By Nathan Henderson-James

Partisan efforts to keep up to 300,000 eligible Missouri citizens, mostly progressive-leaning voters from elderly and low-income demographics but also including such large blocks as married women, permanently off the voting rolls are coming to a head in the Missouri Senate today as the Legislature prepares to adjourn. Measures not passed by that time will die, pending the Governor calling a special session.

Voting rights and progressive activists, led by Missourians for Fair Elections are fighting back and report an extremely tough but increasingly winnable fight against what the Kansas City Star is calling a "real deception...being perpetrated by legislators, whose claims of fraud are driving what appears to be a political agenda".

Robin Carnahan, Missouri's Secretary of State, and an opponent of the measure, HJR 48 - which would amend Missouri's constitution to require proof of citizenship to register and vote, will be holding a press conference today in Kansas City to point out the partisan agenda behind this measure.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Requiring proof-of-citizenship in order to register to vote is the latest addition to voter suppression arsenal. Spurred by Arizona’s 2004 implementation of proof of citizenship requirements and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold Indiana's strict voter ID law, proof of citizenship bills - often coupled with voter ID - are gaining traction across the country. With more than 13 million Americans lacking ready access to citizenship documentation and scant evidence of voter registration fraud by non-citizens (or any voter for that matter) leading to illegal votes, proof of citizenship requirements could have a significant impact on the electorate. Wasting no time after the high court's decision, the neighboring states of Kansas and Missouri have swiftly moved forward with efforts to pass such legislation that could take effect in the November election.

UPDATED at bottom!

By Nathan Henderson-James

In the wake of increasing media scrutiny and aggressive push-back from voting rights activists, the fight over Missouri’s proposed Constitutional amendment requiring proof of citizenship documents in order to register to vote moves to the State Senate today. The New York Times chose to make this issue the lead story on their front page today, Monday May 11, 2008 and Art Levine, writing at the Huffington Post gives a very good analysis of the potential impact of the law and the work being done both to push this draconian voter disenfranchisement measure and to fight for the voting rights of up to 240,000 Missouri voters.

Missouri lawmakers this week are working to rush legislation that would prevent up to 240,000 Missourians from voting. The proposed legislation would make Missouri one of the toughest states in the country for eligible citizens who want to vote by requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls. If passed, these changes could be in place by the November general election.
Joint Resolution 48 passed the Missouri House yesterday on a party-line 88-69 vote and now awaits action in the Senate. If passed, it would place a referendum before the voters in August which, if approved, would go into effect for the November 2008 election.

This resolution is superfluous for Missouri, where proponents have yet to show a single case of voter impersonation from recent elections, yet imposes high burdens on eligible voters to comply, as noted by Denise Lieberman, a lawyer and voter protection advocate with Advancement Project in Missouri.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns and Nathan Henderson-James

Project Vote normally uses this update to give news roundups on voting rights-related stories from the past week. However, with the reverberations from the Supreme Court’s Crawford vs. Marion County voter identification decision just starting to filter down into statehouses across the country, we felt it was necessary to spend this update concentrating solely on voter ID, giving progressives a concise summary of the problems associated with it and offer some framing devices to help fight against it.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Supreme Court Legalizes Voter Disenfranchisement

In the midst of a presidential election year that is seeing record-breaking voter turnout in state after state, the Supreme Court on April 28 ruled in favor of Indiana's draconian voter ID requirement. The controversial law - which requires all voters to provide government issued, photographic proof of identity in order to vote at the polls - threatens to create a legislative domino effect of new voter ID laws ready for implementation before November.

By Elizabeth Westfall, Advancement Project
Wendy Weiser, Brennan Center for Justice
Michael Slater, Project Vote

In the past three weeks, Florida courts and election officials have dealt three blows to Floridians who want to cast their ballots in this year’s presidential election. In three separate cases, the Florida Secretary of State, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and a federal District Court each issued decisions that will collectively block tens of thousands of eligible Florida citizens from getting on the voter rolls and voting in the 2008 elections.   In an election season with thousands of voters trying to take part for the first time, Florida is creating new bureaucratic obstacles, rather than knocking them down.  Fortunately, it is not too late for the Governor, the Secretary of State, or the state legislature to intervene.

Project Vote Statement on Supreme Court Ruling in Crawford v. Marion County Elections Board

On Monday, April 28, the Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to Indiana’s law (Crawford v. Marion County Elections Board) requiring voters to show a government-issued photo identification before they may cast a ballot. Crawford plaintiffs argued that Indiana’s strict photo ID requirements disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters. Donna Massey, Project Vote Board Member and a supporter of voting rights, issued this statement:

"The Supreme Court ruling is disappointing for Americans who want the next president to be chosen in a free and fair election in which all eligible voters have an equal opportunity to participate. The voters most harmed by the ruling are first-time voters who are registering this year in record numbers. If legislators in the 24 states where strict photo voter ID rules have been introduced take the Court’s decision as a green light, voters across the country will find it more difficult to cast their ballots this Election Day. Our democracy works best when every American participates.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

The ability of injured veterans to vote in November’s presidential election rests in the hands of Bush Administration officials, who have so far refused demands from advocates and lawmakers that the Department of Veterans Affairs help hospitalized veterans register to vote.

