"The good news of the 2008 election was the surge in young voters, particularly young minority voters," says Hess. "The only age group that demonstrated an overall increase in participation rate was voters under the age of 30, and that was largely driven by young Black, Latino, and Asian voters."
The voting rate of Black women under 30 increased by 7 percentage points compared to 2004, surpassing the voting rate of White women in that age group. The participation rate for Black men under 30 surged by nearly 11 points over 2004, and surpassed that of White men in that age group. Registration and turnout rates also increased among young Latinos and Asians of both genders.
The report, which analyses data from the U.S. Census Bureau, provides detailed information on registration and voting populations according to race/ethnicity, income, education, age, gender and marital status, residential mobility, and disability status. It also provides registration and turnout rates for each state with comparative rankings. Maine, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia are near the top of the list, with 78-79 percent of their eligible populations registered. New York, Arkansas, Tennessee, Utah, and Hawaii make up the bottom of the list, all with more than a third of their eligible residents still unregistered.
The surge in minority voting is an encouraging sign, says Project Vote executive director Michael Slater, and clearly had a powerful impact on the 2008 election. However, the report finds that significant disparities in participation still exist.
"Voter registration is the key," says Slater. "Roughly 90% of registered Americans from all demographics cast a ballot in 2008. However, nearly a third of all eligible Americans--over 60 million people--are unregistered, and they are disproportionately people of color, lower-income Americans, and citizens under the age of 30."
The report finds that the disparities, while smaller in 2008, still meant that millions of eligible Americans were left out of the process. If the underrepresented populations were registered and had voted at the rates of those in the overrepresented groups, tens of millions of more citizens would have cast a ballot in 2008, including over 5 million people of color, 8 million low-income Americans, and more than 7 million young people.
"It is clear that traditionally underrepresented groups will vote if given access to voter registration and candidates that speak to their issues," says report co-author Jody Herman. "But it is also clear that we need registration reforms that increase access to registration and promote participation among these groups."
This will be particularly important in the coming year, Slater cautions, as the 2010 mid-term elections may erase the gains made in 2008. "Mid-term elections always see a drop in participation, and if the 2009 Virginia election is any indication, the 2010 drop may once again hit these groups hardest. The youth vote dropped by half in Virginia from 2008 to 2009, the 60-and-over vote doubled, and turnout by people of color dropped significantly."
"It is important that government officials and civic organizations renew their commitment to helping underrepresented populations register and vote in 2010," says Slater.
]]>"For now, there's a lot of bipartisan support to do something," NPR's Pam Fessler reports. "Democrats think a more automatic system would make it easier to get people registered. And Republicans think it would reduce the potential for fraud."
"For now, there's a lot of bipartisan support to do something," NPR's Pam Fessler reports. "Democrats think a more automatic system would make it easier to get people registered. And Republicans think it would reduce the potential for fraud."
Potter, along with Senator John Kerry's general counsel for his 2004 presidential campaign, Marc Elias, and "a number of election officials, experts and interest groups" have assembled the Committee to Modernize Voter Registration, an effort to "upgrade our system and bring voter registration into the 21st century," according to the group's Web site.
The group advocates for automatically enrolling and maintaining current
information of eligible voters through government databases. However,
despite these preliminary efforts to "inform and discuss" modernizing
voter registration, some say it could take years to realize.
"How do we make sure the system is secured and that people can feel
confident that their information won't be in some way lost, stolen or
otherwise used?" Thad Hall, an election technology expert with the
University of Utah, told NPR.
In the meantime, other voter registration improvement efforts are underway on the federal and state levels. Providing for same-day voter registration in Federal elections, companion bills, HR 3957 and S 1986 were introduced in the House and Senate in late October. Both bills are sponsored by legislators from states that have experienced decades of above-average voter registration and turnout, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
"Minnesota routinely leads the nation in voter turnout - usually over 70 percent. ..." said House bill sponsor, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), according to the Minnesota Independent. "Enacting a National Election Day Registration law would do for the nation what same day registration has done for our State - give a voice to all who want to vote."
In support of a similar measure considered in the District of Columbia last week, Senate bill sponsor, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI)blogged about the benefits of Same Day Registration that go beyond getting voters on the rolls - it also helps legitimate voters get counted.
"In addition to increasing voter participation, SDR reduces provisional ballots. When voters who believe they are registered show up at the polls only to find out they are not listed on the voter rolls, they are usually provided a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots are rejected and discarded if it turns out the voter was not properly registered. SDR will allow voters to register on the spot, if they are qualified to vote."
Feingold's bill is currently in the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.
On the state level, voter registration overhaul appears to be gaining some headway. Ohio House Bill 260 was heard Tuesday with a number of updates to benefit Ohioans. The bill would not only follow recent state legislative trends to provide online voter registration, but also allow voters to "be automatically given the opportunity to register when they deal with agencies such as the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services," according to the Associated Press. "Ohioans are already given the opportunity to register when they get a driver's license."
Whether through "modernization," same-day-registration, or simply providing more voter registration opportunities for voters, bringing America's voter registration system to the 21st century - that is, making it accessible to all voters - is key in strengthening democracy.
