Civitas, a St. Louis-based educational non-profit, is working with seventeen interns this summer. They are researching (a) why certain individuals do not vote and what can be done to encourage them to do so, (b) how are system of voting is changing in light of COVID-19 and countervailing forces for change, and (c) current race relations issues in the United States and around the world.

Interns were asked to explore ways in which voting rights could be suppressed. The theory is that you have to understand the problem before you can remedy it. Below are their thoughts:

Bella: If I wanted to suppress voting in today’s world, it would obviously depend on the position of power that I was in. But assuming I have total power over President, Congress, the courts, and the entire bureaucracy, and my goal is to get as few people voting as possible, here’s how I would do it.

First, I would require more in-depth applications for poll workers to get a better gauge of their personality. Did lots of optimistic, naive AP Government students apply? Count ‘em out! Any cynical, technologically inexperienced old people apply? Count ‘em in, with bonus points if they have an attitude! Maybe increase the pay rate for poll workers, to get a larger applicant pool. This way, any mishap with the ballot scanners turns into hours-long waits, with disgruntled workers and voters alike. As a result of the increased pay rate, however, many states will have to decrease their numbers of voting stations. I’ll block regulations on the spacing there. Then, I would block cases going through the courts against gerrymandering. No need to look over voting districts! In state party meetings, I would lobby against open primaries. Why not go for the most inefficient method of handling primaries: the closed caucus! Only people willing to skip work for the day in the name of politics will be willing to go to this one. At the very least, I will get open primaries changed to closed primaries, to make sure only voters registered with a party will vote. With all aspects of this plan in place, at the bare minimum I will have only the most patient and determined voters taking part in the process.

Claire St:
How I would suppress voters in today’s world:

1. Cut power to traffic lights and tell the cops directing traffic to only let people from one side of the intersection go all day
2. Sample ballots have advertisements on them so that people think it’s a penny saver and throw it away without looking
3. Provide donuts or pizza to poll workers but ensure it comes during the busiest time of the day and force workers to take a break to eat it
4. Spill cherry soda on machines so that when workers take them out of the cases the machines are sticky and poll workers have to wash their hands and clean the machines delaying start times
5. Do a “balloon drop” in the polling place celebrating the 100th vote and make workers clean it up before anyone else can come in because the polling place is not accessible with balloons on the floor
6. Make poll workers spend the first hour of voting time decorating the poll place, and if it isn’t deemed aesthetically pleasing by an interior designer/ party planner, shut the polling place down

Ethan:
The most effective way to obstruct voting is to create a process that makes registering to vote as complicated as possible. This would include adding charges for mailing, poll taxes, etc, as well as making it take a long time. If people can get past that, make it hard to access polling places by making them far from people’s homes, and keeping them far away from public transportation. If they get to the polling place, adding in extra measures like photo ID requirements and confusing ballots will discourage more people. For those who can’t make it to the polls, you could make requesting absentee ballots more complicated, or just get rid of absentee voting altogether.

Valerie: The best thing to do to rig an election, assuming you have the resources, is not to rig the vote, but to rig the factors that influence voting. The vast majority of media in the US is owned by just a few companies. As such, they all share relatively similar interests, which will affect their reporting. They are less likely to report stories that hurt their bottom line, and willing to report those that help them. For example, they may ignore stories about a primary candidate who would threaten their business winning several primaries, but push one about another, more status quo candidate winning one less significant primary, frame it as them running away with the race, and then ignore stories damaging them. This boosts their favorite candidate’s credibility, and by ignoring their opposition, many of them can be undemocratically wiped out without touching a single vote. Or perhaps they take a relatively unknown local politician announcing their candidacy, who has never held higher office, and give them disproportionate coverage, putting them in the same position as senators and former cabinet members. Of course, this isn’t something that can simply be relied on – the media reports based on their own interests, not a political party’s. Outright bribery and lies are very hard to get away with. But the interests of the media and the political establishment are often the same – the interests of the elite.

Daria:

I think there are many ways that you could subtly suppress voting in today’s world. This is already being done in the United States today, especially through voting restrictions in black or brown communities. For example, restricting the number of polling stations in areas that you do not want to vote already occurs in this country. In addition, posters could be hung up in these communities or false advertisements could be posted on social media, which has been done in the past, telling people to go vote the day after the date of an actual election, deterring even those who actually want to vote. Furthermore, a lack of transportation accessibility in predominantly black communities in the United States can also discourage black voters from going to vote and these are all combined just a few of the numerous reasons why black voter turnout tends to be lower than that of white voter turnout.

Gabe: 
Repress Voting

1.           Make the ballots confusing, beyond normal understanding, and they must be fully filled out and complete to be counted.

2.           Multi-phasal voter ID. Fake IDs are commonplace among this nation, to prove that you are who you say you are you need: driver’s license; birth certificate; social security card; and a notarized special voter’s pamphlet.

3.           The special voter’s pamphlet requires an online registration process that takes 1 hour to complete and three weeks to ship.

4.           You have one hour to vote. 5:00am-6:00am. If you cannot put the ballot in the counter by that time, you cannot vote.

