Project Vote's blog

Bumped. Thanks to Project Vote for two great and relevant diaries while I'm away for the holiday. --Mike

The United States saw dramatic increases in voting from traditionally underrepresented groups, including minorities and young voters, according to a new analysis released this week by Project Vote. If borne out by systematic analysis of the voter rolls, this change in the electorate is evidence of the power of successful voter registration drives and an indication of the strong inclination of voters to participate in the process when candidates address their issues.

Countering the conventional wisdom that the voting population on November 4 did not change as dramatically as predicted, the analysis, The Demographics of Voters in America’s 2008 General Election: A Preliminary Assessment, demonstrates that African-Americans, Latinos, and young voters cast millions more ballots in 2008 than in 2004.

“The analysis estimated that about 5.8 million more minorities voted in this year's presidential election than in 2004, while nearly 1.2 million fewer whites went to the polls,” wrote Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers. “The figures appear to reflect the success of Project Vote and other liberal voter registration groups in registering millions of young, poor, elderly and minority Americans to vote in recent election cycles.”

According to the analysis, African-Americans cast nearly three million more ballots nationwide in 2008 than in 2004—an increase of 21 percent. The total votes cast by Latinos went up by 16 percent—more than 1.5 million—and young Americans aged 18-29 cast 1.8 million more votes, a nine percent increase. That the overall totals did not increase significantly compared to 2004 was in part due to a decrease in voting by white voters.

In addition to presenting an analysis of ballots cast from the United States as a whole, the memo by Project Vote consultant and Ph.D. candidate Jody Herman and Barnard College political science professor Lorraine Minnite examines several key states in detail, including Colorado, Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

The Project Vote data is preliminary, and does not speak to “turnout,” which is traditionally a measure of the percentage of the voting-eligible population that shows up to vote. Project Vote expects to release a full report on turnout in the 2008 election in 2009 when government survey data on the voting-eligible population comes available. Yet, this preliminary analysis indicates that a significant shift occurred this year.

“There is no doubt that this surge in voting by Americans of color and young people had a powerful impact on the outcome of the election,” said Michael Slater, executive director of Project Vote, in a press release issued today.

“Separate opinion polls and election results themselves indicate that an overwhelming majority of African-Americans and Latinos backed Obama,” according to Gordon.

“Thus, the appearance of an African-American presidential candidate with a sympathetic message may have prompted the nation's minorities to vote at levels approaching white voters -- if final state vote counts do not upend Project Vote's figures,” wrote AlterNet's Steve Rosenfeld last week. “Its findings also suggest the U.S. electorate is not an inflexible assembly of voting constituencies, but has segments that are mobilized -- or demobilized -- depending on the year, candidate and message,”

In an email exchange with Rosenfeld, Frank Sharry, executive director of pro-immigration reform group, America's Voice, said “neither the turnout increase among Latinos -- nor the swing in support to Democrats -- were surprising.”

“Telling people you don't like them and don't want them is not a winning electoral strategy,” wrote Sharry. “But that is what the Republican Party has been saying to immigrants, Latino immigrants in particular, for the past four years. No surprise, then, that record numbers of Latinos turned out in 2008 and that the swing away from Republicans to Democrats among Latino immigrants in particular was dramatic.”

Bumped. This is something I really want to see happen in 2009. Universal registration, Election Day Registration, and other voting reforms could make permanent the increases in youth participation we saw this year. I hope voting reforms like this don't get lost in the new administration. --Mike

Following the historic 2008 election and the plethora of problems with voter registrations - from partisan cries of voter fraud by third party registration drives to voter suppression from bad list maintenance procedures - syndicated columnist Robyn Blumner offers a solution: Universal Voter Registration.

"The problems arose because our old system of state-by-state registration rules -- some of which appear designed for a mail system via pony express -- is outmoded and frankly retains vestiges of our racist past," wrote Blumner in a Nov. 23 op-ed . "We need to follow the lead of at least 24 other countries and adopt a system of automatic and permanent voter registration. "

Blumner asserts that problems with voter registration would disappear if state or federal government took responsibility for ensuring every eligible citizen was registered to vote. This would eliminate the need for third-party voter registration drives, cut the "redundant, phony" and illegal cards that "gum up" the voter registration process, and curb voter disenfranchisement from problem-prone procedures, such as "No Match, No Vote," she said.

"But if the pragmatic arguments don't sway, perhaps the moral ones will. Holding onto the current voter registration system is like cleaving to a relic of our disgraced history," she wrote, recalling the origin of voter registration, which along with literacy tests and poll taxes, began "in the late 19th century as a way to tamp down the votes of 'undesirables,'" which meant immigrants and freed slaves.

"Then there is the length of time between registration and the election," she wrote. "While eight states allow registration and voting on the same day, 21 states cut off registration on Oct. 6. We can send money around the world in the blink of an eye, but it apparently takes weeks of lead time to put a voter into a database. Ridiculous."

"Despite the large turnout in the last election, there are still 64 million unregistered voters in the country," she wrote. "Universal registration needs to be tried."