]]>
Media manipulation by the right-wing to influence public perception has
been a decade-long tactic to undermine voter registration in America.
While the current media frenzy surrounding the community organization
ACORN is only partly related to voter registration efforts, it is
important to note that the attacks have been built on a foundation of
misinformation and media manipulation by the right-wing over several
years, largely surrounding the myth of "voter fraud."
In a press release, the authors say that "...repetition of unverified allegations and distortions was the rule in national reporting of a purported `voter fraud' scandal involving the community organizing group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) during the 2008 presidential campaign."
According to the study, 647 ACORN-related news stories published in 15 news outlets between 2007 and 2008, many of which parroted a plethora of unverified allegations from conservative parties.
"The academic study found that news-media coverage of the voter-fraud charges failed to distinguish between problems with registering voters and actual voting irregularities, which are rare," wrote Chronicle of Philanthropy writer Suzanne Perry, who recently covered "Manipulating the Public Agenda."
"It also found that 80 percent of the stories failed to mention that Acorn was reporting registration irregularities to the authorities; 85 percent failed to report that the group was acting to stop incidents of registration problems; and 96 percent failed to provide deeper context, especially about efforts by Republican Party officials to use voter-fraud allegations to dampen voting by low-income and minority Americans."
A prime example of conservative framing coloring the news, the study notes, is the widely reported August 2009 release of White House and Republican National Committee transcripts and emails. All major news outlet reports on the transcripts - which revealed that former Bush senior advisor, Karl Rove, helped orchestrate the firing of former New Mexico U.S Attorney David Iglesias "for failing to help Republican election prospects by prosecuting alleged instances of voter fraud by ACORN" - failed to discuss Rove's overt plan to attack ACORN's voter registration efforts in New Mexico and other states.
According to the study, this "demonstrates that there are indeed intensive political efforts to influence the national news agenda and to frame news stories by special interest groups."
In the study, Dreier and Martin note that, while the current frenzy is about ACORN, the pattern of manipulation has important ramifications for organizations across the country. "Although the 2008 presidential election is long over, conservative opinion entrepreneurs and the conservative media echo chamber remain fixated on ACORN,and poised to inject their frame about ACORN as an issue in the 2010 and 2012 national elections."
"Were this simply an isolated example of media complicity (witting or unwitting) with political organizations, the attack on ACORN would be of interest only to ACORN, its allies and detractors. But this case has wider implications. Our analysis of the narrative framing of the ACORN stories demonstrates that--despite long-standing charges from conservatives that the news media are determinedly liberal and ignore conservative ideas--the news media agenda is easily permeated by a persistent media campaign, even when there is little or no truth to the story."
In an Oct. 21 feature, the San Francisco Bay Guardian outlined the conservative agenda of using the mainstream media and playing on the public's psyche to promote the Party and its special interests. Bryant Welch, a clinical psychologist, author, and expert on political manipulation, tells the Guardian that "the right-wing commentators' success lies partly in their ability to harness core human emotions such as paranoia or envy."
"This is very, very sophisticated propaganda," says Welch. "I don't think progressives really get it that it's a technique being used all the time."
Republicans approach issues as a marketing challenge, according to George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and author of Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. In the Guardian, Lakoff says that to "counter this tactic...the left would do well to learn how to frame things in moral terms instead of playing defense against right-wing spin masters."
According to the Guardian, Lakoff's advice is to "define the moral imperative behind empowering the people and their government to create a better world, then aggressively push a campaign to do so."
"It's the `this is the right thing to do' approach," he says. ]]>
After the 2008 election, voter registration has become a focal point for legislators and advocates from all ends of the spectrum. Whichever way it is sliced, the number of registered eligible voters has still declined since 2004. As multiple problems have been cited as the cause for lowered registration rates (including mobility issues, unequal access to registration opportunities, voter caging, and even so-called apathy), voting rights advocates as well as legislators have been vocal about their solutions.
]]>
One way the "motor voter" program could be improved, suggests Ventura County Star
editor and columnist Tim Herdt, is by expanding the age groups that can
take advantage of the convenience. Herdt writes about pending
California Assembly Bill 30, which would amend state election law to
allow all 17-year-old citizens to pre-register to vote. Pointing out
that more Californian's registered to vote through the DMV than by
dropping off applications at the county elections offices around the
state, Herdt says lowering the voter registration age would only
maximize the motor voter aspect of the NVRA.
"Now, think about
what age most people receive their first driver's license. It's either
16 or 17, which is too young to vote," he wrote. "There are many
reasons why potential voters from 18 to 24 are the least likely to be
registered of any age group, but right up there has got to be the fact
that at the time it is most convenient for them to register, they are
slightly too young to take advantage of it."
Partisanship has been a battle with passing such legislation.
However, a handful of states - both red and blue - have adopted
preregistration policies. Herdt quotes AB 30 supporter and deputy
director of the New America Foundation Political Reform Program, Blair
Bobier: "As you look at other states, this has been a thoroughly
nonpartisan or bipartisan issue," including Florida, where Republican
Gov. Charlie Crist has been a supporter of preregistration.
The preregistration bill is currently on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk.
While
the motor voter program has largely been a success, enforcement of
other, integral parts of the NVRA have been spotty, particularly in
those that target historically underrepresented low income citizens.
