The right to vote is at the core of direct democratic representation and is the embodiment of America at its best. Voting is a chance for the people to be heard, for the powerful to be held to account, for the spirit of democracy to be perpetuated. Voting is as American as, well, apple pie.
But not since Jim Crow have the voting rights of so many Americans been under assault, according to the president of the NAACP, with potentially millions of people disenfranchised and purposefully blocked from exercising their most sacred right as citizens. More alarming, most of those affected will be minorities, whether black or Hispanic.
Benjamin Jealous, NAACP President, termed the flood of state laws requiring photo ID to vote or restricting voter registration the “last existing legal pillars of Jim Crow.” With 11 percent of Americans now lacking photo identification, such regulations will have a sweeping effect on the ability of millions of citizens to cast a ballot.
Insisting they’re only going after “voting fraud” and illegal registrations that they claim have changed the outcomes of elections, mainly Republicans, across the country either have been or are on the verge of success in dramatically restricting the rights of their constituents to vote.
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, already flush with victory after pushing through one of the country’s most strict voter ID laws earlier this year, is going to absurd lengths to disenfranchise residents in his state.
With Wisconsin’s new voting laws requiring every prospective voter to produce a photo identification at the polls, Walker’s administration is now tinkering with the DMV offices that provide these ID’s.
At least 10 Wisconsin DMV offices are actually being closed across the state in the wake of the new voting law, while the hours of other offices are being expanded in what Walker’s government claims is adequate compensation. Critics are crying foul, claiming the offices slated to be shuttered are in areas with high minority or Democratic-leaning populations.
Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is working on finalizing a plan to close as many as 10 offices where people can obtain driver’s licenses in order to expand hours elsewhere and come into compliance with new requirements that voters show photo IDs at the polls.
One Democratic lawmaker said Friday it appeared the decisions were based on politics, with the department targeting offices for closure in Democratic areas and expanding hours for those in Republican districts.
A high-ranking DOT official rejected that claim, saying the changes were based on economics, not politics.
Rep. Andy Jorgensen, D-Fort Atkinson, called on the state Department of Transportation to reconsider its plants to close the Fort Atkinson DMV center. The department plans to expand by four hours a week the hours of a center about 30 minutes away in Watertown.
Jorgensen said he was concerned doing that would discourage people from Fort Atkinson from participating in elections.
“What the heck is going on here?” Jorgensen said. “Is politics at play here?”
The AFL-CIO reports that at least 50 percent of African-Americans in Wisconsin lack the identification now necessary to cast a ballot in the Badger State, ans that government offices issuing photo ID’s are hiding the fact that basic ID cards are free if they are specifically requested for voting purposes.
North Carolina is a state that has so far withstood the tidal wave of voter ID laws sweeping the nation, thanks in large part to Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of legislation passed by the state legislature that would have mandated photo identification at the polls. But that veto may not stand much longer.
The North Carolina House is currently embroiled in bitter debate over the voter ID bill, with proponents of the new law claiming widespread voter fraud and those opposed to it believing that it is racially motivated, as the ID bill would affect minority residents the most. One black lawmaker said the voter ID bill is “voter suppression,” an “insult to the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King,” and that “I feel like my rights have been raped.”
Voter ID has been one of the most thoroughly and hotly debated issues of the legislative year so far. And with the override attempt coming on the heels of a heated hour of debate on the abortion limits override, tempers were higher than ever this afternoon.
One Democrat after another stood to speak against the bill, mostly members of the Legislative Black Caucus, who say the ID requirement will disproportionately affect black voters, as well as students, the elderly, and women – the groups most likely to not have a driver’s license.
Rep. Alma Adams, D-Guilford, told the House, “I’m partial caregiver to my 86-year-old mother who does not drive anymore, who does not have a drivers license. She’s just one of the many people this bill will impact.”
Adams said the measure won’t restore confidence in government, as its title promises. “There is no justification or data to support the idea that there is a problem with voter fraud in North Carolina,” said Adams. “This bill is about control. Controlling the outcome of the next presidential election.”
“If you’re black like me,” she added, “you need an ID.”
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Tensions hit a high point when Rep. Rodney Moore, D-Mecklenburg, rose to speak. He doesn’t often weigh in on debates, but he said he took this one personally.
“This bill is an insult to me. It’s an insult to the legacy of Dr Martin Luther King,” Moore said. “I feel like my rights have been raped.”
“This is purely, purely an attempt at voter suppression, it’s an attempt at disenfranchisement, and I’m ashamed that this bill is being considered for an override.”
Voter identification is not the point of contention in Florida, where photo ID is already required at the polls in order to cast a ballot. But state lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott are nonetheless joining in the assault on voting by passing a series of aggressive new laws that enforces severe restrictions on voter registration, drastically reduces early voting in the state, and makes it harder for people that have changed addresses within the state to vote.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson was one of many that spoke at a large rally in Tampa this week dedicated to the issue of voting rights and specifically challenging the new voting laws in Florida. Rev. Jackson criticized the new regulations, calling for “an even playing field, a fair referee and transparency” in the voting process.
And even voters that have ID and seemingly are in the clear regarding their voting status are coming under attack in Maine. That state, under a new Republican governor and a Republican-majority legislature, passed legislation banning election-day voter registration, a law that greatly impacts college and university students that may be voting in the state for the first time and may be unable to register beforehand.
Even with that law passed and on the books, though facing strong organized opposition, the chairman of the Maine Republican Party is demanding stricter scrutiny of students that he says are committing egregious voter fraud. Charlie Webster says he has found voter fraud that he calls the “tip of the iceberg”; students at Maine colleges and universities that are paying out-of-state tuition but are currently registered to vote in Maine.
Webster plans on pursuing his case, despite the obvious fact that these students most likely took up residency in Maine after they enrolled in state schools. And state officials dismiss any claims that these students are perpetrating fraud.
Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster on Monday called for an investigation into the voting records of more than 200 college students who he believes committed voter fraud during the 2010 election.
Webster hand-delivered to the Secretary of State’s Office a list with 206 redacted names — all out-of-state students attending public Maine universities last year — and urged the office to determine whether those students voted legally.
“I am convinced that my research proves that [voter] fraud is a problem, and I’ve only found the tip of the iceberg,” Webster said Monday during a press conference at the State House.
Specifically, Webster questioned whether those students had established residency in Maine or whether they voted twice — in Maine and in their home state.
The names were not provided to the media on Monday, only hometowns and years of birth. Webster said if he had access to enrollment data for the state’s private colleges, such as Bates, Bowdoin and Colby, he believes the list of potential violators would be in the thousands.
What can the Feds do about this? And if they can do something about this blatant suppression, do they have the balls to do so?
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
— President John F. Kennedy
With as many guns as people in this country, the Republicans are playing with fire. Just wait till a teabagger is denied his right to vote…
A homeless persons vote counts just as much as a Billionaires vote…and the Republicans can’t stand that fact. Indeed, they do all they can to abrogate that fact.