"'It is an insult to those who have fought to spread democracy and freedom overseas to be denied the right to participate in their own democracy here at home,'" wrote Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) to the Department of Veterans Affairs in March. "'If each facility took a few simple steps to provide voter registration materials, the VA could do its part to guarantee access to voter registration.'"

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Young voters have arrived.

Finally.

Since the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1972, predictions of the increasing impact of young voters on the outcomes of elections have consistently been proven wrong on Election Day. In fact, youth voting rates have rarely been as strong as they were in 1972 and young people continue to be among the least represented groups in the electorate and in the voting booth.

Until now.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Voter registration applications continue to pour into elections offices across the country at record breaking rates, contributing to unprecedented turnout over the course of the presidential primary season so far. The closely contested primaries, especially on the Democratic side, are one factor behind the surge. Another includes a spark of political interest in young people. Whatever factors are involved, the bottom line is that more Americans are engaging in the electoral process. This reality of exploding participation in American democracy should be closely considered by lawmakers when evaluating legislation that could expand or restrict access to the polls this November.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

America’s Democratic Promise
The history of democracy in the United States is one marked by the steady, though intensely contested, expansion of the right to vote. Where once only male landowners were permitted the right to choose their representatives, the United States now proudly extends that right to all adult citizens. The most recent expansion of the franchise were the result of years of struggle through the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. The seminal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 26th Amendment ratified in 1971 created enforcement mechanisms to protect minority voting rights and extended the right to vote to 18 year olds.

Steve Rosenfeld, writing in the journal Social Policy, has authored a comprehensive look at the recent history of partisan attacks on the voting process itself and the unfolding attempts to roll back all of the voting rights gains of the past 50 years that have gained speed and urgency under the Bush Administration.  

Pointing out that modern voter suppression attempts and larger projects to reshape the entire electorate to favor conservatives no longer rely on the open fear and intimidation that characterized past practices from American history, Rosenfeld opens his in-depth survey with this observation,

"Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the 21st century he is apt to be a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers, proposed legislation and talking points about "voter fraud" and protecting the sanctity of the vote."  

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

The debates surrounding the issue of expanding or restricting access to the right to vote are in high gear this legislative session at both state and Congressional levels. Bills filed range from proposals to lower the voting age to voter ID requirements. Project Vote’s Election Legislation monitoring project has identified a surge of contentious election bills this year, but whether this is simply the result of the standard impact of a presidential election year or the byproduct of increasingly fractious partisan politics, the future of the foundational right of American democracy is being set right now.

This week Project Vote examines the progress of four hot-button voting rights issues through legislatures and the media. Youth voting in primary elections, voter identification (and its harbinger; accusations of voter fraud), felon disenfranchisement, and vote caging were all in play.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

In recent weeks, two Congressional hearings examined hot button voter suppression issues, voter fraud and voter caging, that have the potential to "taint the November election." These major voting rights issues have moved into broad public consciousness thanks to the 2007 exposure of the U.S. Attorney scandal in which nine federal prosecutors were fired for alleged lack of zeal in pursuing partisan accusations of widespread voter fraud. Now, two states with upcoming primary elections, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, have made local headlines for voter registration discrepancies, creating openings for confusing and discouraging voters and possibly even allowing those with voter suppression agendas to make an impact.  

X-Posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

By Rebecca Wakefield

At the third hearing on voter suppression in as many weeks, members of Congress again sparred over the prevalence of fraudulent voting. This time, it was members of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration at hearing on In Person Voter Fraud: Myth and Trigger for Disenfranchisement?, called at the insistence of Senator Chuck Schumer.

The starkly partisan contrast between those who believe voter fraud is the worst affliction on the country’s electoral system and those who believe the greater threat is voter disenfranchisement could not have been clearer. The Democrats on the committee called several witnesses to debunk the myth, while Republicans brought in friendly testimony from true believers.

The Department of Justice, arguably the arbiter of the actual extent of any fraud, stayed out of the fray altogether by refusing to send a witness to testify.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

A year has passed since the U.S. Attorneys scandal first gathered steam for the firings of nine federal prosecutors – at least two of whom claim being "pressured by Republicans to bring charges of voter fraud against people who intended to [vote] for Democrats." But the issue is far from settled. This week, the phantom issue of "voter fraud" emerged in the guise of news stories, editorials, memos, blogs, legislation, and even a Senate hearing either extinguishing or inflaming the alleged election integrity problem, particularly regarding voter identification requirements. Ultimately, what has become most evident in the last year is how far partisans are willing to go in order to legalize voter suppression tactics through the smoke-screen of "voter fraud."

In the beginning was the Vote, and the Vote was with the People and the Vote was the People. Shortly after that, came the political strategists. From then on, the vote was only for the people who lived in the right precincts.