Voter registration applications through public assistance agencies, for
example--a requirement for most states under the NVRA--have declined by
79 percent since the law was first implemented in 1995. Project Vote's Public Agency Registration Project - a joint effort with national voting rights and election reform policy group, Demos
- has proven that bringing states into compliance with the law is an
effective means of increasing participation. The groups' efforts have
helped see states like Missouri
go from collecting a dismal 8,000 applications a year to collecting
more than 100,000 applications in just eight months, and all it took
was following the law.
The recurring theme in overhauling the voter registration system is
improving access to underrepresented groups, which can be facilitated
by implementing or improving existing law. In a recent blog entry,
Demos' Tova Andrea Wang addresses voter registration access for new
citizens, citing upcoming elections in New Jersey and Virginia - where
40 percent of Latino citizens remain unregistered - as catalysts for
rethinking the voter registration process. Wang suggests that the
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency
responsible for implementing the naturalization process, should be
designated as a voter registration agency under the NVRA.
"The
government should start to share the burden of ensuring new Americans
are registered to vote by having the federal agency responsible for
immigrant services agency routinely provide voter registration
materials and information to every new citizen upon naturalization,"
Wang wrote.
"And it's not that new Americans don't want to
participate--once they are registered, immigrants vote overwhelmingly.
In fact, new citizens who are registered to vote have higher rates of voter turnout
than natives who are registered to vote. They just aren't given the
tools to take the steps to get registered in the first place."
]]>
]]> and proven) by voting rights advocates that voter ID is harmful to voters that do not have or cannot obtain required ID (primarily young, low income, and minority voters), the Indiana court's recent decision was based on entirely different criteria. The case was brought on the argument that "Indiana's Constitution requires all voters to be treated uniformly, and that the ID law treats absentee voters and in-person voters differently," wrote Sheila Kennedy, a professor of law and public policy at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs in an Indianapolis Star opinion editorial Monday.
"The court unanimously agreed. If the legislature wants to keep the
law, in other words, it'll have to apply it to all voters, not just
those who show up in person."
However, "partisan politics"
shroud the very simple argument that all voters should have the law
applied fairly as voter ID supporters scramble to keep the voter ID
battle afloat.
In response to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel's
declaration that the judges' decision was "preposterous...partisan
politics," Kennedy wrote that his "rhetoric is unfortunate on a number
of levels. It betrays unfamiliarity with the arguments involved, and --
worse -- paints judges as no more than partisans in robes. Such
attacks, as the Indiana Bar Association pointed out, undermine the
legitimacy of the judicial system."
"In other words," she wrote, "the judges weren't the ones playing politics."
This year, 25 states introduced variations of Indiana's law in their
own legislatures. Many failed to see the light of day, but battles are
expected in at least five states next year, including Oklahoma, Kansas,
Minnesota, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
Mississippi has battled voter ID in the state legislature for years
and--in an attempt to circumvent the legislature in 2010--had plans to
put an initiative on the state ballot for voters to decide. However,
last week, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann announced that a
Republican sponsored voter ID referendum would not be on the ballot
until November 2011 due to complications with state law regarding
signature gathering, according to the Associated Press.
Hosemann's office collected almost 19,000 signatures while the state
Republican Party has 40,000. Ninety thousand signatures are required to
put the voter ID initiative on the ballot.
The postponement of
the referendum is raising suspicions among some. "With statewide
elections coming in 2011, GOP officials may be counting on a voter ID
referendum to help boost its turnout," a Mississippi publication, the Greenwood Commonwealth editorialized Monday. "There is arguably a lot more at stake for the party in 2011 than the congressional elections in 2010.
"That said, the delay could serve a useful purpose if it focuses the
public's attention and that of lawmakers on where the problem of voter
fraud really lies -- absentee balloting."
One of the country's most contentious voting rights issues came back into the spotlight last Thursday when an Indiana court struck down the state's strict photo voter ID law as unconstitutional. The law, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008, was found be in violation of the Indiana Constitution because it treated voters unequally.
]]> According to the Indianapolis Star, the three-judge panel held that the law--one of the country's toughest voter ID requirements--unfairly exempts absentee voters (the main source of voter fraud) and residents of state-licensed care facilities that happen to be polling places. This exemption, the court contends, is in violation of the state constitution's Equal Privileges and Immunities Clause, which provides that "the General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.""Under Indiana law, the court said, it might be reasonable to regulate absentee balloting more stringently than in-person balloting," the New York Times reported. "But the voter ID law does the opposite, the judges said, by imposing `a less stringent requirement for absentee voters than for those voting in person.'"
Voter ID laws have gained a reputation for being the product of partisan politics, with Republican policymakers pushing such measures to fight the extremely rare phenomenon of polling-place voter fraud, while Democratic leaders assert that voter ID unnecessarily disenfranchises the country's young, minority, and low-income voters. Evidence of either have been difficult to prove on a substantial scale, though plaintiffs challenging the law in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Crawford v. Marion County Board of Elections were "primarily criticized for their failure to generate firm evidence of disfranchisement," according to a recent Indiana University School of Law report that examines and documents voter disenfranchisement as a result voter ID in Indiana in 2008.
