On Election Day, Republicans Suffered Consequences of Voter Suppression Strategy
Donna Brazile, HuffPost
Posted: 11/13/2012 5:20 pm
For more than two years Republicans have campaigned and legislated against the right of certain groups of people to vote. On Election Day, Republicans suffered the consequences. The very groups the GOP targeted -- among them African Americans, Latinos, and young people -- turned out in record numbers, propelling to victory the president and Democrats across the country. The Republicans' strategy failed because it awakened the most powerful force in a democracy: the determination of the voters themselves.
Republican lawmakers and conservative activists undertook a concerted effort to keep minorities, students and those with lower or fixed incomes (including many of our seniors) from voting. One GOP official in Ohio said early voting cuts were necessary to check the power of "the urban -- read African-American -- voter-turnout machine." A leader of the Tea Party group "True the Vote" said he wanted to make the experience of voting "like driving and seeing the police following you." The Republican House speaker in New Hampshire said restrictions on college students voting were needed because "voting as a liberal ... that's what kids do."
To reduce turnout among these groups, Republican officials deployed a variety of tactics. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and Florida Governor Rick Scott slashed the amount of time available for early voting, which is disproportionately utilized by minority and low-income voters. GOP legislators in Pennsylvania enacted a photo ID law, and then failed to establish adequate procedures for allowing more than 700,000 Pennsylvanians who lacked photo ID to obtain one. Voter purges attempted by Gov. Scott and Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler targeted thousands of lawfully registered voters. "True the Vote" -- surely a leading candidate for the Newspeak Award -- challenged minority voter registrations on an unprecedented scale.
(More here.)
Posted: 11/13/2012 5:20 pm
For more than two years Republicans have campaigned and legislated against the right of certain groups of people to vote. On Election Day, Republicans suffered the consequences. The very groups the GOP targeted -- among them African Americans, Latinos, and young people -- turned out in record numbers, propelling to victory the president and Democrats across the country. The Republicans' strategy failed because it awakened the most powerful force in a democracy: the determination of the voters themselves.
Republican lawmakers and conservative activists undertook a concerted effort to keep minorities, students and those with lower or fixed incomes (including many of our seniors) from voting. One GOP official in Ohio said early voting cuts were necessary to check the power of "the urban -- read African-American -- voter-turnout machine." A leader of the Tea Party group "True the Vote" said he wanted to make the experience of voting "like driving and seeing the police following you." The Republican House speaker in New Hampshire said restrictions on college students voting were needed because "voting as a liberal ... that's what kids do."
To reduce turnout among these groups, Republican officials deployed a variety of tactics. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and Florida Governor Rick Scott slashed the amount of time available for early voting, which is disproportionately utilized by minority and low-income voters. GOP legislators in Pennsylvania enacted a photo ID law, and then failed to establish adequate procedures for allowing more than 700,000 Pennsylvanians who lacked photo ID to obtain one. Voter purges attempted by Gov. Scott and Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler targeted thousands of lawfully registered voters. "True the Vote" -- surely a leading candidate for the Newspeak Award -- challenged minority voter registrations on an unprecedented scale.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
As an election judge, I am actually coming around to the position that we not only do not need voter Id laws, but also, we do not need even need voter registration. In Minnesota, our counties spend millions each election cycle on paper. Paper, paper, paper, paper. It's everywhere in a polling place. The headache of registering same-day registrants is also a huge cost to counties...and to voters. Many same-day registrants show up to the wrong precinct. Those that find the correct precinct rarely have the correct documentation needed in order to register on election day. This is a significant cost to the voter and borders on disenfranchisement. So, my thought is that we should not only do away with same-day registration, but do away with registration altogether. Counties also save costs by not having to have registration judges and not having roster judges on election day. This helps the poor, minorities, elderly people in nursing homes and many other groups who might otherwise be disenfranchised.
It would work like this. Based on census data and the last ten years of voting records in each precinct, the county would print the number of ballots that approximates the number of ballots needed for each adult in each precinct as well as spoiled ballots. Voters would just go to their assigned precinct and get a ballot and vote - no id, no signature, no registration. When every adult who wishes to vote has voted and the ballots have run out, that precinct is closed and submits its results.
This solution maximized voter freedom and minimizes cost to the counties.
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