5.           Calming classical music, played at a dangerously high volume, is blasted through the voting area.

Emily:
Here’s my list of ways I think of to suppress voting in America (some are unfortunately in practice or have been proposed):

• Poll tax
• Literacy tests
• Notarizing absentee ballots
• Limiting polling places
• Illegalizing absentee ballots
• Shortening hours when polling places are open
• Placing polling place hours during the typical work day
• Requiring more and more documents
• No national holiday for elections
• Closed primaries
• Having the outcome of an election not actually follow majority/popular vote (i.e. the electoral college)
• Increase the time it took to vote through tedious aspects of the voting process such as filling out a bunch of personal information or requiring voters to take surveys
• Make voting more confusing with constantly changing the voting process with technology

Maggie:
If you have ever seen the documentary Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook, you would have evidence to explain why voting is suppressed in the United States. Year after year, different people and groups use tricks to limit people’s votes such as voter purges, voter I.D. laws, and gerrymandering. Even legislation that protects voters has been changed, and laws have been created to further suppress votes. In order to change this, I would uphold the Voting Rights Act while strengthen it where needed as well as ensure every state is consistent in protecting voting. Voter I.D. laws should not exist as they hinder people from voting. We need automatic and same-day voter registration to enable more to vote easily. We need better absentee voting options as well as mail-in voting. We need to change Election Day to a weekend and make it a federal holiday, so we make it more accessible for people to vote. We live in a democracy, yet only half of registered voters actually vote. This is outrageous given we have the right and privilege to vote. What’s more outrageous is the fact that groups of people actively try to prevent people from voting. Every effort against voter suppression must be enacted.

Martriana:

Ways to Suppress Voting to Today’s World…

• Making Election Day on a Weekday Where People Don’t Have Time To Vote
• Set a Fixed Time Period To Go Vote
• Machines That Don’t/Never Work
• Lack of Backup Paper Ballots
• Voting Buildings Far From Home/Work
• Voting Buildings that Can Only Be Accessed via Car
• Making Voter Registration Needlessly Difficult
• Making Voter Registration Cost Money
• Conveniently Blocking Traffic to Polling Places
• Normalizing That, If You Don’t Like Neither Candidate, Just Don’t Vote
• Prevent Urban Voters By Making Polling Places in Rural Areas
• Normalize That if You Don’t Feel Safe Voting in the Only Polling Place Within Close Range, Don’t Voting
• Large Police Presence, Inflicts Intimidation Tactics
• Openly Lying About When Polls Open
• Must Have Voter’s ID
• Felons Cannot Vote. Ever.

Myla:
Unfortunately, there are still ways to “legally” suppress voters in today’s world. Since Election day is not considered a civic holiday on a national level, many voters have to take time off of work without pay. There are only nine states in the United States who have the opportunity to have a day off of work to vote. However, this does not exclude these voters from being suppressed in other ways. For example, voters can be suppressed through long lines at the polls and malfunctioning machines. Others can qualify for absentee voting but they may never receive their ballot in the mail. Gerrymandering is also a huge issue in voting. District lines may be redrawn to change the demographic of voters in certain districts.

Riley:

• Require two forms of ID in order to vote

• Require proof of residence to register (mail)
• Reduce voting times from 9:00 am-5:00 pm with an hour break for poll workers from 11:30 to 12:30, and only allowed to vote on tuesdays
• Don’t have special needs assistance at voting places(no ramps, audio help, brail etc.)
• Do not post publicly about voting dates and places
• Stop sending out voting cards with voting day information
• Have registration expire every year
• Do not have public transport reach voting sites, or have sites that are not accessible by car.
• Make voters use a private password that they cannot reset when voting that must be 13 characters long, with a special character.

Stephanie:

● Require an address

● Require a high school diploma or ged

● Spread out voting centers

● No criminal record- at all

● don’t advertise election

● don’t advertise deadline

● Limit voting hours

● Propaganda

Sophie:

If I was going to suppress voting, I would start by only mentioning voting in connection with fraud or other negatives like long lines or lost ballots. It would be essential to link voting and futility together to discourage voter turnout. Passing strict voter ID laws would be a necessity. If people think that their vote doesn’t matter, then I don’t have to worry about them turning up at the polls. For those who do vote, I would close polling places, insuring long lines and longer commutes for people. I would also try and delay the training of polling workers, so they were less prepared to deal with faulty equipment.  Slowing the whole process down, ie taking longer to mail absentee ballots, not having the proper amount of paper ballots at a polling place, would be the name of the game. Just make voting a nuisance that requires too much time and paperwork and never leads to change, that would be how I would suppress voting.

Traditionally there are two ways to win an election (this might be somewhat reductionist but bear with me); A campaign might decide to focus on persuasion which would involve “flipping” voters who might usually support the opposition to your preferred side, a campaign might also decide to focus on turnout which would involve motivating as many likely supporters as possible to vote. However there is a little appreciated but fairly pervasive third way to win an election which is as old as America itself, voter suppression which is the act of creating barriers to an opponent’s voters being able to vote. If I were a government official from a political party that has limited support among any number of various groups but perhaps especially low-income voters, young voters, African-American, and Latino voters I might use this course of action to ensure victory and suppress voting.

Reece:

1. Introduce a state issued license requirement to vote, preferably a photo identification card.
2. Require a number of qualifications in order to receive the state issued license
   1. Payment of all delinquent taxes
   2. No warrants from any law enforcement agency
   3. Payment of a one-time nominal fee to register for the license (Passports cost $140 with all components)
3. Allow a limited number of locations where these licenses can be processed and purchased
   1. These locations should be inaccessible to public transport
   2. These locations should only be opened for limited “Registration periods”, perhaps only a few weeks every year.
   3. These locations should have limited processing abilities, having only enough materials to produce so many licenses per day
4. Allow residents to receive a different standard of license
   1. These licenses would be sufficient for driving and identification for all purposes except voting
   2. These licenses should be available for purchase at a significantly reduced price
   3. The distinction between the non-voting license and voting license should not be made clear in the licensing centers
   4. The non-voting license should be available for distribution at locations that are extremely accessible including libraries, post-offices, and shopping centers

The post Students Discuss How to Steal an Election / Suppress Voter Engagement appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Depending on what state you live in and who you are, your voting rights may be either expanding or contracting this year. At the same time that some jurisdictions are making it easier to register and vote, others are continuing their efforts to make it harder to vote and to essentially disenfranchise voters whose views they don’t like. Here’s a brief rundown on the push-me-pull-you situation.