"Our research helps begin to fill this gap in the plaintiffs' case and presents the clearest evidence yet that photo identification has a disfranchising impact on hundreds of persons who want to have their democratic voice heard."
The report surveys "92 counties in Indiana to determine how many persons arrived at the polls without valid identification, cast a provisional ballot, and then had that provisional ballot counted." Out of 2.8 million votes cast in Indiana on Election Day 2008, it was determined that at least 900 votes were not counted due to lack of sufficient ID. (More than 1,000 people arrived at the polls without valid ID and voted provisionally - only 137 of those votes were actually counted.)
"The major difference between the state court decision and the Supreme Court's decision ...is that the state court was interpreting the Indiana Constitution, while the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution of the United States," the Times reported. "Generally, state courts are given the last word in interpreting their own constitutions."
In spite of both evidence of disenfranchisement and violations of the Indiana Constitution, state officials "ridiculed the decision and said it would be appealed to the State Supreme Court," according to the Times. "At a news conference, Gov. Mitch Daniels, a second-term Republican, called the ruling `preposterous' and said that `there's nothing in the Indiana Constitution that goes beyond what the federal Constitution provides here.'"
The controversial - and now unconstitutional law - set a precedent for
more than 25 state legislatures that introduced similar measures during
the 2009 legislative sessions. So far, Utah is the only state to enact
such a bill this year, which was reportedly implemented with few
problems, though it was tested in a low-turnout election, according to
the Associated Press last week.
The California Legislature approved a bill last week to extend voter registration privileges to 17-year-old citizens. If signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bill would help put California youth on the road to a lifetime of democratic participation.
]]> Nearly half of all eligible voters under age 30 nationwide were not registered to vote in 2008. Assembly Bill 30 extends voter registration opportunities to all 17-year-olds, not just those who will be 18 by the next election, as current California law allows. This change would "make implementation of preregistration more efficient and streamlined, and should lead to less confusion," wrote Elizabeth Wu of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy group, in a press release Tuesday. AB 30 would more effectively reach young people in high school civics classes and voter registration drives, and ultimately get them on the rolls in advance of turning the legal voting age of 18.Voter registration is "one of the largest barriers to voting," said Steven Hill, director of the foundation's Political Reform Program, because "citizens often become energized by candidates or issue campaigns in the last weeks of an election only to find they are not registered to vote." The idea of allowing young people to register in advance not only has them ready to participate upon turning 18, but it also instills civic duty at an early age.
"Research has demonstrated that developing good 'political engagement' habits at a younger age will increase the likelihood of civic participation as an adult," said Hill. "AB 30 will help break the 'disengagement cycle' that often prevents young people from developing habits of participation that carry over into their adult years."
While several states like California already permit certain 17-year-old citizens to preregister to vote, only five extend the opportunity to all 16 or 17-year-olds. States with laws similar to the pending AB 30 include Louisiana and Oregon. Preregistration is also extended to citizens as young as 16 in states like Hawaii, Florida, and most recently, North Carolina, which passed House Bill 908 into law last month.
Rhode Island also passed a preregistration bill earlier this summer, only to be vetoed by Governor Donald Carcieri. However, FairVote - a voting rights group that has long championed preregistration in the state - hopes that with the "huge majorities in favor of the bill in both the RI House and Senate this year," the General Assembly will override the governor's veto, according to a July blog entry. Proving to be a popular year for preregistration, a similar measure was adopted by the Michigan House. The pending HB 4261 awaits a hearing in the Senate Committee on Campaign and Election Oversight.
To monitor the California and Michigan bills, visit www.ElectionLegislation.org.
Last month, we reported that citizens are becoming more sympathetic to voting rights restoration as they realize disenfranchisement of released felons does not just unnecessarily punish the ex-offender, but also the voice of their communities. This news resonated recently in the states of Wisconsin and Virginia - one of which has hopes of restoring the rights of some 40,000 ex-offenders while the other is criticized for "lagging" in restoration of civil rights.
]]> "Ex-offenders are expected to re-integrate, pay taxes and become law-abiding citizens, but are prevented from helping to create the laws they must obey," said Paige Hodges, a grant writer for Total Action Against Poverty in Virginia's Roanoke Times Tuesday. "The most fundamental expression of democracy -- the right to vote -- is marred in our state's constitution by legalized, permanent disenfranchisement."Virginia is one of only two states that permanently bar felons from voting, resulting in the disenfranchisement of 300,000 citizens that have completed their sentences. "Convicted felons in Virginia who want their rights back must petition the governor in what can be a lengthy process," according to Roanoke Times reporter, Lawrence Hammack. "Once they are out of prison and off probation, there's a waiting period of three years for nonviolent offenders and five years for violent offenders and drug dealers."
Although advocates commend Governor Tim Kaine for restoring the rights of more ex-offenders than any governor since 1938, they say that "the system remains too cumbersome" with only 3,958 felons that have regained their civil rights, not to mention a racial disparity in the voters the disenfranchisement law affects.
"It takes at least six months to conduct criminal background checks and complete the paperwork for each case," Hammack wrote. "That means if everyone who is eligible were to apply, it would take more than 200 years to process all the applications, according to a study by the Advancement Project, a policy and legal action group committed to racial justice."