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

On Sept. 10, reporter Eartha Jane Melzer of online publication, the Michigan Messenger broke the story that the GOP of Macomb County, Mich. was planning to use public lists of foreclosures to challenge the eligibility of potentially thousands of low-income and minority voters in that hard-hit region. Since that time (and at least party through Project Vote's efforts to catalyze action to stop the illegal disenfranchisement), the story has been picked up by multiple news outlets around the country and generated a lawsuit from the Obama campaign and the DNC on behalf of potentially-disenfranchised Mich. voters.

Sept. 10

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” Macomb County GOP chairman James Carabelli reportedly told the Messenger in the Sept. 10 report.

“The Macomb County party's plans to challenge voters who have defaulted on their house payments is likely to disproportionately affect African Americans who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters,” Melzer wrote. “More than 60 percent of all sub-prime loans – the most likely kind of loan to go into default – were made to African Americans in Michigan...”

Sept. 11

In a statement, Project Vote attorney Teresa James explained that Michigan law allows challenges at the polls only if the challenger “knows or has good reason to suspect” a voter is ineligible. According to James, the Michigan Secretary of State has clarified this to require that challenges should be based on “reliable sources or means.”

“Republican challengers with only a list of foreclosure notices will have NO evidence or reliable source to suggest that eligible voters have moved and are no longer eligible to vote,” James said.

Later that day, however, Carabelli denied having any such plans, according to a Detroit News report. Despite his claim that the story was a fabrication, Melzer “stands by her story '100 percent' and has clear notes on her conversation with Carabelli.”

Sept. 12

James sent a letter on behalf of Project Vote to both major political parties in Michigan, offering a detailed analysis of state and federal law and the requirements for challenging voters based on residency. In the letter, James clarified that a change of address for any reason – including losing one's home to foreclosure – does not itself disqualify an individual from voting under Michigan law, and that challenging a voter on the basis of a foreclosure would violate the National Voter Registration Act and the Voting Rights Act.

Sept. 16

The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit on behalf of the potentially disenfranchised foreclosure victims, according to Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers.

“Democratic lawyers argued that foreclosure proceedings can take more than a year and don't always force a homeowner to change residences,” Gordon wrote. “Nor is there a basis, they wrote, 'for challenging the right to vote of all the renters who reside in an apartment building that has been foreclosed.'

“They said the tactic is intended 'to discourage, intimidate and suppress the vote of individuals whom defendant Republicans believe are unlikely to vote for them.'”

A spokesman for the state Republican Party denied the plan to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters and claimed that they “never talked about doing it,” Gordon wrote.

The same day, “a group of Senate Democrats -- including Sen. Obama -- sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking for details on what the Justice Department plans to do to ensure voters aren't 'intimidated or harassed based solely on the fact that they have received a foreclosure notice,'” according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, said the department 'is aware of the allegations and is currently reviewing the matter.'”

Sept. 19

U.S. Sen. John Conyers (D-Mich.) asked the McCain campaign to “'repudiate any efforts of the Republican Party and any of its state affiliates to engage in voter suppression and intimidation tactics,'" relating directly to the Sept. 10 report on caging foreclosure victims in Macomb County, Mich., according to a blog post in The Hill.

"'It is beyond disgraceful that the Republican Party now seems to be targeting those who are suffering the most,' Conyers said.’ It appears that individuals who can't recall how many houses they own don't understand how awful it is to lose your home to foreclosure, and don't know that you don’t need to own property to vote in the United States of America.'”

Conyers' anti-caging bill, Caging Prohibition Act of 2008 (H 5038) has not moved in Congress since January.

Sept. 24

Congressional members and acting assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights division, Grace Chung Becker discussed the Michigan voter caging scheme during a joint hearing of the House Judiciary and Administration committees, according to Jonathan Kaplan of the Michigan Messenger.

Becker said that if allegations of voter caging foreclosure victims were true, “it would be a concern to us in the Civil Rights Division.” She also noted that criminal prosecutors from the DOJ would not monitor polling stations this year.

That same day, the Michigan House Democrats announced the introduction of a plan “that protects the right to vote for residents who have received a foreclosure notice.” The plan is currently in the Senate, according to the House Democrats news release.

In Ohio, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner also took action to protect the rights of low-income voters in that state. On Sept. 24, Brunner issued a directive to county boards of election stating that they “may not cancel an Ohioan’s voter registration based solely on the fact that the person is involved in a foreclosure process.” Brunner instructed boards that they must comply with the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which says a voter’s registration can only be canceled due to residency if the voter confirms such a change in writing, or if the voter fails to respond to a forwardable notice and fails to vote in two subsequent federal elections.

Picking up on the severity of the voting rights issue and how it may impact national turnout in November, Ian Urbina of the New York Times reported how “federal election officials say they are concerned that voters are not being properly informed of how to update their addresses – a problem that may lead to the loss of thousands of votes.

The number of people who move “due to foreclosure or any other reason” exceeds the number of people who notified the election boards.” According to Urbina, 375,000 Ohio residents filed for a change of address with the U.S. Postal Service, but only 24,000 updated their voter registration information. Similarly, in Missouri, 250,000 people notified the Postal Service of their move, but only 22,000 told the election board.

Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Ohio sent notices to residents in select counties who have filed for change of address, but did not update voter registration, Urbina wrote.

On Sept. 24 Project Vote sent letters to the DNC and the RNC, as well as to Secretaries of State, Attorneys-General, and state party chairs in key states where we are conducting voter registration work and fear large numbers of low-income voters could be susceptible to similar caging tactics, including Ariz., Colo., Fla., N.M., Penn., Nev., N.C., Va., Ohio, Md., Mo. and Ga.. Project Vote also sent a letter to the Department of Justice, outlining the legal ramifications of this and other voter caging operations, and demanding investigation and prosecution of acts that violate voter rights under the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, and other federal laws.

Sept. 26

The Washington Post reported that Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler instructed the state and local election officials to ensure that voters who have lost their homes to foreclosures are aware that they have not lost their right to vote.

“Terry Speigner, chairman of the Democratic Central Committee in Prince George's County, said his phone 'has been burning up' with calls about the rumor in Maryland,” according to Post writer, Ovetta Wiggins.

“A foreclosure is not a valid basis on which to challenge a registered voter at the polls,” Gansler wrote in the letter to officials.

As we were following the voter caging story in Michigan, the Republican National Committee decided to heighten their attack on the nation's largest nonpartisan voter registration drive and its connection to presidential candidate Barrack Obama – another voter suppression effort that could create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation at the polls, according a Sept. 28 NPR report by Pam Fessler.

Quick Links:

“Voter Caging.” Project Vote.

James, Teresa. “Caging Democracy: A 50-Year History of Partisan Challenges to Minority Voters.” Project Vote. September 2007.

Minnite, Lorraine. “The Politics of Voter Fraud.” Project Vote. March 2007.

Erin Ferns is a research analyst with Project Vote's Strategic Writing and Research Department.

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

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

"I think the days of ballot box stuffing are more or less gone." - Allen Raymond, former GOP operative

Voter fraud by individuals has been a major partisan debate in recent elections, inspiring multiple states to consider or pass laws that purport to stop it, including "no-match, no-vote" list maintenance procedures and strict voter ID  requirements. Despite federal findings that the act of casting an illegal ballot is exceedingly rare, partisans often cite large scale voter registration drives as voter fraud culprits, and perpetuate the myth of voter fraud by spreading the fear that such votes cancel out legitimate ones. With rising registration rates - particularly among historically underrepresented Americans - it is no surprise that partisans are spreading this myth, and the media often perpetuates the hysteria by printing stories on the small numbers of bad registration cards submitted by large scale voter registration drives (including the 1.2 million submitted by Project Vote voter registration partner, ACORN).

Despite the constant trickle of "voter fraud" scares in the media, however, it is becoming more evident that elections are more often compromised by systematic efforts to suppress eligible voters, including the very measures that are meant to protect against the extremely rare instances of ineligible voters attempting to cast a ballot. The real enemy to fair elections are organized voter suppression efforts that are seen in these poorly devised election laws, partisan dirty tricks, and systematic partisan efforts to challenge legitimate voters. From the alleged plan to challenge foreclosure victims in Michigan and Ohio to the potential "no-match, no-vote" fiascoes in Wisconsin and Florida, many Americans have cause to wonder, "will my vote count in November?"

On Monday, September 22, KCRW's To the Point host, Warren Olney, discussed voter fraud and voter suppression in the 2008 presidential election with Project Vote Executive Director Michael Slater, Doug Chapin of the Pew Center, former GOP strategist Allen Raymond, and Wall Street Journal columnist, John Fund.

In "major states like Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania" this year, Slater warned that we can expect some "election administration problems," which run the gamut from logistical issues, such as poorly distributed voting machines, to voter suppression tactics, including voter caging, which historically affect low income and minority communities. These communities, which have historically been systematically shut out of the electoral process, have shown signs of increased political interest and higher registration rates they year, prompting fears of increased partisan efforts to suppress this tidal wave of new voters.

Fund repeated stories of small numbers of allegedly invalid voter registration cards being submitted out of the more than 1.2 million turned in this year by Project Vote voter registration partner, ACORN, and said "some of these voter registration efforts have been questionable." But former GOP operative Allen Raymond, explained that there was a critical difference between a "systematic" voter suppression program "versus one that is part of the process." For one, he said, systematic efforts, like voter caging, are far more detrimental to election integrity than voter registration drive employees submitting bad applications.

Raymond was dismissive of the allegations against voter registration drives.

"Look, those are a couple of people who are just trying to earn a buck, collecting signatures. I've seen it all the time on ballot access petition efforts," he said of the voter registration fraud allegations. "I think the days of ballot box stuffing are more or less gone...and so I think what you really need to address are those systematic efforts," said Raymond.

Election Dirty Tricks

Raymond knows all about partisan use of systemic voter suppression efforts; he has written a book entitled How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, which describes his years as a dirty-tricks specialist for the GOP. Raymond served time for a 2002 Republican phone jamming scheme. In a September 15 interview with the Michigan Messenger Raymond said "holding down Democratic turnout is a key part of Republican strategy for victory in November." Asked about reports of Republican attempts to challenge the voting rights of foreclosure victims, Raymond said that if he were still in the dirty-tricks business he "would be doing that all day long."

Other stories that have surfaced in recent weeks contribute to fears that partisans are ramping up their voter suppression machines. Last week, a mailer from the Republican National Committee that went to multiple registered Democrats in Florida left many confused about their party affiliation, according to Pam Fessler of NPR. While some Democratic officials consider the mailer an attempt to challenge voters based on returned mail, particularly Democratic senior citizens, Republican officials claim the confusion was not intentional and denied allegations of voter caging, according to the Naples Daily News on Sunday.

But in recent weeks several media and Internet outlets, including Air America, have reported on accounts of massive mailings of absentee ballots from the McCain campaign sent to registered Democrats and Obama supporters in other battleground states as well, including  Wisconsin, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; many of the mailings appear to contain the wrong preprinted return addresses for ballots, which would direct them to the wrong precinct.

Of even greater concern than dirty tricks is the possibility of voter suppression through election administration problems that are expected to run the gamut in key states.

No-Match, No-Vote

Voter advocates claim thousands of Wisconsin voters may "lose their right to vote" as a result of a lawsuit filed by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen just six weeks before the election.  Hollen, who sued the Government Accountability Board - which oversees elections in the state -  to "seek an order requiring the board to compare voter information to the Department of Transportation records for more voters," is being scrutinized for his ties to the McCain campaign (he is the campaign's co-chair in Wisconsin), according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Hollen hopes to quickly implement a notoriously faulty voter list maintenance system known as "no-match, no-vote," which experts say could result in purging eligible voters from the Wisconsin registration rolls. This system was found to incorrectly fail 22 percent of voters during an initial test in August (additionally, four out of six judges on the G.A.B. also failed to match the system). Under "no-match, no-vote", voters could mistakenly lose their registration as a result of "transposed digits, variations in names ("Becky" instead of "Rebecca," for instance) or poor handwriting on voter registration forms," the Journal-Sentinel reports. "Apt to fail are people with apostrophes, hyphens or spaces in their names. Voter records usually drop punctuation and spaces - 'ONeil' instead of 'O'Neil' - while driver's license records often keep them."

A similar practice is being enforced in Florida that could "turn Election Day 2008 in Florida into a catastrophe akin to the hanging-chads debacle of 2000," Florida Today editorialized this week. "With no time for troubleshooting the system, that could falsely disenfranchise many who've done nothing wrong." The state's dormant  2005 "no-match, no-vote" law was revived by Republican Secretary of State Kurt Browning in early September after challenges failed in court. Browning's decision to enforce this practice caused a critical uproar from voting rights activists, who claim such a move could disenfranchise thousands of Floridians, according to a Miami Herald report earlier this month.

"No-match, no-vote laws" are sold to the public as a way to prevent fraudulent voting, but as Florida Today correctly notes; "few people try to vote under someone else's name. A five-year hunt for voter fraud by the Justice Department under the Bush administration found almost no evidence of organized efforts to tilt national elections."

The Elections Supervisor of Leon County, Florida, Ion Sancho, is quoted in the Florida Today piece as saying that the real problem is not potential fraud by voters but partisan manipulation of the process. Sancho has been vocal about his opposition to the Florida laws he is required to enforce, including how the state makes eligible voters vulnerable to partisan challenges. Speaking on WGCU radio in Florida on September 12, Sancho told host Sasha Rethati that in the past ten years the Florida legislature had written rules to "make sure that the party in power could stay in power." He pointed to a 2005 Florida law that stripped the state's voters of the right to contest challenges at the polls, and how challengers now only needed to express a "good faith belief" that a voter is ineligible to force the voter to file a provisional ballot. "You can supply a list containing 10,000 names to the supervisor of elections," said Sancho, "and I have to make all 10,000 members vote by provisional ballot."

"What we have here is partisans attempting to use anything they can possibly find to gain an advantage on the other party," said Sancho. "Quite frankly, I'm fed up with it as an election official. The reason I came into this field was to make sure Americans had the right to vote, and to have their votes counted properly."



Quick Links:

Minnite, Lorraine. The Politics of Voter Fraud. Project Vote. March 2007.



In Other News:

Same-day voter signup getting serious look - Decatur Herald-Review [Ill.]

...Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is investigating moving to same-day voter registration in two years. That means a person who was eligible to register but had not done so could walk into a polling place on Election Day, register to vote and be handed a ballot...

GOP: Lose Your Home, Lose Your Vote - The Nation

Senator John McCain was a foot soldier in the deregulation revolution, which triggered the current banking crisis and the wave of foreclosures. In Michigan, his party wants to deny the right to vote to victims of the GOP's misguided economic policies and the sleazy banking practices they encouraged.

Oklahoma election officials disagree with ACLU - Associated Press

State law prohibits former felons from registering to vote until the full length of their prescribed sentence has expired - even if they are not in prison and are no longer supervised by the Department of Corrections, the secretary of the state Election Board said Monday.

Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote's Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).

Cross-posted to Project Vote's blog Voting Matters.