 One step forward

On August 9, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker [R] signed into law a bill that makes voter registration automatic throughout the state. The bill had passed the state legislature with an overwhelming majority—in the State Senate, it was unanimous. Under the new law, people will be automatically registered when they have transactions with the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, or when they interact with the state’s Medicaid system, known as MassCare.

The new law [AVR] is set to be fully implemented in time for the 2020 presidential election. It could reach estimated 680,000 eligible voters who are not yet on the rolls. According to Masslive.com, “An analysis by the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress estimated that AVR could enroll 437,000 new Massachusetts voters, of whom 156,000 could be expected to show up at the polls.”

Massachusetts now joins more than a dozen other states that have enacted similar AVR systems. More than a dozen other states including New Jersey and Washington have enacted similar automatic voter registration systems. Massachusetts’s law also raises the penalty for voter fraud to a fine of up to $10,000 or a five-year prison sentence.

And there may be more to come. According to the Brennan Center, “This year alone, 20 states have introduced legislation to implement or expand automatic registration, and an additional eight states had bills carry over from the 2017 legislative session.”

AVR: Opting out, rather than opting in

How does automatic voter registration work? Here’s the Brennan Center’s explanation and rationale:

AVR makes two simple, yet transformative, changes to the way our country has traditionally registered voters.  First, AVR makes voter registration “opt-out” instead of “opt-in”—eligible citizens who interact with government agencies are registered to vote or have their existing registration information updated, unless they affirmatively decline. Again, the voter can opt-out; it is not compulsory registration. Second, those agencies transfer voter registration information electronically to election officials instead of using paper registration forms. These common-sense reforms increase registration rates, clean up the voter rolls, and save states money.

States that have already implemented AVR have seen positive results, says the Brennan Center:

Since Oregon became the first state in the nation to implement AVR in 2016, the Beaver State has seen registration rates quadruple at DMV offices. In the first six months after AVR was implemented in Vermont on New Year’s Day 2017, registration rates jumped 62 percent when compared to the first half of 2016.

By Election Day 2018, reports NPR, almost of quarter of Americans will live in states where filling out voter registration postcards will be a thing of the past as more and more states are moving to automatic voter registration.

That’s the good news. Now for the flip side.

Two steps back

Unfortunately, some people view AVR not as positive steps toward democratic engagement, but rather as threats to their entrenched power. Over the years, we have witnessed many attempts, in many states, to restrict voting rights, disenfranchise certain groups, and generally make voting more inconvenient for people whose voting patterns threaten the Republican status quo.

This year, however, has marked a turning point in voter suppression efforts, as the Department of Justice itself–which was once an ally for voting-rights advocates—has switched sides. In August, Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave the green light to states’ efforts to drastically purge their voter-registration rolls—a major reversal of previous administrations’ efforts to protect the vote.

According to Slate:

The DOJ has withdrawn its opposition to Texas’ draconian voter ID law and to mandatory arbitration agreements designed to thwart class actions. Now the agency has made another about-face: ..It dropped its objections to Ohio’s voter purge procedures, which kick voters off the rolls for skipping elections. The DOJ is now arguing that such maneuvers are perfectly legal.

In addition, the New York Times reports that, under Sessions, the DOJ is not going to oppose the following voter-suppression efforts:

• A new voter ID law that could shut out many Native Americans from the polls in North Dakota.

• A strict rule on the collection of absentee ballots in Arizona that is being challenged by votig-rights advocates as a form of voter suppression.

• Officials in Georgia who are scrubbing voters from registration rolls if their details do not exactly match other records, a practice that voting rights groups say unfairly targets minority voters.

The Sessions department’s most prominent voting-rights lawsuit so far forced Kentucky state officials last month to step up the culling from registration rolls of voters who have moved.

Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the department has filed legal briefs in support of states that are resisting court orders to rein in voter ID requirements, stop aggressive purges of voter rolls and redraw political boundaries that have unfairly diluted minority voting power — all practices that were opposed under President Obama’s attorneys general.

If my understanding of America history is correct, since the beginning of this country—with some notable exceptions—we have been on a path of expanding rights, becoming more inclusive, and encouraging engagement. So, it’s heartening to see states building on that tradition and finding ways to enable more people to participate in the fundamental activity of a democracy—voting. Unfortunately, the Trump administration and its spineless Republican enablers [or should I say co-conspirators] clearly have a different trajectory in mind. We can only hope that enlightened thinking will prevail, and that our democracy—warts and all—will survive this dark period in American politics.

The post Voting rights 2018: One step forward, two steps back appeared first on Occasional Planet.

If you want to prevent certain people from voting, you’ve got a lot of options. Some are legal; some are not. Most of us are familiar with the proliferating tactic of requiring photo IDs that may be hard to get for certain parts of the population [mostly low-income and most often Democratic voters].  Alongside that strategy is the one we saw most recently, in the 2016 Arizona Democratic primary. That’s where the director of elections, in an supposedly cost-cutting move, reduced the number of polling places in Maricopa County, from 600 to 20.

But there are a lot more tactics to choose from. Here’s a brief roundup, gleaned from Wikipedia, of some other dirty-tricks, voter-suppression tactics in play in recent years.

