Voter ID: The American Anti-Democracy Movement's Weapon of Choice

Civil rights activists confronted by National Guardsmen
during a protest in Memphis, Tennessee, 1968.
(photo: Corbis)

By Kevin Powell, Guardian UK

17 March 12

Whatever the claims, voter fraud is almost non-existent. The real problem is the regressive forces promoting discriminatory laws.

nti-democracy forces in the US are relentless.

Each time our nation takes a step forward, sure enough, a collective of well-financed anti-democracy naysayers comes along to shoot holes in the social and political progress of this country. Never mind that voting is a fundamental right guaranteed by the US constitution. Never mind that people have been killed, through decades and centuries, so that ordinary working Americans, including blacks and other people of color, women, and 18 year-olds could have this basic human and civil right. Never mind that the 15th amendment to the constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were added as extra layers of protection to insure democracy for all.

Anti-democracy forces could care less. For they are thumbing their noses at this history, at human and civil rights, and instead, are promoting for all they're worth the "voter ID law" movement, which has been in play the past few years but is now amplified in 2012 because of the presidential election. This means there are now eight American states with voter photo ID laws. These laws vary from state to state in terms of what is "identification". Some require an ID card with an expiration date. Others mandate that an ID be only state-issued and for the state where that person is voting. Still others demand a full name and address on the ID card. While others specifically prohibit even valid college IDs as proof of identity.

 

Given these new sets of rules, and the very real possibility that more of America's 50 states will adopt similar measures, despite the movement's legal setback in Wisconsin this week, it is little wonder that the Brennan Center for Justice recently reported that as many as 5 million eligible voters could have difficulty casting ballots, come Tuesday 6 November, election day in America, including an estimated 800,000 in Texas alone.

And the most vulnerable to voter ID laws? Poor people of all races, and people of color, who've historically had to do battle with laws preventing them from voting, as well as senior citizens and college students. Then, there are groups like newly-married couples, or newly-divorced ones, the transgendered community, Native Americans, American citizens with immigrant family members, and those who may have recently lost their homes due to the foreclosure crisis.

What this translates into are additional costs per voter to secure new IDs, or birth or marriage certificates, or transportation fees to get to hours-long lines, and away from work and other gainful activity. Many will simply shrug their shoulders and not bother to vote. And this, I feel, is the ultimate goal of the voter ID movement.  READ MORE

How the GOP Might Try to Steal the 2012 Election

TEN YEARS LATER

Democrats had better hope that the coming elections are not too close because the GOP is honing its vote stealing skills in its own primaries:

GOP state party snafus all have benefited Romney:

As we wrote yesterday, the Michigan Republican Party voted Wednesday night to award its two at-large delegates to the statewide winner instead of dividing up proportionally, as we (and even the Michigan GOP chairman at one time) had assumed. That move gave Romney a 16-14 delegate edge in the state instead of a 15-15 tie, and it has produced a firestorm of controversy. What’s more, it’s the latest GOP state party snafu this primary season that’s benefited Romney.

Consider: The Iowa Republican Party originally declared Romney the winner there (and even once the vote count had changed, it was hesitant to declare Santorum the new winner). In addition, the Maine GOP badly mishandled its caucuses (one county wasn’t counted due to snow, other results got lost in a spam folder), and Romney narrowly won that contest. And now you have the delegate drama in Michigan, which now allows Romney to claim a win there in both the popular vote and delegate count.

It's important to remember that they have two main methods of stealing elections. The first is vote suppression, in which they make it difficult for their opponents to cast votes. This is nothing new historically and it's not been confined to one party. But the modern Republicans have put their very special stamp on the practice by using reverse psychology and whining about non-existent voter fraud to claim they have been the victims of the terrible ACORN conspiracy to cancel out their decent Real American vote. (This was one of the bogus arguments used inBush vs Gore, which serves as a sort of template for their various legal arguments.)

But there's always been a second piece to the puzzle and that is the local and state GOP institutions responsible for counting votes and interpreting the voting laws being trained to use that power for partisan purpose.   READ MORE

Republicans Block the Vote: How Voter-ID Laws Suppress Registration Drives and Block Democratic Votes

There is no real reason for voter-ID laws. Simply stated, voter-ID bills become laws because Republican legislators pass and Republican governors sign them.

February 26, 2012

The following piece appears in the current issue of the Washington Spectator. For more great stories, check out their site. 

In 2005, Mark “Thor” Hearne, a lawyer who had worked for the Bush-Cheney political campaign, founded the American Center for Voting Rights.

The center produced one 72-page report: “Vote Fraud, Intimidation, & Suppression in the 2004 Presidential Election,” which was submitted to a House committee chaired by Ohio Congressman Bob Ney (who would later do time for his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal).

The report included no documented account of any individual impersonating another at a polling place. Yet it recommended that “[s]tates should adopt legislation requiring government-issued photo ID at the polls and for any voter seeking to vote by mail or by absentee ballot.” The center soon closed its doors, or more precisely its private postal mail-drop, and Hearne returned to private practice.

What Hearne was selling had a longer shelf life than his voting rights center. Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund and Heritage Foundation Fellow Hans von Spakovsky began promoting photo-ID laws as an essential line of defense against election fraud. Republican state party officers began writing voter-ID planks into their platforms. And in 2009, the American Legislative Council drafted the model legislation that Republican legislators would use a template for their bills. (ALEC is a Republican outfit that receives more than 98 percent of its funding from corporate lobbyists.)  READ MORE