2011 Changes to Voting Rights: Unnecessary Solutions to Non-Existent Problems
by Jim Condos
1/20/12
I am mindful that it is an important election year -- and as Vermont's Secretary of State, there is one item of particular distress to me -- the suppression of voter participation in the United States.
Yes, the very basis of our democracy is under siege -- under the guise of preventing voter fraud!
In 2011, legislation was introduced in 40 states to limit voter participation in the following ways:
* mandating photo IDs in order to cast a ballot;
* reducing early voting days -- in some cases from 45 days to 7;
* repealing election day registration;
* restricting student voting;
* repealing voter-verified ballot paper trail for all voting machines;
* restricting voter registration drives by placing obstructive burdens on filing.
Frankly, these changes threaten the very fabric of our democracy.
According to a report by Wendy R. Weiser and Lawrence Norden at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law,
These new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities. This wave of changes may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election.
These legislative changes also place disproportionate burdens upon other groups including the elderly, overseas, and military voters.
The Brennan Center has analyzed the changes made in 14 states and showed how more than five million eligible voters attempting to cast ballots in 2012 will find it difficult or impossible. Proponents of this wave of voting "reforms" are citing voter fraud as the rationale, but every study that has been done, even ones conducted by the advocates of reform, show no evidence to support this. In 2007, after a five year effort to review whether "voter fraud" was a problem, the US Department of Justice found virtually no evidence and further stated that the few cases brought forward were found to be mistakes made in filling out forms or understanding vote eligibility rules -- none of which would be deterred by voter ID legislation...
For the full article, go to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-condos/vermont-voting-rights_b_1219978.html
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