In the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal, Republican officials attempted to reduce the number of Democratic voters by paying professional telemarketers in Idaho to make repeated hang-up calls to the telephone numbers used by the Democratic Party’s ride-to-the-polls phone lines on election day. By tying up the lines, voters seeking rides from the Democratic Party would have more difficulty reaching the party to ask for transportation to and from their polling places

In the 2004 presidential election,

Allegations surfaced in several states that a private group, Voters Outreach of America, which had been empowered by the individual states, had collected and submitted Republican voter registration forms while inappropriately discarding voter registration forms where the new voter had chosen to register with the Democratic Party. Such people would believe they had registered to vote, and would only discover on election day that they were not registered and could not cast a ballot.

In 2006,

Four employees of the John Kerry campaign were convicted of slashing the tires of 25 vans rented by the Wisconsin state Republican Party which were to be used for driving Republican voters and monitors to the polls. At the campaign workers’ sentencing, Judge Michael B. Brennan told the defendants, “Voter suppression has no place in our country. Your crime took away that right to vote for some citizens.”

In the Virginia Senate election

• Democratic voters received calls incorrectly informing them voting will lead to arrest.
• Widespread calls fraudulently claiming to be “[Democratic Senate candidate Jim] Webb Volunteers,” falsely telling voters their voting location had changed.
• Fliers paid for by the Republican Party, stating “SKIP THIS ELECTION” that allegedly attempted to suppress African-American turnout.

 

In 2008,

In Michigan, the Republican party used a “caging scheme,” in which the party planned to use home foreclosure lists to challenge voters still using their foreclosed home as a primary address at the polls. The Obama campaign sued, and a Federal Appeals court ordered the reinstatement of 5,500 voters wrongly purged from the voter rolls.

In Montana, the Republican Lieutenant Governor accused the Montana Republican Party of engaging in a similar voter caging scheme, to purge 6,000 voters from three counties that trend Democratic. The purges included war veterans and active duty soldiers.

In Wisconsin, the Republican Party attempted to have all 60,000 voters in the heavily Democratic city of Milwaukee who had registered since January 1, 2006, deleted from the voter rolls. The requests were rejected by the Milwaukee Election Commission.

In 2010,

In the Maryland gubernatorial election , the campaign of Republican candidate Bob Ehrlich hired a consultant who advised that “the first and most desired outcome is voter suppression”, in the form of having “African-American voters stay home.” To that end, the Republicans placed thousands of Election Day robocalls to Democratic voters, telling them that the Democratic candidate, Martin O’Malley, had won, although in fact the polls were still open for some two more hours. The Republicans’ call, worded to seem as if it came from Democrats, told the voters, “Relax. Everything’s fine. The only thing left is to watch it on TV tonight.” The calls reached 112,000 voters in majority-African American areas.

And these are just the most egregious examples that received press attention. No doubt, there are many more schemes at play. I personally witnessed an example  while serving as an election judge in the 2012 presidential election. The judge sitting next to me kept insisting that voters [who had already been checked in at the ID station] had to show HER their photo ID [which is not required in my state]. Then, she called her party supervisor [Republican] to complain that “they’re letting people vote here without photo ID.”  [Her supervisor, to his credit, explained that photo ID was not required.]  But she continued to do her best to suppress as many voters as possible.

How many other small-bore attempts like that one are happening? Apparently, for some people intent on cheating people out of their right to vote, there are no tactics too petty or sneaky.

Vigilance.

The post 50 ways to cheat your voters appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In their incessant quest to find ever more creative and nasty ways to suppress the vote, Florida Republicans have come up with a doozy. Not only will voters have to wait in long lines, they won’t be able to use a bathroom during the wait! [I’m sorry, but that deserves an exclamation point.] As you may remember, in 2012, voters in Florida’s Miami Dade County—whose early voting options were severely curtailed by new rules—stood in lines at polling places as long as six hours. This time around, under the newer, more insane and inhumane rules, the long wait could become even more unpleasant, because there will be no potty breaks.

Here’s the full story, as told by Reader Supported News:

Earlier this year, the Miami-Dade County Elections Department quietly implemented a policy to close the bathrooms at all polling facilities, according to disability rights lawyer Marc Dubin. Dubin said the policy change was in “direct response” to an inquiry to the Elections Department about whether they had assessed accessibility of polling place bathrooms to those with disabilities.

“I was expecting them to say either yes we have or yes we will,” Dubin said.

Instead, he received a written response announcing that the county would close all restrooms at polling places “to ensure that individuals with disabilities are not treated unfairly,” a January email stated. “[T]he Department’s policy is not to permit access to restrooms at polling sites on election days,” Assistant County Attorney Shanika Graves said in a Feb. 14 email.

…Dubin said he was “shocked” at this response, and not just because it suppresses the vote for everybody. The Americans with Disabilities Act also requires entities to make “reasonable accommodations” to those with disabilities. For those with a number of conditions, including diabetics and those taking diuretics, closing the restroom will make standing in that line impossible, and thus discriminate against disabled voters.

So, they’re doing under the guise of “not discriminating against disabled voters,” while, coincidentally and simultaneously making it even more difficult for anyone to vote? Gee, that’s thoughtful. I’m sure there are many puns to be made around this ridiculous new twist in voter suppression, but I’m not going to make them, because this is an outrage that defies humor.

The post Voting rights watch: Florida’s bathroom blockade appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Republican Secretaries of State in Kansas and Arizona are devising a whole new way to make voting harder. Thwarted by the U.S. Supreme Court in their attempt to require proof of citizenship for voter registration, they are working on a plan to create an unprecedented system of two classes of voters: those who qualify—under new rules—to vote in federal elections only, and those who qualify to vote in state elections as well as federal elections.

Some background, from Talking Points Memo:

In both states, the preparations underway are reactions to the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council, the legal battle over Arizona’s 2004 voter identification law, known as Proposition 200. While the headlines in June painted the ruling as a blow to Proposition 200, officials in both Arizona and Kansas have chosen to focus on the leeway the Supreme Court left them. Kansas State Election Director Brad Bryant laid out the argument in an email he sent to county election officers at the end of July.

“As the Supreme Court made clear, its decision applies only to ‘federal registration forms’ and covers only federal elections,” Bryant wrote, according to a copy of the email provided to TPM. “States remain free to require proof of citizenship from voters who seek to also vote in state elections.”

Here’s how it works: When potential voters register using the standard federal voter registration form, they are asked only to indicate, by their signature, that they are citizens of the U.S. and therefore qualified to vote. But in addition to the standardized voter registration provided to all states by the federal government, there’s also a form, in almost all states, that is customized to that state. Kansas’ Secretary of State is now saying there’s a loophole in the Supreme Court decision that leaves a window of opportunity to require proof of citizenship on the state registration form.

So, Kansas is going to add that stipulation to its voter registration form. By this logic, that means that there will be two classes of voters: Tier 1 will be who have registered via the federal form—with no documentary proof of citizenship. In Kansas, those voters will be allowed to vote only on federal offices, not on state and local elections. Tier 2 voters, who have registered via the state form—providing the required proof of citizenship—will be allowed to vote in both state and federal elections.

Of course, it’s an “end-around” play, designed to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling and to suppress the votes of people who they’d like to keep from voting—effectively people who don’t have the necessary documents [or the time/money to go and get them], which generally means minorities, poor people and older people—who tend to vote for Democrats.

This ploy is also another sorry, scary and democracy-killing example of states asserting their rights versus the federal government—not for reasons of fairness or opportunity, but as a cynical and nihilistic way of manipulating elections. Sadly, it’s part of a trend: We’ve also seen state legislatures attempting to nullify federal gun laws, and make implementation of the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare] illegal in their states.

Creating separate and unequal “tiers” of voting is a sickening idea that has the potential to become a terrible trend. At long last, have they no decency?

The post Voting rights watch: KS and AZ have scary plans for “two-tier” voting appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The assault on voting rights is moving upstream. A recently released report by Project Vote [September 2013] lists legislation introduced—and in some cases, passed—in state legislators and in Congress—that would add hurdles to voter registration.

Voter registration is the first step most eligible citizens take to participate in our democracy, making it a prime target for those seeking to limit access to the ballot. Partisans stoke fears of noncitizen voting and voter impersonation in order to impose excessively restrictive voter registration laws in the states.

In 2013, lawmakers proposed to restrict community-based voter registration drives; to require voter applicants to provide citizenship documents with voter registration forms; and to rollback voter-favored policies, such as same-day registration.

How many ways can you make voter registration more difficult? State legislators are working on that. Here are some of the lowlights of this effort, excerpted from the Project Vote report:

[1] Making access to voter registration more difficult

In 2013, Indiana and North Carolina passed restrictive bills that repeal same-day registration, and repeal pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-old citizens.

[2] Making voter registration drives more difficult

Remember volunteering to register people to vote? It’s not going to quite that easy anymore—at least in Virginia. Project Vote says:

A law passed in 2013 in Virginia requires individuals and groups who  obtain 25 or more voter registration applications to: register with the State Board of Elections or local offices; and execute a sworn affidavit that they will abide by all Virginia voter registration laws and rules. The required paperwork and training provisions are unspecified, and give excessive discretion to the State Board of Elections. Finally, the bill reduces the time limit for mailing or delivering such completed applications from 15 to 10 days.

Also, as a result of a bill passed in 2013 in Montana, in November 2014, Montana voters will have a referendum on whether to stop allowing people to register and vote on Election Day, and whether to close voter registration on the Friday before elections. [Let’s see, will people voting on this one be allowed to register and vote on election day?]

[3] Adding complexity to the act of registering to vote

Two bills pending in Congress would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to permit a state to require documentary evidence of citizenship from an applicant for voter registration who uses the federal voter registration application as a condition of the state’s acceptance of the form.  [States’ rights rears its head again.]

Currently, all you have to do to register on the federal form is sign your name under a statement in which you swear that you are a U.S. citizen. That statement has sufficed for many years, and non-citizen voting has yet to be proven to be a widespread problem.

Also, a bill pending in the Massachusetts legislature requires an applicant for voter registration to prove, to the satisfaction of the clerk or registrar, that he or she is a citizen of the United States. Birth certificate or naturalization papers would be accepted.

That provision would essentially end voter registration drives at fairs and festivals and on street corners, unless we all start carrying our passports and naturalization papers around with us wherever we go.

Each of these changes might seem trivial, at first glance. But they’re not. Each is a move to restrict voting–a significant reversal of philosophy from the path of expanding voting rights that has been such a positive trend as America has evolved. And make no mistake about it, these small changes are designed to add up to a cumulative erosion of voting rights–particularly for people [meaning minority voters, and people who tend to vote for Democratic candidates] deemed “undesirable” by Rebublican-dominated state legislatures and politicians aiming for a permanent Republican majority in America.

Stay vigilant.

The post Voting rights watch: Suppressing the vote by targeting voter registration appeared first on Occasional Planet.

