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By Jueseppi B.

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A new report released Sunday found that over five million voters – most of them black, young or elderly – could be denied the right to vote next year under new laws considered or adopted in dozens of states, laws that opponents charge are deliberate Republican attempts at voter suppression.

The study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s Law School revealed that at least 34 states introduced legislation that would require voters to show photo identification in order to vote; at least 12 states introduced bills to require proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, to register or vote; at least 13 states introduced bills to end same-day voter registration or restrict voter registration drives; at least nine states had bills to reduce early and absentee voting periods; and two states reversed executive orders that made it easier for convicted felons to have their voting rights restored.

“This is the most significant cutback in voting rights in decades. More voters may be affected than the margin of victory in two out of the past three presidential elections,” said Michael Waldman, the Center’s executive director. “In 2012 we should make it easier for every eligible citizen to vote. Instead, we have made it far harder for too many. Partisans should not try to tilt the electoral playing field in this way.”

All told, the potential changes could impact as many as five million voters in next year’s elections, according to the study. The states that have already cut back on voting rights – Florida and Iowa were the states that reversed the rules for restoring felony voting rights, for example – will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012, 63 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
Of the 12 likely battleground states, assessed by a Los Angeles Times analysis of Gallup polling, five have already cut back on voting rights – and may pass additional legislation – and two more are currently considering new restrictions.

“These voting law changes are radical and completely unnecessary. They especially hurt those who have been historically locked out of our electoral system, like minorities, poor people, and students. Often they seem precisely targeted to exclude certain voters,” said Wendy. R. Weiser, the report’s co-author and Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center. “After the Florida election fiasco in 2000, it became clear that the rules of election administration could affect outcomes. This time, those rules are being altered in a way that will likely hurt millions.”
The efforts haven’t been lost on Democratic lawmakers – black and white – and civil rights organizations. Last July, former President Bill Clinton warned a Washington conference about the voter suppression efforts.

“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 seen today.”

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who marched for voting and civil rights in the 1960s, went to the floor of the House of Representatives last July to declare that “there is a deliberate and systemic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, minorities, and low income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process.”

In testimony last month before a Senate subcommittee, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said “given the disproportionate impact the voter suppression laws will have on African-American voters, these laws are reminiscent of the poll taxes used in the Jim Crow South.”
“The laws are solutions in search of problems, especially when it comes to voter ID because there is basically no evidence of voter fraud,” Cleaver said. “Requiring voters to provide a specifically narrowly-defined piece of photo identification is unnecessary. The safeguards currently in place to verify voters’ identity works.”

But many Republicans disagree. They contend some the voting system is lax enough that illegal immigrants and other ineligible people have the ability to easily vote.
“My state just passed a voter ID law, and I want to congratulate the legislature in South Carolina,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said during the hearing. “Thirty states have some form of voter ID requirement. So I think this is the future of the country, something we should embrace at the federal level because elections do matter. Casting a vote should be as easy as possible.”

But Democrats have strong doubts that the changes proposed or implemented largely by Republican-controlled legislatures or governors will make it easier. Rep. Terri Sewell, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, says her state’s voter ID law that’s set to begin in 2014, could pose a problem for her wheelchair-bound father who let his driver’s license lapse. Under the new law, his government-issued Social Security card wouldn’t count as acceptable ID.

“My mom will find a way to get my dad a photo ID, but a lot of my constituents don’t have the same capability,” Sewell told The New York Times. “Given the relatively low turnout that we see in modern-day elections, we should be encouraging people to go to the polls to exercise their rights, and not discouraging them.”

The Republican Party has known for a long time that in a fair and complete election they have little chance of winning. In some cases, like Florida 2000, they’ve relied on manipulating the law, illegally throwing thousands off the voter rolls because they had similar names to Texas felons, and corrupt Federal justices to snatch victory. In Ohio 2004 it was rigged voting machines, with Diebold’s president promising months prior to election day that he could “guarantee” that Republicans would win (and with a drunken Peter King confirming that “the race is over and we won” a few months before election day. Recently, numerous states have passed or proposed draconian voter suppression laws threatening the rights of thousands of Americans. The Republicans used a mass fraudulent propaganda campaign to eliminate Acorn, a group whose only actual “crime” was helping thousands of poor and minority voters to register. Now Maine joins the reprehensible trend, threatening registered voters with frivolous and unfounded lawsuits to intimidate them into changing their registration. One must worry if the United States will EVER see fair elections again

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Filed under: News, Politics Tagged: | Brennan Center for Justice, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, Emanuel Cleaver, New York Times, Photo identification, Republican, South Carolina, Terri Sewell