By Nathan Henderson-James

Today Wired Magazine published an in-depth look at potential Election Day problems associated with voter registration data matching, list maintenance, provisional ballots, and shadowy interstate compacts through which member states cross-check their voter registration lists and purge supposedly duplicated voters. Titled "Voter Database Glitches Could Disenfranchise Thousands", the piece, written by Kim Zetter, starts this way,

Electronic voting machines have been the focus of much controversy the last few years. But another election technology has received little scrutiny yet could create numerous problems and disenfranchise thousands of voters in November, election experts say.

This year marks the first time that new, statewide, centralized voter-registration databases will be used in a federal election in a number of states.

The article presents an in-depth discussion of the potential problems associated with the creation of the centralized databases and their potential to disenfranchise thousands of newly and currently registered voters in state after state.  

But election experts say the real concern is how states are conducting database matches of new voters under HAVA.

The law requires each voter to have a unique identifier. Since 2004, new registration applicants have had to provide a driver's license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number to register (voters who don't have them are assigned a unique number by the state). States are required to try to authenticate the numbers with motor vehicle records and the Social Security Administration database.

But databases are prone to errors such as misspellings and transposed numbers, and applicants are prone to make mistakes or write illegibly on applications. The Social Security Administration has acknowledged that matches between its database and voter-registration records have yielded a 28.5 percent error rate.

Disturbingly, despite these kinds of error rates, several states have joined secretive interstate compacts that allow them to share their registration databases with each other and purge voters who supposedly show up on more than one list.

[Project Vote Executive Director Michael] Slater cites another troubling trend emerging with the implementation of statewide databases.

Several states have begun comparing databases for duplicate records of existing voters, then purging voters they believe have moved and registered in another state. The problem, Slater says, is the methods used can yield false positives, and officials are deleting voters without contacting them to verify that they've moved, or waiting for two federal election cycles to pass, which are requirements under the National Voter Rights Acts of 1993.

In 2006, Kentucky's attorney general successfully sued his state's board of elections after officials compared their list to ones from South Carolina and Tennessee and purged about 8,000 voters who appeared to have registered in those states at a later date than their registration in Kentucky and were presumed to have moved.

Project Vote is investigating Kansas, Louisiana and South Dakota for similar activity. Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska have also been comparing lists.

"That is a trend that will accelerate, but there are inadequate safeguards, and I think it's very, very dangerous," Slater says.

For more information, Project Vote has created materials on database matching, maintaining voting rolls, provisional ballots, and voter ID requirements.

Bumped. --Mike

Cross-posted to Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters.

By Nathan Henderson-James

Last week the Department of Veterans Affairs, bowing to months of pressure from voting rights groups and elected officials, revised its rules concerning voter registration drives to allow such activities if certain conditions were met.

As reported by Steve Rosenfeld at Alternet, the announcement allows groups onto some VA properties to assist veterans in registering to vote.

"The Department will welcome state and local election officials and non-partisan groups to its hospitals and outpatient clinics to assist VA officials in registering voters," the VA said in a Sept. 8 news release. "Such assistance, however, must be coordinated by those facilities in order to avoid disruptions in patient care."

Questions remain, however, about the ability of the VA to implement this rule change in time to help veterans register in time for the November elections. Again, here's Rosenfeld.

But voting rights advocates said the new VA policy, while moving in the right direction, was announced so near to the close of voter registration for this November -- which in half the states is four weeks away -- that it may have little impact this fall. During the past four months, when many of 2008's voter registration drives occurred, the VA has banned voter registration efforts by non-profit groups and local or state election officials.

According to Ian Urbina writing in the New York Times, over "100,000 people reside for a month or longer at V.A. facilities nationally, a number that has grown as soldiers return wounded from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." He also quotes Sen. Feinstein,

"Given the sacrifices that the men and women who have fought in our armed services have made, providing easy access to voter registration services is the very least we can do," said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who introduced legislation in July to reverse the V.A. ban. Ms. Feinstein added that she would soon hold hearings on the issue.

Last Friday five advocacy groups sent a letter to Sen. Feinstein in support of her proposed legislation.

Nathan Henderson-James is the Director of Project Vote's Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).

Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matter's Blog

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Partisan political operatives in Michigan are taking voter caging operations to depths that would surprise even the most cynical observers of American elections. If their plans are put into action, thousands of Michigan foreclosure victims may find that they will not only have lost their homes this year, but also their vote.

Operatives in the closely contested state, which is home to thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure, are “gearing up for a comprehensive voter challenge campaign,” according to Eartha Jane Melzer of the Michigan Messenger Wednesday. The state allows parties to send election challengers to polls to challenge the eligibility of voters if they “have good reason to believe” a voter is ineligible. In this case, the GOP of Macomb County—a “key swing county” with a foreclosure rate in the top three percent in the nation—has announced plans to challenge the voting eligibility of foreclosure victims based on residency.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” Macomb County GOP chairman James Carabelli told the Messenger.

