GOP Push to Tighten Voting Rules May Disenfranchise Young, Poor

 (So what's your voter registration card good for now? Nothing?--jef)

by: Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times News Service
Sunday 29 May 2011

Miami - Less than 18 months before the next presidential election, Republican-controlled statehouses around the country are rewriting voting laws to require photo identification at the polls, reduce the number of days of early voting or tighten registration rules.

Republican legislators say the new rules, which have advanced in 13 states in the past two months, offer a practical way to weed out fraudulent votes and preserve the integrity of the ballot box. Democrats say the changes have little to do with fraud prevention and more to do with placing obstacles in the way of possible Democratic voters, including young people and minorities.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas signed laws last week that would require each voter to show an official, valid photo ID to cast a ballot, joining Kansas and South Carolina.

In Florida, which already had a photo law, Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill this month to tighten restrictions on third-party voter registration organizations — prompting the League of Women Voters to say it would cease registering voters in the state — and to shorten the number of early voting days. Twelve states now require photo identification to vote.

The battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania are among those moving ahead on voter ID bills, part of a trend that seems likely to intensify the kind of pitched partisan jousting over voting that has cropped up in recent presidential races.

When voters in predominantly black neighborhoods in Florida saw their votes challenged in the contested Bush-Gore election of 2000, Democrats made charges of disenfranchisement. In 2008 Acorn, a group organizing minority and low-income communities, became a particular target, with Republicans asserting that Acorn was trying to steal the election with large voter-registration drives, some of which were found to be seriously flawed.

Democrats, who point to scant evidence of voter-impersonation fraud, say the unified Republican push for photo identification cards carries echoes of the Jim Crow laws — with their poll taxes and literacy tests — that inhibited black voters in the South from Reconstruction through the 1960s. Election experts say minorities, poor people and students — who tend to skew Democratic — are among those least likely to have valid driver’s licenses, the most prevalent form of identification. Older people, another group less likely to have licenses, are swing voters.

Republicans argue that the requirements are commonplace.

“If you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed, if you have to show a picture ID to get on an airplane, you should show a picture ID when you vote,” Gov. Nikki Haley said this month when she signed the bill into law in South Carolina, using a common refrain among Republicans.

Changes to voter law tend to flow and ebb with election cycles as both Democrats and Republicans scramble to gain the upper hand when they hold power. The 2010 midterm election was a boon to Republicans, who now control 59 chambers of state legislatures and 29 governorships. In some states, like Florida and Texas, Republicans hold overwhelming majorities. This has allowed the bills to move forward.

Republicans have tried for years to get photo identification requirements and other changes through legislatures, said Daniel Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University and an expert in election law. Similar bills were introduced over the past decade, but were largely derailed in the aftermath of a political battle over the Bush administration’s firing of several United States attorneys whom Republicans had criticized for failing to aggressively investigate voter fraud.

“That’s what really killed the momentum of more states’ enacting voter ID laws,” Mr. Tokaji said. “Now with the last elections, with the strong Republican majorities in a lot of states, we’re seeing a rejuvenation > Republicans say that large jumps in the immigrant population have also prompted them to act to safeguard elections.

“Over the last 20 years, we have seen Florida grow quite rapidly, and we have such a mix of populations,” said State Representative Dennis K. Baxley, the Florida Republican who wrote the law to tighten third-party registration here. “When we fail to protect every ballot, we disenfranchise people who participate legitimately.”

Taken together, the state-by-state changes are likely to have an impact on close elections, Mr. Tokaji said.

“Remarkably, most of these significant changes are going under the radar,” he added. “A lot of voters are going to be surprised and dismayed when they go to their polling place and find that the rules have changed.”

Most of the measures would require people to show a form of official, valid identification to vote. While driver’s licenses are the most common form, voters can also request free photo IDs from the Department of Motor Vehicles or use a passport or military identification, among other things.

But Democrats say thousands of people in each state do not have these. The extra step, they add, will discourage some voters who will have to pay to retrieve documents, like birth certificates, for proof to obtain a free card. If voters do not have the proper identification on Election Day, they can cast provisional ballots in most states but must return several days later to a local board of elections office with an ID.

A few state bills and laws also shave the number of early voting days, a move that Democrats say would impact Democratic voters once again. In the 2008 presidential election, a majority of those who cast early votes did so for President Obama. In Florida, the number of days is reduced but the number of hours remains the same.

Democrats point to state figures showing that there are few proven cases of voter impersonation and question why budget-conscious Republicans would want to spend taxpayer dollars on a problem that is isolated.

“There is not one documented case that has been presented to us, and we had numerous hearings,” said State Senator Brad Hutto of South Carolina, a Democrat. “Republicans have to have some reason to do this because it doesn’t sound good to say, ‘We don’t want Latinos or African-Americans voting.’ ”

But Republicans counter that detecting and proving voter impersonation is tricky under current law precisely because few states require photo identification. Plus, they add, there is no evidence that the requirement reduces minority participation. In Georgia, where photo IDs became a requirement in 2007, minorities voted in record numbers in 2008 and 2010.