American democracy—or, at least, the flawed, but better-than-the-alternative system that we call democracy—is under attack, and not from Muslim terrorists. Our democratic system, with all of its warts, has managed for 237 years [with the major exception of the Civil War, of course], to remain stable and to preserve the peaceful transition of power. Over many years, it has been corrupted by under- and over-the-table campaign contributions, over-influenced by corporate greed, undermined by power-hungry, headline-seeking, morally bankrupt politicians, and—more recently—battered by partisan gridlock fueled by blind hatred for our current President.

Now, these well-worn tactics have been joined by Republican-led strategies aimed directly at the heart of our system—voting rights and even the existence of “united” states. We need to worry less about foreign terrorists determined to hurt America, and recognize the bad actors in our own political system who are wrecking our democracy from within.

Here’s my review of the top four domestic conspiracies to kill democracy that are operational in 2013:

[1]  Voter suppression

It’s not new, but it’s intensifying. The most recent incarnation of this tactic took place in Colorado, during the September 2013, special recall election. Just before the election, the state board of election issued confusing rules on mail-in voting. Mail-in votes comprised 70 percent of votes in the 2012 presidential election, and many voters had come to rely on that method, only to discover that they might not be receiving their expected mail-in ballot for the special election.  According to Fox News (!):

In total, there have been six changes since Colorado’s governor announced the recall date on July 18.

In previous elections, Coloradans were able to cast their ballots by mail and most – around 70 percent – did. A new state law had initially meant that the recall would be decided entirely by mail. However, multiple county clerks told election officials they didn’t have enough time to send out the mail-in ballots because of an Aug. 12 ruling that gave other candidates until Aug. 26 to submit enough signatures to get themselves on the ballot.

Because of that ruling, it meant that voters [in the districts of the recalled legislators, Morse and Giron] would have to go to polling locations in their county to cast ballots.

In other states, legislators spent considerable time in 2013 proposing laws that would restrict voting rights. If you thought the 2012 fights over voter ID in Pennsylvania, and early voting in Florida and Ohio were flukes, think again.  Statistical analyses show, again and again, that voter turnout is the deciding factor in many elections—state, local and federal. When voter turnout is high, Democrats win. When it is low, Republicans win. Republicans have read those numbers, and many see their best chances of winning coming not from adopting more appealing, humane policies, but by crippling democracy and making it harder for their opponents to vote. Such is the sorry state of American politics today.

[2]  Recall election[s] over a single vote

Colorado’s successful [I hesitate to call it that] recall of two Democratic state legislators who voted in favor of reasonable gun registration laws is a very bad precedent. The recall was funded by the National Rifle Association, and it sets the stage for future recalls, in other states, based on single issues. Once upon a time, in a democracy now in serious jeopardy, we used to voice our displeasure about legislators’ votes by voting them out of office in the next scheduled election. That’s part of the peaceful transition of power that has characterized American democracy since its inception. While recalls are legitimate in certain cases, this single-issue recall tactic is an aggressive assault on the way we normally do elective business. If it proliferates—and its “success” in Colorado can only encourage its proponents—it could create electoral chaos.

[3]  Nullification of federal laws

Although most of us thought that nullification was a battle decided by the Civil War, it’s ba-a-a-a-ck. In 2013 in Missouri, radical right state legislators passed a law declaring federal gun laws null, void and unenforceable in the state. Wow. Fortunately, the cooler head of Democratic Governor Jay Nixon prevailed, and his veto of that bill was upheld in a special legislative session in September. Even the Republican Speaker Pro Tem of the Missouri Senate saw the gun bill as unconstitutional—and for him to say that was a political risk. The fight, however, is not over. Republicans in the Missouri legislature are already planning to introduce another, somewhat watered down version of the same bill in the 2014 session.

Missouri Republicans are not alone in their attempt to stop federal laws from being enforced in their state.  And these efforts are not just limited to gun laws.

Another focus of nullification efforts is the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

In Pennsylvania, for example, state officials are telling Obamacare “navigators” –the people hired to help individuals work the new health-care exchanges—that they cannot do their jobs on state-owned property. What they mean is that federal employees won’t be allowed to help people in state welfare offices, unemployment offices and health clinics—precisely the places visited by people who would benefit most from the exchanges.

The same tactic is at work in Florida, where the State Department of Health is barring navigators from its state property, too. [By the way, Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, is a very wealthy, former healthcare executive—a crooked one at that–who should know better. But, apparently, he wants to block something that would help his state, because it comes from President Obama.]

Each of these instances—and many more to come—are reminiscent of the “good old days” when Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse doorway to block “Negroes” from enrolling in the University of Alabama under federal law. He lost that fight, as the South, in the Civil War, lost its attempt to nullify federal anti-slavery laws and assert states’ rights over federal law. But those lessons seem not to matter to today’s Obama-hating Republicans.

[4]  Suggestions of secession

Texas is today’s poster state for awful ideas and dumb politicians [see: Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, Louis Gohmert], but in our 24-hour-news-cycle world, even terrible ideas get play. So it’s rather terrifying to hear Texas’ Railroad Commissioner [who job it is not to regulate railroads, but to oversee the gas and oil industry in his state] mention secession as a possibility. It’s equally scary to hear a U.S. Senator say the same thing. We’ve done this before [see: Civil War], and it doesn’t work. I realize that the [government-paid!] officials who make these rash, anti-government pronouncements probably aren’t serious—they’re basically using these extreme statements as a way to rally the basest of their base and raise money—but there are a lot of gullible, low-information—possibly gun toting—people out there who take these ideas seriously. When someone filed a petition for secession on the White House’s petition site, 126,000+ people signed on.