J. Gerald Herbert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department, questions what he calls a “mean-spirited” and possibly legally-baseless tactic: “You can't challenge people without a factual basis for doing so...I don't think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

Teresa James, attorney for Project Vote, agrees. In a statement released today, James explains that Michigan law allows challenges at the polls only if the challenger “knows or has good reason to suspect” a voter is ineligible. According to James, the Michigan Secretary of State has clarified this to require that challenges should be based on “reliable sources or means.”

“Republican challengers with only a list of foreclosure notices will have NO evidence or reliable source to suggest that eligible voters have moved and are no longer eligible to vote,” says James.

“The Macomb County party's plans to challenge voters who have defaulted on their house payments is likely to disproportionately affect African-Americans who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters,” Melzer writes. “More than 60 percent of all sub-prime loans – the most likely kind of loan to go into default – were made to African-Americans in Michigan...”

Melzer points out that Republican presidential candidate John McCain's regional headquarters is in the office of the state's largest foreclosure law firm, Trott & Trott, whose founder has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaign. McCain “stands to benefit from the burgeoning number of foreclosures in the state,” Melzer writes.

“At a minimum, what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systemic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote,” says Herbert. “When you are comprehensively challenging people to vote, your goals are two-fold: One is you are trying to knock people out from casting ballots; the other is to create a slowdown that will discourage others.” This type of disruption would be expected in areas with high foreclosure rates, particularly the Detroit metropolitan, where one in every 176 households received foreclosure filings during the month of July, according to Melzer.

“You would think [the Macomb GOP] would think, 'This is going to look too heartless,'” says David Lagstein, head organizer for Michigan ACORN, which has registered 200,000 new voters statewide and provides foreclosure-avoidance assistance.

“The Republican-led state Senate has not moved on the anti-predatory lending bill for over a year and yet have time to prey on those who have fallen victim to foreclosure to suppress the vote,” Lagstein says.

Michigan is not the only swing state at the risk of voter caging issues this election. At the urging of Project Vote and other voting rights advocates, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner recently issued a binding directive to all county election boards, instructing them that parts of the state's challenge laws in relation to residency challenges based only on returned mail were unconstitutional. It is unclear, however, whether Brunner’s directive will prevent partisans from filing frivolous challenges anyway, which—however baseless—could have a chilling effect on voter turnout. And the Michigan Messenger reports that Franklin County, Ohio director of elections Doug Preisse and the chair of the local GOP have said they do not rule out challenging voters before the election due to foreclosure-related address issues.

In Project Vote’s statement, Teresa James says “The GOP’s plan is a cynical partisan attempt to suppress the vote of thousands of low-income and African-American voters, a replay of the 2004 threats of mass challenges...In America you get to vote even if you’re behind on your bills. All Americans—particularly those members of the community hit hardest by the economic crisis—deserve a voice and a vote on Election Day.”

Quick Links:

“Voter Caging.” Project Vote.

James, Teresa. “Caging Democracy: A 50-Year History of Partisan Challenges to Minority Voters.” Project Vote. September 2007.

In Other News:

'No-Match, No-Vote' Law Draws Criticism - Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE - Advocacy groups predicted Wednesday that thousands of people, mostly the poor and minorities, will be denied the right to vote through no fault of their own under a new Florida voter registration law.

Can young people actually make a difference this year? - Slate
In 2004, the "youth vote" was supposed to break all records. It did and it didn't-but either way, it didn't make a difference for John Kerry, even though he won 54 percent of voters under 29. So it is with this year's youth vote: Even if it exceeds that of four years ago-Barack Obama currently commands about 60 percent of the under-29 cohort-it will be nearly impossible to say whether it made a difference.

ACLU launches campaign to get former prisoners to register to vote – Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin [N.Y.]
ALBANY -- The New York Civil Liberties Union today kicked off a six-week campaign to educate county election boards and former prisoners on the voting rights of convicted felons.

Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote’s Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).

Bumped - Mike.

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

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

While many see voting as an implicit right in a representative democracy, decisions in America about who can vote and how are actually controlled by the states and vary greatly from state-to-state, even from county-to-county.

Misinformation and misinterpretation of each state's particular laws—not only by voters, but also by state officials—has the potential to influence the outcome of the election, a problem seen recently as two of the country’s most disenfranchised groups – youth and former felons –have encountered procedural roadblocks to electoral participation.

Large voter registration drives are underway in Virginia, but the Roanoke Times has recently reported on problems that may hinder the participation of Virginia students. According to Kevin Litten of the Roanoke Times on Saturday, allegations of voter intimidation came out of Virginia Tech last week, when Montgomery County Registrar Randy Wertz issued a news release warning students that registering using their college addresses would be changing their permanent addresses. This, according to Wertz, could “affect student’s scholarships or tax filings, and would obligate them to change car registrations and their driver's licenses.”

Litten reports that officials from the Obama campaign, which has been conducting voter registration activities in Virginia, countered that “they had never heard of students' dependency status on their parents' tax forms affected by their voter registration,” and that the “other laws mentioned in the release are rarely enforced or subject to interpretation.” The officials worried that the statements could have a “chilling effect” on voter registration efforts, but Wertz denied that intimidating students was his intention, insisting that “his focus is making sure elections run smoothly and fairly.”