Turnout among Hispanic voters jumped 140 percent in the state in 2008 and 42 percent among blacks compared with 2004, a change attributed in part to President Obama’s candidacy. Two years later, in the midterm election, turnout also rose among Hispanics and African-Americans, according to data from the Georgia secretary of state.

But with the presidential election campaign season already under way, Democrats say they are taking no chances. The Democratic Governors Association started a Voter Protection Project this month to educate voters and encourage them to speak out against the measures. It also began running online advertisements.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong on Election Day 2010?

Two voting rights organizations expose the possible shortcomings and abuse of our electoral systems this November.
By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on September 21, 2010

In the past decade, voting rights groups have studied, documented and cataloged virtually every conceivable failure in voting machinery, voter registration procedures and outright partisan thuggery that could tilt the outcome of elections.

The good news is that the catalog of administrative snafus and political dirty tricks is widely known. The bad news is 2010's midterm election is as ripe for mistakes or mischief as any recent national election; if not more so, given this year's political dynamics.

What could possibly go wrong on Election Day this November?

Dozens and dozens of things, according to a massive report by two nationwide voting rights groups, Demos and Common Cause. The report pinpoints how administrative complexities or intentional interference in many steps in the registration and voting process can result in individuals not voting or casting ballots that count, as was the case for 3 million eligible voters in 2008's presidential election.

But administrative snafus -- such as registering to vote but not appearing on official lists -- is not the big worry of 2010. Beyond a catalog of possible errors that have shaved off thousands of votes in state after state in recent elections, the two voting rights groups say the current political climate is not conducive to an orderly vote or vote count.

The 2010 electorate is apparently angry or apathetic, depending which pollsters you believe, suggesting turnout in November will be lower and more polarized than in typical presidential contest years. Lower-turnout elections magnify the impact of procedural mistakes and partisan interference in the process. Both affect who votes and who wins.

"The volatile tone of recent political discourse in America demonstrates just how high the stakes are going into the 2010 midterm elections," said Tova Wang, senior democracy fellow at Demos and author of the report. "Strongly held views on the role of government in our lives and the rightful place of minorities and immigrants in our society will be directly reflected in the voting process."

"When the stakes are this high, the rules of the game -- and whether or not they are enforced -- make all the difference," said Susannah Goodman, director of election reform for Common Cause and co-author of the report. "This report shows where we need better rules--and better referees."

What could go wrong? The vitriol surrounding recent protests over health care reform (Washington, D.C., Tea Party rallies) and immigration (Arizona) could extend to various stages of the voting process as self-appointed political posses try to protect electoral "integrity" by policing polling places.

Voter suppression has taken many forms over the decades. In 2010, eligible voters, especially first-time voters, could be asked to present ID beyond legal requirements, be videotaped, or receive misinformation about where and when to vote -- all before even entering a polling place, according to Common Cause and Demos. Once inside polls, individuals could have their credentials as eligible voters challenged by partisans.

Few states have specific laws barring such actions, or a record of intervening when arch partisans insert themselves in the process, the groups noted. Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, all states with large populations of eligible Latino voters, could be vulnerable to such "passionate" outbursts this year, the groups said, based on recent political trends.

Demos and Common Cause said the proliferation of information technologies, such as text messaging and Twitter, could irresponsibly be used to foment confusion about the voting process or to spread misinformation -- to either discourage voters from casting ballots, or to inflame already overheated campaign passions around polling places.

In most campaign circles, excessive behavior on Election Day is seen as a virtue, not a vice. Already in 2010, the use of fabricated campaign Web sites that pretend to represent candidates, is widespread. Add the ability to widely disseminate misinformation -- by Internet-based phone calls, fraudulent e-mails, etc. -- and there are many precedents for mischief. One dismaying example cited by Common Cause and Demos was from Ohio's Butler County, where a cyber attack on the county Web site delayed the reporting of results during the spring primary. The attack caused the county server to crash.

Of course, the best antidote for electoral chicanery is high voter turnout. High turnout, as seen in the 2008 presidential election, dilutes the potential impact of partisan interference because the margin between competing sides is too big across more jurisdictions than any isolated effort can sway. Similarly, high turnout offsets the small percentage of voters who encounter administrative barriers that prevent them from casting ballots.

The Demos-Common Cause report may be seen as shrill by election administrators, since voting rights activists have long wanted states to address this laundry list of shortcomings. Still, the same technologies that sow discord can also be used to help voters quickly address intentional partisan mischief.

However, election officials know that managing elections is not a simple affair. And beyond unintentional bureaucratic mistakes that complicate their jobs and disenfranchise eligible voters, are deliberate partisan efforts to interfere and alter outcomes. If nothing else, 2010 looks like a year when those partisan currents are at high tide.