Bottom line: If we can’t trust our voting system, if a few ultra-rich can determine the outcome of an election, if we can’t count on federal laws being enforced, and if people are floating the idea of secession, what is left?

The post Four ways Republicans are guilty of attempting to murder democracy appeared first on Occasional Planet.

For many years, the federal voter-registration form used in virtually all states has required that the person filling it out swear that he/she is a citizen, under penalty of perjury. But apparently, that’s not enough for Kansas and Arizona. Those two states have filed a suit in federal court to allow them to require proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, to register to vote.

Is that a big deal? Yes, it is. It’s a lot like requiring proof of identity at the polling place—via a birth certificate, passport or other government-issued ID: a deliberate obstacle to voting, especially for minorities, poor people and the elderly. It may even be worse than the voter ID ploy, because it takes the disenfranchisement gambit further back in the process—making it even harder even to register to vote. Apparently, the cynical quest to prevent politically “undesirable” people from voting against you has been moved upstream—under the fraudulent guise of preventing voter fraud by non-citizens.

The lawsuit comes as a response to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that knocked down a proof-of-citizenship law passed in Arizona in 2004. Kansas’ more recent proof-of-citizenship requirement for new voters took effect on Jan. 1, 2013.

Here’s the background, according to Daily Kos:

The suit stems from a 7-2 Supreme Court decision in the case of Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. The ruling affirmed that a provision of the National Voting Rights Act of 1993 requires states to “accept and use” a specific federal form for voter registration. That form requires individuals to state they are a citizen and at least 18 years old. But it does not require proof of citizenship. In 2004, Arizona voters approved a law that does require that proof before anyone can register.

The law was challenged on the grounds that federal law overrides state law because of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court affirmed that judgment, noting that not only the Supremacy Clause but the Elections Clause trumps state law. In other words, federal elections law will always supersede state elections laws.

Unfortunately, the majority opinion in the Supreme Court—written by arch-conservative Antonin Scalia—left a window slightly open:

The Court also ruled that states could ask the federal Election Assistance Commission to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the form. And that if the EAC refused, they could bring suit against it.

So, Arizona and Kansas jumped right in.

The American Civil Liberties Union opposes the proof-of-citizenship requirement. The ACLU says that the citizenship declaration that new voters sign at the bottom of the federal registration form  “has been acceptable for scores of years, and there is no problem of voter-citizenship fraud.” According to the ACLU, there is no evidence that non-citizens are falsely signing those citizenship declarations.

Another problem: The federal Election Assistance Commission currently doesn’t have any commissioners, and there’s a bill working its way through the Republican-dominated House of Representatives to eliminate the commission entirely.

In the meantime, about 12,000 registrations in Kansas are in limbo, because the proof-of-citizenship process hasn’t been completed.

Until the litigation is resolved, Kansas’ Secretary of State Kris Kobach said there will be two groups of voters in Kansas who have registered to vote since Jan. 1 — those who have documented proof of citizenship will be able to vote in all elections, and those who haven’t will be allowed to vote only in federal elections.

Since when does a state official get to make that decision?

We need state officials to concentrate more on actually governing and addressing the needs of the people they’re supposed to be serving, rather than focusing on bogus issues meant to demonstrate their conservative bona fides, fire up the base, suppress opposition voters, and keep themselves in office.

The post Voting rights watch: KS and AZ want to move voter suppression upstream appeared first on Occasional Planet.

No one should have to stand in line for three hours to vote in a presidential election. But that’s just what 102-year-old Desiline Victor had to do in November 2012. And during the 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama cited her determination to vote as an inspiration and as a reason to make sure that these deliberate, anti-democracy outrages stop happening.

The President called for a bi-partisan commission to look into the problem, but we already know what caused the long lines in 2012, when some voters waited for as long as eight hours: a shameless, concerted effort by Republican state and local election officials to suppress the vote in neighborhoods that tend to vote for Democrats.

A commission is probably a political necessity. But members of that group would be wise to use, as a starting—and perhaps ending—point, a report issued by the Brennan Center for Justice. The report recommends a three-part solution, which includes:

Modernizing voter registration

In an earlier report, the center called for dragging voter registration out of the the 19^th and into the 21^st century by instituting:

• Voluntary, automated registration of all consenting citizens when they interact with a wide range of government agencies.
• “Portable voter registration” systems that would keep voters on the rolls, even when they move.
• Fail-safe procedures to ensure that eligible voters whose information is not on the rolls or not up to date can correct the information online or at the polls.
• Federal funding for states to make necessary technological upgrades.

How would these changes help? According to the Brennan Center, these changes would solve some of the most significant causes of long lines and voter frustration:

• Fewer errors in the registration rolls will mean less time spent looking for misspelled names or addresses while other voters wait.
• Similarly, less time will be spent directing voters to fill out lengthy provisional ballot envelopes, which also consumes time and requires their own, separate set of administrative procedures.
• Finally, officials will have the ability to more precisely allocate resources to polling places, because they will have an exact and accurate number of registered voters.

Providing early voting during a fixed national time period

Before Republican vote suppressors slammed the door, early in-person voting [known in the trade as EIPV] was catching on. Voters liked the convenience and the flexibility, and election officials who cared about democracy saw that EIPV added efficiency to elections.

The benefits of EIPV are fairly obvious, says the Brennan Center report:

First, if a greater number of voters are voting early, fewer will vote on Election Day, meaning the crush of voters at particular times on Election Day will be smaller. Second, early voting provides an important safety valve against the kind of Election Day overload that can result from unexpected problems. Whether those problems are minor (like a failed voting machine at a polling site) or major (like the fallout from Superstorm Sandy), EIPV ensures that fewer voters are forced to choose between waiting in line for seven hours on Election Day and not voting at all.