Fair and smooth elections become even more difficult when more voters are involved and the state is ill prepared. Wednesday's Roanoke Times expressed concerns that the influx of newly registered students—assigned to what is already the county's most populated precinct—could create long lines and transportation problems on Election Day.

The precinct, E-1, already has 3,600 active voters; the state is required to split precincts when they exceed 5,000 voters, but officials say it is too late to obtain Justice Department approval for the split if E-1 exceeds capacity before November. To at least help alleviate the waiting period to vote, officials say they are making efforts to hire extra officials to run the polls. But, to make matters worse, the polling place assigned for the precinct is located four miles from campus without connecting public transportation – a potential problem for students without cars.

Bumped. -Craig

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog Voting Matters

By Nathan Henderson-James

Just yesterday we noted the right way to report on charges of voter fraud and the wrong way to go about it. We explained how the news media had been gamed by people with a partisan interest in the outcome of elections to gin up hysteria to engage in voter intimidation and voter disenfranchisement efforts.

Well, the partisans are back at it in Wisconsin, but this time the press is following the lead of Virginia journalists and scrutinizing the claims rather than simply reprinting the press release.

Here’s the backstory. The community organization ACORN has recently completed a voter registration drive in Milwaukee aimed at historically disenfranchised populations like low-income folks and African-Americans. The drive assisted voters complete some 35,000 cards. So far so good.

However, some of ACORN’s canvassers were caught forging cards in order to get paid for not doing the work. Under Wisconsin law all cards filled out, completely or incompletely, fraudulently or not, are required to be turned in. Out of the 35,000 cards, ACORN and Board of Elections officials estimate that about 1500-2000 of them had problems. The bulk of those were simple incompletes, but about 200 or so were clearly attempts by canvassers to defraud both ACORN and the state of Wisconsin by submitting false cards.

The traditional media has actually done a fairly good job reporting the story, going into great detail on how the cards were caught, the quality control procedures used by ACORN, and the context of the numbers involved versus the total number of cards submitted. This reportage has been ably supplemented by bloggers like Cory Liebmann at One Wisconsin Now and Capper at Cognitive Dissonance.

But, of course, this situation has served as an opportunity for conservative partisans to immediately pick up their calls for voter disenfranchisement policies such as voter ID. Such a policy would ironically, or perhaps not so ironically, actually push down the voter participation rates among those folks who most rely on voter registration drives to bring them into the civic participation process.

Here’s choice quote from Pete DiGaudio who writes as The Texas Hold ‘Em Blogger,

“Well, yes, I actually do support voter suppression. I am in favor of suppressing the vote of dead people, nonexistent people, convicted felons, illegal aliens, people voting more than once, et al. Every time one of these people votes, it cancels out my legitimate vote.

A simple thing like photo ID for voting would eliminate these fraudulent voters when they showed up at the polls.”

Project Vote’s report The Politics of Voter Fraud (PDF) has consistently pointed out that there simply isn’t widespread voter fraud in the United States and any fraudulent voting has never been tied to voter registration fraud, which is what has partisans so breathless and hyperbolic.

But the rush to point to a solution like voter ID seems not to be bothered by facts. Like the fact that the so-called fraud every partisan points to is always centered on voter registration cards. Well, voter ID isn’t going to stop canvassers from wanting to get paid for not doing the work and it isn’t going to stop states like Wisconsin from requiring that every card be turned in regardless of its accuracy, completeness, or legitimacy and it’s definitely not going to help elections officials catch bad cards.

The truth is that the laws as written and enforced catch such problems. The mere fact of this story in the media means the system in Milwaukee works the way it is supposed to, catching problem cards. Voter ID, on the other hand stops something called “voter impersonation”, which just doesn’t happen in the Untied States. Of the 24 convictions won by the US Department of Justice between 2002 and 2005 for voter fraud, most of them were for problems with submitting false or illegal absentee ballots. Voter ID laws do nothing to fix this problem. But what they are great at is stopping otherwise eligible voters from casting ballots.

And that’s how it works – raise loud cries of outrage over an illegal act that was caught using the safeguards that were put in place for just that situation, raise questions about the integrity of the entire elections system, and offer a solution that would not stop the identified problem and would, in fact, stop significant numbers of specific groups, generally groups who are already the most disenfranchised, from participating in elections.

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

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns and Nathan Henderson-James

We spend a lot of time in these news updates showing how charges of voter fraud are used to discredit voter participation efforts and prime the pump for voter suppression efforts, such as the passage of voter ID bills, pushing for proof of citizenship, engaging in draconian voter purge efforts, and imposing sever restrictions on voter registration drives. We have also spent a lot of time carefully delineating the politics behind these efforts, starting with our March 2007 report The Politics Of Voter Fraud and continuing on in these diaries to name but two venues.

What is striking about how the process of disenfranchisement and voter suppression works is how much it relies upon the media to repeat and amplify the breathless and hyperbolic accusations of so-called voter fraud against voter registration drives. If journalists were to spend any time at all investigating the sensational claims - often made by people with a direct partisan interest in the outcome of an election - they would find that the accusations are mostly taken out of context, are limited to a few instances, and have never, ever, been proven to have resulted in any fraudulent vote being cast.

