This year, several states have passed laws making voting more difficult – a simultaneous (coordinated?) action that is apparently part of a Republican Party national strategy. A study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law analyzed 19 laws that passed and two executive orders that were issued in 14 states this year, and concluded that they “could make it significantly harder for more than 5 million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.”
This, by even partisan political standards, is a disgrace to American democracy.
Several states passed laws this year scaling back programs allowing voters to cast their ballots before Election Day. Ohio passed a law eliminating early voting on Sundays, and Florida eliminated it on the Sunday before Election Day – -– days when some churches organized voting drives. Wisconsin, Kansas, South Carolina and Tennessee all passed laws to obstruct, impede or hamper voting. Uniquely in Texas, licenses to carry concealed handguns would be an acceptable form of identification to vote, but student ID cards would not be (that also speaks volumes about the values that Texas holds dear).
Maine voted to stop allowing people to register to vote on Election Day, a practice that was credited with enrolling some 60,000 new voters in 2008.
These laws are intended to discourage, or even block, eligible voters -– especially minorities, the poor, the disabled, the young, the rural, the elderly, travelers and those whose work makes voting difficult. One would think that Republicans – avatars of civic virtue, supporters of individual rights, believers in personal decision making, sons of Abe Lincoln – would believe in, and support, the unhampered exercise of such a basic principle of democracy as the free vote. But not so. Anything that cuts down the enemy – anything that gives the elephant an edge – is on the table. Denials that these laws are a coordinated strategy of the National Republican Party do not pass the straight-face test.
The Brennan Center finds that the new laws would affect 3.2 million voters in the states where change is scheduled to take effect before the 2012 elections. It is the most significant rollback in voting rights since the Jim Crow laws of the Reconstruction. The electoral math shows that this number of votes would have made a difference in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
The law is a well-designed and funded scheme to block Democrats or those who are thought likely to vote in support of the donkey.
The Department of Justice has announced it will monitor many of these voting restrictions under the provisions of the Fair Voting Act, a law that was originally written to correct abuses in such venues of segregated government as Mississippi and Alabama.
Imagine the old Pine Tree State in the same class with these citadels of democracy!
The Republican claim that the new election laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud is the sheerest nonsense. In Maine, months of research through 30 years of records turned up exactly one case of possible fraud – and it was doubtful. Nor does it impose a heavy workload on registration officials. During the legislative hearings and subsequently all over the state, election clerks have repeatedly stated the system worked well.
Fortunately, Maineiacs who relish freedom – who see through the smokescreen – have the opportunity to strike the law. On Nov. 8, they can vote yes to throw this hateful, mean ukase where it belongs.
Devil’s Dictionary definition
Politics: Personal interests masquerading as a set of principles; the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
Rodney Quinn, a former Maine secretary of state, lives in Gorham. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.
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