The Center has found that effective EIPV includes four main elements. Each of them helps ensure that a significant portion of voters has equal access to early voting.

• 10 weekdays of early voting and at least two weekends, including the weekend before Election Day.
• At least some weekday EIPV hours beyond regular business hours (e.g., before 9 a.m. and after 5p.m.).
• Establishment of a standard by which each county (or relevant voting jurisdiction) sets a minimum number of EIPV locations based on its voting population, and polling locations that are reasonably and equally accessible to all voters.
• Establishment of “Early Voting Centers,” at which any voter from a particular county can vote, regardless of how close it is to the voter’s home.

How do these changes help? Mandating the availability of weekend voting, as well as both standard business and non-business hours during the week, frees citizens from making a choice between work and voting. Setting a uniform standard for each county to have a minimum number of EIPV outlets to serve its voting population will aid in dampening controversies over site selection, which too often in the past has led to accusations that some voters were provided less access to early voting than others. Finally, creating Early Voting Centers gives voters much greater flexibility during the early voting period to vote at locations that may be convenient, but not particularly close to their homes.

Setting minimum standards for polling place access

Rules that govern the allocation of election resources vary widely from state to state, and sometimes even from county to county. In 2012, for example, some polling precincts in Florida covered only a few hundred voters, while others had voting rolls of more than 8,000. Some precincts had too many optical scanners, while others were woefully under-supplied.

Some states do a better job than others, but the variability of the essential act of democracy—voting—from state to state and precinct to precinct underscores the need for a federal role in uniform standard-setting and oversight. This is simply too big and too important to be left to the states.  [I hear heads exploding on the right: It’s a government takeover of our elections!]

Nevertheless, the solution, says the Brennan Center, is for the federal government to set minimum standards for voting — an idea Americans overwhelmingly support.

These standards could be set with the goal of ensuring that no American must wait more than one hour to vote on Election Day. Numerous factors need consideration in setting these standards. Studies show that, to be effective, the standards should be based upon, among other things, the number and location of registered voters, turnout in previous elections, the type of voting system used, the needs and numbers of voters with disabilities and limited English proficiency, and the length and complexity of ballots. To ensure these standards are applied uniformly within each state, and enhanced when necessary, the appropriate agency and/or individuals must have the right to seek penalties and demand planning improvements when long lines persist in a particular state.

Addressing legal, political, technical and issues of civil rights

 The Brennan Center’s report also outlines a fourth grouping of issues that need to be addressed.

• Deceptive practices and voter intimidation
• Vacancies at the Election Assistance Commission
• Voting machine failures
• Restoring voting rights for those with past criminal convictions

End note: It’s hard to believe that we live in an America where we even have to talk about these things. The deliberate, cynical corruption of our voting system has brought us to an embarrassingly low point in the history of the vaunted democracy to which “patriotic” politicians loudly pay tribute. The solution is obvious: To quote Ann Romney, who said these famous words in a different context [and you know we’ve gone way too far when I’m quoting her]: “Just stop it.” It’s sad. But this, apparently, is the state of the union in 2013.

The post How to fix long lines at polling places appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The birthers just won’t go away, and now they’re transferred their wrath to Desiline Victor, the 102-year-old Miami voter–born in Haiti–whose  perseverance in the face of a three-hour waiting line earned her a seat of honor and a shout-out during President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address.

It appears that, having lost the battle over President Obama’s birth certificate and citizenship, they’ve selected Ms. Victor as their proxy and next victim.

Searching for a photo of Ms. Victor to accompany another blog post, I stumbled into something called, “Sorry to burst the happy bubble, but…” The blogger, who goes by Dr. John,  isn’t at all sorry about bursting the happy bubble—the good feeling—near tears for some of us—that we enjoyed when we heard about Ms. Victor’s determination to vote, despite the obstacles placed in her way by Florida’s official voter suppression brigade.

He quotes President Obama’s speech, citing the line about immigration in which he said that American immigration policy should “attract the highly skilled entrepreneurs and engineers.”

To which Dr. John replies:

Like Desiline Victor, right? How much has she contributed to the system? How much has she paid in income and social security taxes?

We’re going to strengthen the economy by importing 80 year olds with no skills and who cannot speak English and who are wholly dependent on the government for support?

Seriously?

Or are we merely importing elderly dependent future democrat voters who are willing to wait three hours to vote for their “son?”

That’s pretty uncharitable, as well as unfeeling, xenophobic, politically selfish [I’m assuming that he’s a Republican] and downright nasty.

Also, Dr. John can’t believe that Ms. Victor, who came to the U.S. in 1989 when she was 79 years old, could have become a citizen without being able to speak English. He backs up this line of “thinking” with a citation from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which states that, to become a U.S. citizen, a person must “be able to read, write, and speak English and have knowledge and an understanding of U.S. history and government (also known as civics).”

 That citation is accurate. However, conveniently, Dr. John has omitted the perfectly legal exemptions—listed farther down in the official website—that may have applied to Ms. Victor. The part he left out states that there are three exemptions from the English language requirement for naturalizations.

As we don’t know the details of Ms. Victor’s life and immigration path, it’s rather unfair to imply that she either cheated or got some kind of special treatment, or is—oh yeah, there it is—not actually a citizen and shouldn’t have been allowed to vote at all and must have been one of those imposters who are wrecking America and sapping us of our precious bodily fluids.

I’m not usually this angry–in print. But I just thought you might want to know.

The post Birther goes after 102-year-old voter honored at State of the Union speech appeared first on Occasional Planet.