Daily Archives: September 29, 2008

Protecting the Vote

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By Laura Flanders

This article is part of “Election Protection Investigation Week, a project of The Media Consortium which will culminate with Live – From Main Street Columbus – a virtual town hall exploring how the issues of voting rights and election security affect every day Americans. This is a one-of-a-kind, week-long media collaboration that kicks off today. For more information, click here.

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Voter registration deadlines are just over a week away in many states. Polls open in just over a month. In an election that could well be decided by new voters, voter registration efforts are in overdrive. But signing people up might be the easy part: after that, there’s voting. As the last two elections have shown, just showing up at the polls isn’t a guarantee of a smooth ride to the ballot box.

In 2000 and 2004, all across the country, thousands of voters were removed from the rolls, without their knowledge, in official purges of voter lists. On Election Day in 2004, boxes of registrations remained unprocessed in at least two cities we know about – Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. On the radio that election night, I received calls from Columbus voters who had stood for hours in line because of a shortage of voting machines in the inner city, even as, in nearby wealthy suburbs, voters were able to cast their votes in a matter of minutes. As one caller put it, “Jim Crow isn’t dead.”

Election protection and voting rights should be central to any conversation about the ’08 vote. But a lot of tough questions are getting lost in horse-race coverage. And many voters are wondering – again – if their vote will be counted.

In contrast to most advanced democracies, the right to vote isn’t conveyed automatically with citizenship or coming of age in the United States. Voters have to prove themselves and there are no end to the challenges, from felon disenfranchisement laws to monolingual ballots and a myriad of ever-changing rules which differ from election to election and district to district. Come voting day, voters rely on minimally-trained poll-workers overseeing a myriad of voting systems. Disturbing doubts remain about the security of electronic voting and the privately-owned technology many districts rely on to tally votes.

Fed up with waiting for officials or Parties to do the work, this year, as never before, citizens’ groups, and voting rights organizations are taking early action to protect the vote. A few months back, national voting rights groups charged officials in Kansas, Michigan and Louisiana of illegally purging voter lists. Voters whose homes are in foreclosure are also concerned that their status might be used at the precinct to challenge their right to vote. The states with the highest foreclosure rates, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Colorado, are also swing states where the election could hinge on tiny margins. Meanwhile, in Michigan, the ACLU has just filed a federal lawsuit against state electoral officials over statewide voter purge programs they claim would “disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Michigan voters” – many of them college students.

Thanks to independent reporting and activist organizing, the Department of Veterans Affairs was recently forced to reverse its policy that would have stopped voter registration drives at hundreds of VA hospitals serving injured and homeless vets.

While the media focus on the candidates, voting rights advocates are focusing on the future of our democracy. It’s falling to nonprofit outfits like the Advancement Project to distribute state-specific “know the facts” palm cards to poll workers in many states. And organizers are fanning out. Twenty-three states allow early voting. Ohio has a “golden week” – Sept. 30 to Oct. 6 – in which people can register and vote all in the same day. The organizers recommend voting early. Avoid the lines and the worst of the chaos.

Will citizen activism decide an election? It just might.

Laura Flanders is host of GRITtv and Live From Main Street.

Funnies

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On some slim chance you’ve missed this SNL clip, here it is. Tina Fey does Sarah Palin better than Palin herself. Uncanny.

Students and ex-offenders unclear about voting

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The State picked up part of the SC Progressive Network‘s recent press release on the confusion over ex-offenders’ voting rights. It’s tacked onto the end of this piece about student voting.

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Student voters face barriers –
Geography, rules complicate process for college youth

By Wayne Washington

They have provided much of the passion in this presidential race. They have put up signs, answered phones, swamped campaign Internet sites and sworn to be there for their candidate on Election Day.

But past elections show college students can be an unreliable voting group. Part of the reason is confusion about whether they can vote in the county where they attend school. Or, others say, it’s the hassle of having to cast an absentee ballot.

“The enthusiasm of the campaign runs into the reality of voting by absentee ballot or even remembering to vote,” said Blease Graham, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina. “There are a lot of potential barriers.”

College students, of course, are not all residents of the place where they attend classes. Typically, large colleges enroll students from across the country.

Elections, however, are local functions, administered by local officials. Different localities have different rules, further complicating things for students.

Chris Whitmire, public information officer for the S.C. State Election Commission, said students have three choices when it comes to how they vote.

If they already are registered to vote in another place, they can contact election officials there to request an absentee ballot.

In addition to voting by absentee ballot, students can return to their hometowns to vote. However, students do have a third option — changing their place of residence so they can vote in the county where they attend college.

But that can be a little tricky, Whitmire said. “You have to know the address of your dorm,” Whitmire said. “They can’t use a post office box. They have to put you in the right district.”

Students who want to change their place of residence and vote in South Carolina have until Saturday to do so. There is no required length of residency.

Whitmire said information on the state Election Commission’s Web site could answer other questions students might have about registering and voting.

OTHERS CONFUSED TOO

Students aren’t the only ones who may be confused about their voting rights. Many with criminal records, especially those who have been incarcerated, often wrongly think they forever forfeit their right to vote.

Felons and those who have broken the state’s elections laws are not eligible to vote until they complete the terms of their legal punishment.

The state Election Commission recently sent county officials a memo outlining how such voters can cast ballots. First, they have to re-register with county voting officials by submitting a registration application. County officials then determine whether the potential voter meets eligibility requirements.

Local election boards can ask for proof that the voter’s legal punishment has been completed, though that proof is not required by law.

In a recent study, the S.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union found 36 S.C. counties require proof that legal punishment has been completed.

“If additional proof is not required by law, the state Election Commission should be advising the counties not to require proof that an offender has completed a sentence,” said Brett Bursey, director of the S.C. Progressive Network, a social and economic advocacy group. “This added requirement burdens the 18,000 citizens a year who have paid their debt to society, and may result in them not voting.”