specifics, Webster said that he did not have the resources to get that data.

"I only dealt with what was the easiest thing to find," the GOP chairman said.

Webster, the newspaper reported, said he had personally witnessed "poll flooding" by special interest groups like MoveOn.org, ACORN and "the Democrat party."

He also wasn't clear on exactly how stopping people from registering on Election Day would specifically stop "voter fraud" rather than simply making it more difficult for everyone to vote.

The documents that Webster provided are available here and here.

Columnist: Registering Poor To Vote 'Like Handing Out Burglary Tools To Criminals'

Updated: September 2, 2011, 5:05 PM

Conservative columnist Matthew Vadum is just going to come right out and say it: registering the poor to vote is un-American and "like handing out burglary tools to criminals."

"It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote," Vadum, the author of a book published by World Net Daily that attacks the now-defunct community organizing group ACORN, writes in a column for the American Thinker.

"Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn't about helping the poor," Vadum writes. "It's about helping the poor to help themselves to others' money. It's about raw so-called social justice. It's about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers."

Most conservative criticism of voter registration drives aimed at poor and minority communities has been under the guise of worries about voter fraud. Vadum's column is notable because he isn't just pretending to be worried about the nearly non-existent threat of in-person voter fraud -- he just doesn't think poor people should be voting.

Late Update: Responding to what he says are misrepresentations of his view, Vadum writes that of course he thinks poor people have the right to vote, he just doesn't want anybody to help them since their votes "could lead to the destruction of the republic."

Vadum clarifies that it is "destructive to register welfare recipients to vote so that they can vote themselves more government benefits. It is even worse that our tax dollars are used to register welfare recipients at welfare offices. It is a policy that would cause the Founding Fathers to roll over in their graves."

But, he adds: "Of course those who are legally qualified to vote should be allowed to vote but our tax dollars shouldn't be used to underwrite the destruction of the republic."