"It's a Jim Crow-era law that has no business being in our constitution," said Hodges, who is working with other communities groups to organize an event this week to help "spread the word to convicted felons who may be eligible to have their rights restored."
Illustrating the disenfranchisement laws that blatantly targeted African Americans in the development of the state constitution in 1902, Hammock included a disturbing quote from then Delegate Carter Glass: "This plan will eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this state in less than five years, so that in no single county ... will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government."
As in many states with strict disenfranchisement laws, the African American population is most impacted. According to the Advancement Project report, "about half of the convicted felons barred from voting in Virginia are black...even though blacks constitute less than 20 percent of the state's voting-age population," Hammock wrote.
This very issue was recently discussed in Wisconsin where African Americans make up a majority of its 40,000 disenfranchised parolees that would potentially regain their voting rights if Assembly Bill 353 gains traction, according to a Wisconsin Public Radio report (a written summary can be found at Fox 21 KQDS).
This year brings higher hopes for passing a bill to extend voting rights to parolees, according to WPR, as it not only expands the electorate to include more citizens, but also saves the state money. According to state elections board director Kevin Kennedy, the bill would actually save the state $13,000 by eliminating the need to generate lists of ex-offenders for poll workers to review. Assembly member and bill sponsor, Tamara D. Grigsby (D-18) said the "simple act of voting makes ex-offenders feel more connected to their communities and is an important step to rehabilitation," KQDS reported.
Monitor Wisconsin Assembly Bill 353 at Project Vote's election bill tracking Web site, www.ElectionLegislation.org.
]]>by Michael McDunnah
A New York Times story this week reported that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is planning to return the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to its historical mission: protecting the civil rights of Americans. According to the article, the new attorney general is committed to "a revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies...where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly," including housing, employment, lending practices, and voting rights. ]]> That Attorney General Holder is committed to refocusing the Civil Rights Division on enforcement is admirable and encouraging. That these plans represent such a "reshaping" of the DOJ that they become front-page news, on the other hand, is a sad testament to the tainted legacy of the Bush Administration and a reminder of just how far the department Holder has inherited strayed from its intended purpose over the previous eight years--particularly in the area of voting rights.As the Times editorialized yesterday, "the Bush administration declared war on the whole idea of civil rights, in a way that no administration of either party had since the passage of the nation's civil rights laws in the 1960s." For most of the decade we saw a DOJ that was more interested in suppressing voting rights than protecting them--one that refused to investigate or prosecute real rights violations, and instead brought its significant power to bear on attacking voter registration organizations attempting to empower eligible minority and low-income Americans.
The most egregious example of this partisan repurposing of the DOJ came to be known as the U.S. Attorneygate scandal. Earlier this month the House Judiciary Committee released thousands of pages of documents--including transcripts of interviews with former White House adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers--that provide the most damning evidence yet of how the White House brought unprecedented political pressure on the DOJ to pursue a partisan effort to hamper voter registration efforts and suppress turnout at the polls. This far-reaching (and still unfolding) scandal arose out of inquiries into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys, including David Iglesias, the former Republican U.S. attorney in New Mexico. Iglesias has said he was forced from his post when he refused pressure from White House adviser Rove and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to bring trumped-up charges against the voter registration group ACORN in 2004 and 2006. The resulting scandal ultimately led to the resignations of Rove, Gonzales, and several DOJ officials.
"Under the Bush regime," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said in a statement August 11, "honest and well-performing US Attorneys were fired for petty patronage, political horsetrading and, in the most egregious case of political abuse of the US Attorney corps - that of US Attorney Iglesias - because he refused to use his office to help Republicans win elections."
While the U.S. Attorneygate scandal was the most sensational example of the partisan perversion of the DOJ to actively suppress the rights of voters, the Bush era was also marked by selective inaction. While trumped up charges of voter fraud were being investigated, widespread violations of voting rights laws went unchallenged. The least known--and perhaps most important--of these neglected and largely unenforced federal laws is Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act (commonly called the "motor-voter" law), which requires public assistance agencies to offer the opportunity to register to vote with every application for benefits, recertification, or change of address form. While it has the potential to help millions of low-income Americans register to vote every year, this requirement of the NVRA has been largely ignored by many states, and voter registration applications through public assistance agencies are a fraction of what they should be. The DOJ is the only federal agency with both the power and the mandate to compel compliance with the public agency registration requirement of the NVRA yet, despite flagrant non-compliance from more than a dozen states, the DOJ brought only one lawsuit (in Tennessee) between 2000 and 2008.
The current DOJ seems headed in the right direction; the administration has made its commitment to voting rights clear, and the DOJ has indicated that aggressive enforcement of the NVRA is a top priority. The DOJ is already taking the essential first step to facilitate this work in non-compliant states, and to make possible the entire aggressive agenda of civil rights enforcement Holder has proposed: hiring new lawyers. The division's ranks of qualified and dedicated civil rights attorneys were decimated during the Bush years by partisan hiring, firing, and promotion policies, as well as a high rate of turnover. "The Obama White House has also proposed a hiring spree that would swell the ranks of several hundred civil rights lawyers with more than 50 additional lawyers," the Times reports.
