Losing your home . . . and your vote?
As if the mortgage crisis weren't bad enough already, voters who lost their homes to foreclosure last year may be disenfranchised in the November election. A CBS News report this summer explained how voters with outdated addresses on file may face hurdles when they go to cast their ballots this November.
Vote "caging" poses one problem for voters who recently lost their homes. These caging operations send mail to registered voters, usually in low-income and minority communities, and compile lists of the people whose mail is returned as undeliverable. With this information, they challenge those voters at the polls. Voters have to prove their identity, either on the spot or after the election. In the past, these vote-challenge efforts have suppressed turnout by intimidating voters and slowing down lines.
In addition, because voters may only vote at the polling place for the precinct in which they live, voters who show up at their old polling place may have to wait in line, sometimes for hours, only to be told to go to a different site. Or, poll workers may give provisional ballots to some voters whose names don't appear on the polling place rolls. In some states, these ballots will be discarded if the voter did not cast them in the right precinct, even if the voter was entitled to vote in the county.
Election officials should take proactive steps to make sure voters who have moved since the last election--because of a home foreclosure or for other reasons--have updated registrations and know where their polling places are. Lawmakers should also simplify the procedures for re-registration and should require that election officials count provisional ballots cast by eligible voters, regardless of whether the ballot was cast in the correct precinct. Everyone deserves to have her vote counted, and in the immediate future it's important to make sure that those most directly affected by the mortgage crisis have a say in this election.
Update: As Electionlawblog posted yesterday, Michigan Republicans are planning to use lists of foreclosed homes to challenge voters registered at those addresses.
Lawmakers should also simplify the procedures for re-registration and should require that election officials count provisional ballots cast by eligible voters, regardless of whether the ballot was cast in the correct precinct.
I would modify that to state that this should only apply to ofices where the person would be eligible to vote in their actual precinct.
In other words, if you've changed from, e.g., state house district 4 to district 5, but you are still in Congessional District 1, your vote for Congressman should be counted but not your vote for for state representative.
In particular, your vote for an office or referendum that does not affect your actual precinct should not be counted (e.g. voting for mayor or for a tax bill in your old precinct). (You could I suppose justify counting a vote for a house member from another district based on the fact that he still makes laws for the entire state, you can't make that argument for someone who only makes laws for a town you do not live in).
September 11, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Project Vote has a diary up about this here at TPM as well. You can find it here: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/09/mich-gop-targets-foreclosure-v-1.php
September 11, 2008 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
If people haven't changed their address on their drivers license then they shouldn't have a problem. If they have, then they should have changed their registration at the the same time.
Back in 1992 I moved across town not long before the election. It was too late to change my voters registration so I just kept my official address as it had been and voted there with no problems.
September 11, 2008 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read about all this yesterday. It reminded me of Obama knocking Alice Palmer off the ticket for Senator. What goes around comes around? The problem is that everyone else goes down with him as he `gets his`.
September 11, 2008 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks so much for this post. This story is so Republican, it's surreal.
September 12, 2008 5:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I remember reading in Royko?? . . . T. White?? . . . somewhere that Dems in Chicago expected a lot of trouble with voting machines on the southside during . . . I can't remember if it was about Jack in '60 or Bobby in a primary. Their solution was to train and certify vending machine repairmen as voting machine repairmen. At that time these machines operated on the same principle. Whenever the machines "broke down" they were able to send someone to fix them quickly before voters gave up and left.
So, is there anyway to have non-partisan voter assistance booths near those voting places where voter challenges are likely? I don't know who . . . lawyers? . . . Community organizers? People who can help voters from both parties who are maneuvered out of casting a ballot to get back in there and vote? If this is an anticipated tactic, is there any plan to counter it? Anybody? Anywhere?
I think it was about Bobby, and I think it was in "Boss."
September 12, 2008 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Things like this are going on all around the country with different variations on disenfranchisement. It's a disgrace, and a terrifying thought in a race that's sure to be close.
September 13, 2008 2:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
We talk about losing our vote when we lose our home, and the political corruption around using that in the next election. This issue is a symptom of a much larger issue. I think it is interesting how silent the Warren Reports has been about the current significance of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failure on the credit crisis. When Clinton removed the law that prevented retail banks from getting into investment banking that was put into place as a preventive measure after the Great Depression, it certainly contributed to this string of bank failures. They made bad mortgage loans and sold them on the secondary market, then owned them again through their ownership of the investment banks who were buying them. Leaders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were making special deals with our political leaders, and people in these transactions were making a truckload of money every time, politicians included. What about the executives walking away from these massive failures with 8 and 9 figure severance packages? All while credit card holders are blamed for their irresponsible spending and kicked out of their homes for buying ARMs the banking industry aggressively sold them. Punish the little guy, but reward the powerful guy? We don't need to tax the rich more, we need to stop rewarding them for failure at the expense of the middle class. If the next president doesn't start paying down debt instead of increasing it, we will eventually end up under a socialist or Marxist government after the World Bank/IMF bails our failed banking system out when our currency goes into hyperinflation (like what happened in Argentina and Brazil). Then we really lose our vote.
http://www.thetruthaboutcredit.com
Jim Anderson
September 16, 2008 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink