Julian Brookes reports: "Republican state legislators and governors in a dozen states have been busy this year passing laws that make it harder for voters - overwhelmingly, Democratic voters - to cast their ballots. The measures, from voter ID requirements to cutting back on early voting to curtailing voter registration drives, may seem disconnected, but they add up."
Voter Ira Stafford used a chair to improvise his own voting booth inside a crowded Minneapolis polling place on Election Day. (photo: Bill Alkofer/MPR)
GOP War on Voting: New Laws Could Block Five Million From Polls
04 October 11
s Ari Berman detailed last month in Rolling Stone, Republican state legislators and governors in a dozen states have been busy this year passing laws that make it harder for voters - overwhelmingly, Democratic voters - to cast their ballots. The measures, from voter ID requirements to cutting back on early voting to curtailing voter registration drives, may seem disconnected, but they add up, wrote Berman, to "an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008." As Bill Clinton, quoted in Berman's piece, says, "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."
A new study out today from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law reckons up how many voters will likely be affected. The center looked at 19 laws that passed and 2 executive orders that were issued in 14 states this year. Their conclusion: the laws "could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012," causing Michael Waldman, the executive director of the Brennan Center, to call the new laws "the most significant rollback in voting rights in decades."
As Berman shows, the vast majority of these voters will be Democrats - students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly. Republicans, who've passed almost all of the new election laws, say they are necessary to prevent voter fraud. But as Berman wrote, there's simply "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."
What's really going on, as Bill Clinton, quoted in Berman's piece, says, is "one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today ... [a] disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. 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"
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I can imagine that the new voter laws will do nothing to curb voter fraud (as if it ever occurs!!), but will dissuade many people who are unsure about their voter registration.
Clearly these laws are a disingenuous ploy meant to keep people away from the polls.
Time & space preclude a history lesson, but think of the successful voter suppression in Florida & Ohio in 2000 & 2004 . . . before the roof fell in in 2008.
Vowing that "it will never happen again", the GOP embarked on a uniform, organized program to "clean house", and so far their shameless, immoral efforts are succeeding all across America.
So where is the DNC and the DOJ? Why are RICO laws NOT being invoked in this unified case of organized, naked criminal violation of the 1960's Voting Rights Act and the 15th Amendment to the Constitution?
Steal $50,000 and go to jail. Steal 500,000 votes and go to the White House.
Let's make it a felony to deprive any citizen of their right to vote with a five year mandatory prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for each and every offense, with no statute of limitations.
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