There are other signs of progress. Under the Voting Rights Act, states with a history of discriminatory election practices are required to seek federal approval before changing election rules. As the Times article mentions, the Bush administration DOJ signed off on a Georgia law requiring voters to provide photo ID, despite its disproportionate impact on minority voters. In May 2009, however, the DOJ blockedblocked a similar Georgia law that would have required voters to provide proof-of-citizenship to register to vote, a law Loretta King, the acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said was "seriously flawed," and "frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian, and/or Hispanic voters to additional, and, more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote."
In its editorial yesterday, the Times summarized the proper and vital role that the Civil Rights Division plays in ensuring that every eligible American can vote. "The division needs to drop the Bush-era obsession with the overblown problem of vote fraud and put the emphasis back where it should be -- making sure protected groups are not denied the right to vote. It has to ensure that the voter rolls are not being illegally purged, and that political operatives are not engaging in dirty tricks to suppress the minority vote. It also needs to make state and local governments comply with the `motor voter' law, which requires registration to be available at motor vehicle bureaus and welfare offices."
As Holder says in the Times report, "the wounds that were inflicted on this division were deep, and it will take some time for them to fully heal." But the voting rights community can take hope from these first, encouraging signs that the attorney general and the administration are committed to restoring the integrity of the DOJ, revitalizing the Civil Rights Division, and aggressively protecting and enforcing our nation's hard-won voting rights laws.
]]>"I know it's an additional workload issue," says Rick Bengsston, Acting Director of El Paso County Department of Human Services ."But if it becomes part of the daily process, it really isn't that difficult to get this done."
Earlier this summer, Project Vote was working with Colorado officials to bring the state into compliance, and determined that the densely populated El Paso County was seriously out of step with the NVRA. After being notified of their noncompliance in all four public assistance sites--which provide TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid, and other benefits--Bengtsson and the Colorado Benefits Management System collaborated to integrate voter registration with regular services.
As a result, the number of clients offered voter registration services at El Paso County agencies has increased sevenfold since April. How did they make such a quick turnaround?
According to Bengsston, it was simply by making voter registration a part of the every day workload, and by holding offices accountable. "The first thing we did was make sure we had sufficient [voter registration] forms in stock," Bengtsson said. Then, they made sure every site attached voter registration applications to every public assistance form, and implemented a staff training on the NVRA and how to apply it to public assistance services.
Finally, to keep all sites accountable for providing voter registration services, Bengtsson appointed the Dept. of Human Services' quality assurance specialist to monitor voter registration at all public assistance sites in addition to the public assistance data she was already collecting.
"She now is collecting, reviewing, and tabulating the [voter registration] numbers, so she can report back to each of our managers to ensure that the appropriate steps are being taken, and that forms are being properly filled out and forwarded to the clerk and recorder," he said.
Establishing a system to monitor and evaluate agency compliance is one of the most important steps that Project Vote and its partners recommend to ensure best practices, and Bengtsson agrees. "I think the big point is having one person who is not only accountable for collecting the forms, but knowing that we're in compliance. It helps to have a compliance specialist, someone who is really analyzing and ensuring that we're following the law."
Bengtsson says another important component in keeping this opportunity available for low-income citizens is "helping staff understand the importance" of providing voter registration at public assistance agencies. "It's the law - and it's an opportunity for our citizens to participate in our political process."
Having only learned of the NVRA's mandates earlier this summer, El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark's main mission in providing voter registration at public assistance agencies is to make sure the county is following federal law. While expressing concerns that increasingly high numbers of public assistance clients and declining resources could impede their ability to facilitate voter registration properly, Clark recognizes the importance of voter registration access, particularly for the people that they serve.
"A majority of our clients don't have adequate transportation, and aren't in jobs that allow flexibility to go to the clerk and recorder's office during the day, so there is sometimes more concern about their basic needs than to register to vote," she said. "But I do think that offering the service in the agency - and they do visit us on a fairly regular basis - ensures that they are given the information they need to make the decision about whether they should register to vote or not."
Both Clark and Bengtsson agree that working with other state leaders to efficiently make voter registration part of the state's services is key to successfully helping citizens in need not only get public assistance, but also get a chance to participate in the democratic process.
"I think that our workers really understand the reasons behind the law, and the reasoning is to ensure that citizens who are sometimes disenfranchised have easy access to their fundamental privileges of voting." Clark said.
In May 2009, however, the DOJ found that the system was not only in violation of federal law, but also "seriously flawed," erroneously flagging a disproportionate number of African-American, Latino, and Asian-American citizens as ineligible voters. In a letter to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division Loretta King explained that the state's citizen checking procedure was inaccurate, unreliable, and worse, discriminatory.
According to King's letter, 7,007 registrants and voters had been flagged as potential non-citizens, more than half of whom were wrongfully challenged and required to go through extra, time-sensitive hurdles to prove that they are indeed eligible to vote. "Perhaps the most telling statistic concerns the effect of the verification process on native born citizens," she wrote. "Of those persons erroneously identified as non-citizens, 14.9 percent, more than one in seven, established eligibility with a birth certificate, showing they were born in this country. Another 45.7 percent provided proof that they were naturalized citizens, suggesting that the driver's license data base is not current for recently naturalized citizens."
In addition to its reliance on outdated databases to verify citizenship, King pointed out Georgia's system could also have been thwarted by even a transposition of one digit in a driver's license number, leading "to an erroneous notation of a non-match across all compared fields."
In a press release, Secretary Handel said she "strongly disagreed" with the Justice Department's decision and does "not believe there is anything discriminatory in verifying voter information and citizenship." Handel, who is also a candidate for governor in 2010, has long supported controversial election reform measures in the state, including the current photo voter ID law and a newly enacted proof-of-citizenship measure.
The Mexican Legal Defense Educational Fund is one of the groups that sued the state last fall, protecting "thousands of Georgia voters from incorrectly being flagged as ineligible to cast a ballot," according to the group's Web site. In an Associated Press report, MALDEF regional counsel Elise Shore denounced Secretary Handel's appeal.
"We are disappointed that the Secretary of State has chosen to defend a flawed, unreliable database system that creates barriers to voting," she said.
]]>The message that democracy works best when all citizens participate - including those reintegrating into society after serving time for felony convictions - is finally being heard by the public, the media, and the U.S. Congress. Whether the message will affect the change needed to enfranchise the millions of Americans who currently cannot represent their communities in the democratic process, it is encouraging to find more citizens recognize the value in voting rights restoration and its impact on rehabilitation.
]]> In light of the July 24 introduction of the Democracy Restoration Act of 2009, which would restore federal voting rights of felons who have been released from incarceration, numerous media outlets and voting rights advocates appear inspired to speak out on the importance of felon voting rights in general.Calling it "an overdue change" for the 33 states that strip felons of their voting rights post-incarceration, the Detroit Free Press hails the federal bills, HR 3335 and S 1516 as a solution to inequity in both the criminal justice system and voting rights, particularly regarding minorities and the communities to which they return. Of the five million disenfranchised Americans, "nearly two million of them, including more than one in eight black men, are disenfranchised by these vestiges of Jim Crow."
"Democracy requires that voting rights extend to as many people as possible," the Free Press editorialized. "Voting rights rebuild ties to the community. They give people a stake in society and connect them to its norms and values."
The notion that "restoring voting rights of the formerly incarcerated is essential to helping them reintegrate into society and become productive citizens," is widely gaining support, Kathryn Boockvar, a Pennsylvania-based attorney for the Advancement Project, wrote in the Patriot-News. Boockvar, who was writing in support of a state measure requiring prisons to provide released felons with voter registration materials (HB 1072), noted a recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice, which cites a 2006 survey that found 60 percent of Americans agree with this idea.
Such a proposal has become law in at least two states in recent years. In May, the state of Washington lifted a ban that prohibited thousands of felons from voting with the passage of House Bill 1517. Until a couple weeks ago, the state required all felons to fully complete their sentences and repay all legal financial obligations before they were eligible to vote, according to the ACLU Blog of Rights. Blogger Rachel Bloom told the story of a man she called "John," who had "completed his sentence yet remained disfranchised because he had outstanding legal financial obligations, of which almost two-thirds was interest."
"When asked why he wanted to vote, John said he had two reasons: 'I'm raising my grandkids. It's been a cycle of jails and institutions for them and I want to show them a different picture...I want to show them what being included in society looks like and yet I can't provide that while being disfranchised. The other reason is that I personally want a say. Right now, I'm being taxed without representation.'"
A 2006 change in the Rhode Island Constitution allowing probationers and parolees to vote brought about 6,000 more registered voters in the 2008 elections, according to the Providence Journal. The law had previously disenfranchised an estimated 15,000 people who were serving probationary terms that could "run a decade or more in some cases."
"Despite changing laws, there were still many hurdles to getting people back on the rolls," wrote Desiree Evans of Facing South, an online magazine for the Institute of Southern Studies. "For instance, some former felons were unaware and uninformed of the reinstatement of their right to vote in some states. And in other states complicated re-enfranchisement procedures on top of widespread confusion and misinformation about the proper administration of the varying state laws made the process of restoring the vote even more difficult."
Although the fight for restoration of voting rights remains an uphill battle, "voting rights advocates should keep fighting in the courts, state legislatures and Congress," the New York Times editorialized on August 4, noting a federal court's decision to uphold the Massachusetts ban on voting by convicted felons. A group of prisoners challenged the law, claiming it violated the Voting Rights Act because disenfranchised felons in Mass. are "disproportionately black and Hispanic... partly because of a bias in the justice system."
"Letting the case go forward would not have meant the prisoners would have won," the Times said. "But it would have recognized that the law could violate the Voting Rights Act, depending on the facts that emerged about it in court."
Whether felon voting rights will be changed through state and federal legislation, or through review of the cornerstone Voting Rights Act, one notion remains the same. "The United States aspires to be a nation in which the government rules by the consent of the governed people," the Times wrote. "Prisoners do not cease to be people."
]]>State and federal law outlines, protects, and facilitates the voting rights of citizens. Under ideal circumstances, these laws make voting equally accessible to all eligible Americans without unnecessary barriers or hurdles. Unfortunately, the right to vote is too often misconstrued by the very officials charged with helping to protect and facilitate that right, leaving voters at best confused, and at worst disenfranchised.
On Election Day 2008 Project Vote received calls from concerned voters in Jefferson and Pulaski counties who claimed election officials were demanding photographic proof of identity at the polls; according to Arkansas law the state is only supposed to request ID of voters whose given birth date at the polls does not match that on the precinct voter registration list. Even under those circumstances, a voter is not required to present government-issued photo ID, but is allowed a wider range of options outlined in the Help America Vote Act, including a copy of a utility bill or a paycheck.
In a notice letter sent to Secretary of State Charlie Daniels last week, Project Vote election counsel Donald Wine wrote that "through the inconsistent imposition of a photo identification requirement by these local election officials, Arkansas is effectively denying voters equal access to the voting polls under law." Wine further urged Secretary Daniels to "issue a directive informing all state and local election officials of the correct procedures and directing those officials to abide by the current statute that references the way a citizen can be identified as a registered voter."
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold Indiana's strict photo ID law in Crawford v. Marion County Board of Elections, several other states appeared to circumvent their own state laws by demanding additional ID, according to records from the Election Protection coalition's 866-OUR-VOTE hotline. In fact, voter ID in general kicked up a cloud of confusion last year with hundreds of voters calling the hotline with problems that went beyond the improper request for ID from misinformed poll workers, including inquiries from perplexed voters who were unsure of the exact type of ID that their state requires.
While the inconsistent variety of election laws across the states clearly have an impact on election officials and voters alike--especially if the law relates to controversial issues that affect select communities, such as voter ID and felon voting laws--the emphasis for clearing confusion should first be put on those charged with implementing the rules. Transparency of election law between the state and the citizen starts with the person that voters meet when exercising their right to vote: the poll worker. To ensure every voter that walks into the polls is treated fairly and advised by the same election rules, every state must ensure that poll worker training is uniform across the state to ensure that there are no illegally disenfranchised voters, unwanted media attention, or legal challenges.]]>This week Project Vote and the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit, on behalf of ACORN, against Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala, Jr. The purpose of the suit is to keep the district attorney from filing a frivolous complaint alleging that ACORN's method of retaining - not paying - canvassers was a violation of state law.
]]>According to the Pennsylvania statute in question, "a person may not give, solicit or accept payment or financial incentive to obtain a voter registration if the payment or incentive is based upon the number of registrations or applications obtained." The Nevada case involves a similar statute. As investigations against ACORN found no direct violations of existing law, officials in these states have attempted to overreach by narrowly interpreting state statutes to charge that ACORN violated the law for implementing performance standards to determine whether to retain an employee. In reality, ACORN does not, and did not, pay its canvassers based on the number of applications they collected, but does expect individuals it hires to actually collect voter registration applications. By Pennsylvania and Nevada's interpretation of their statutes, however, setting any performance standards--no matter how flexible or reasonable--is a violation of the law, an interpretation that would make it nearly impossible for anyone to conduct a paid voter registration drive in these states.
For such a tortuous stretching of the common sense meaning of a statute, one might look back to tactics last employed in South Carolina in the 1950's to prosecute black demonstrators at lunch counter sit-ins. South Carolina's trespassing statute criminalized "entry" upon any establishment after notice from an owner or tenant prohibiting such entry. This law was used to prosecute two African-American men who had taken seats in a restaurant booth without having received any notice that they were not permitted to do so; after they sat down, employees put up a "No Trespassing" sign and asked the two men to leave. The two men were arrested and convicted by the state, which stretched the word "entry" to include "already sitting in a booth." The convictions were upheld by the state Supreme Court.
In 1964 the case, Bouie v. City of Columbia, reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that, not only was the conflation of "trespass" with "entry" legally faulty, but South Carolina had never asserted this argument before. Therefore, the Supreme Court found "the crime for which these petitioners stand convicted was `not enumerated in the statute' at the time of their conduct. It follows that they have been deprived of liberty and property without due process of law in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Similar retroactive law-bending tactics are being seen today in Pennsylvania and Nevada. State officials are stretching the statute that prohibits paying canvassers per card (a practice neither ACORN nor Project Vote employs) to claim it applies to any performance standards. In other words, requiring an employee to collect even one voter registration application in order to keep receiving a regular paycheck would be, in the states' view, a violation of state law. Not only does this definition--which has never before been applied in this way--stretch common sense, it would effectively put an end to paid voter registration drives, which appears to be the underlying goals of these tactics.
With five ex-canvassers having already been charged with accepting money under the policy, ACORN--represented by the ACLU and Project Vote--has filed a complaint against the district attorney to enjoin him from criminally charging ACORN for its employee retention policy. They argue that retroactively stretching the statute in the manner proposed by Pennsylvania violates ACORN's right to know that its actions violate the law, and also violate ACORN's free speech rights.
Paid voter registration drives are the most effective way to help give underrepresented communities a voice. Officials who succeeded in applying such twisted interpretations of state laws would make it impossible to run a paid registration campaign, to the disservice of the democratic process and of the communities they serve.
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