Sadly, the history of this issue shows that it has been bereft of this kind of basic journalism, even through the 2006 mid-term elections. This is important because haphazard reporting of partisan claims of voter fraud without checking the facts is how the media helps these voter suppression efforts. These stories not only deter potential voters from getting on the rolls, but, as noted above, inspire bad election reforms aimed at disenfranchising voters, particularly those that are currently underrepresented in the electorate.

A prime example of this kind of lazy journalism in recent weeks comes from Las Vegas where local reporters simply repeated accusations of fraud made by the Clark County clerk against ACORN without even bothering to contact ACORN to see how their drive was being managed.

The group's registration drive has reached one million voters nationwide [Full disclosure – it is run under a Joint Effort Agreement with Project Vote. –ed.] and, according to one article, election officials see “rampant fraud” in the 2,000 – 3,000 cards submitted by the group each week in Las Vegas. This week, the Associated Press reported that the state set up a “voter fraud task force” to look for “election irregularities and instances of questionable voter registration and intimidation,” directly citing issues with voter registration drives. Neither of these Nevada reports provided the facts of voter fraud, what it is and how it relates to the voter registration process. Most importantly, neither reports cite real examples of the intentional casting of an illegal ballot – the real definition of voter fraud – in the state.

However, it may be that the hard work Project Vote and others – including the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, DEMOS, and the Advancement Project - have engaged in over the past few years debunking the voter fraud myth is beginning to change the way journalists approach these stories.

This week, several publications broke this trend by debunking recent Virginia GOP allegations of widespread voter fraud as a result of massive voter registration drives that primarily target youth, low income and minority communities – constituencies that have a long history of being underrepresented on the voting rolls and in the voting booth.

Since the beginning of the year, an unprecedented 147,000 people - “almost half under the age of 25” - registered to vote in Virginia, according to Monday's Washington Post lead editorial. Pointing to a recent incident where three members of the Community Voting Project were arrested for falsifying voter registration cards, Republican Party chairman, Del. Jeffrey Frederick of Prince William County claims widespread voter fraud is a hidden agenda in voter registration drives.

Remarkably, however, this time the press decided to investigate this inflammatory accusation. This charge is “utterly baseless” and is “unsupported by election officials, police or prosecutors,” the Post notes in the editorial. In fact, the Post described the accusation as an exercise in “fear mongering” by Frederick, amplified by his allegations that citizens who register with these drives are also vulnerable to identity theft, a claim that amounts to nothing more than “a classic attempt to suppress votes,” the Post editorialized.

Bob Bauer, at his Web site, www.MoreSoftMoneyHardLaw.com, takes the critique one step further, looking at both the accusations and the Post’s coverage. “And the Post omits mention of another feature of Fredericks' suppression gambit,” wrote the election law attorney. “He also called for an 'investigation,' well understanding that his words would creep into the press on his remarks and filter out into the electorate.”

In a prime example of the kind of journalism that should happen as a matter of course when these kinds of serious allegations are made, a Virginia reporter for the Danville Register & Bee reached out to local registrars to get a real idea of the voter registration process and how unlikely it is to lead to voter fraud.

“'It's not easy to falsely register somebody,' said Pittsylvania County Registrar Jenny Saunders, who explained that in addition to the registrar going over the application for obvious errors (like missed questions), there's a statewide database all applications are checked against.”

Partisans out for political gain perpetuate fear about the integrity of the election system, something that the media often picks up unfiltered. “In fact,” the Post wrote, “it is groundless accusations and cynical fear-mongering such as Mr. Frederick's that are injecting the real venom, and the true threat, into the elections.

Below are some important facts to consider when writing (or reading) reports on voter registration fraud:

Voter Registration Drives Rev up in Presidential Election Years

The fact that young people and minorities are expanding the voting rolls this year does not indicate that something is awry with voter registration drives. Indeed, most large-scale drives target those populations least represented in the electorate. Further, in high interest election years, especially presidential, more people are motivated to help register voters or get registered themselves. Stories about so-called voter fraud should be evaluated in terms of the number of cards thought to be fraudulent versus the total number of cards the registration drive is gathering. In Virginia, a handful of fake cards were found in a drive that could register more than 30,000 people.

Voter Registration Fraud Does Not Lead to Voter Fraud

“We have the checks and balances...to makes sure the wrong person doesn't get registered and the right person does,” said Va. election official, Saunders in the Register & Bee.

Further, professionally-run drives expect almost a third of all applications to be duplicates or incomplete, no matter how well-trained the canvasser or volunteers are. This does not mean they are all illegal. However, the registrar is required to ensure all applications contain accurate information “including whether the applicant is a citizen, their Social Security number, date of birth, full name, valid residence, whether they've been convicted of a felony, or whether they have been determined mentally incapable...If any of that is left off...the application is denied,” according to the Register & Bee. Note: Not all states require Social Security number information to be filled out on a voter registration card. For more information on your state's requirements on registering to vote, visit ProjectVote.org.

Allegations of Voter Fraud are Often Motivated By Partisan Gain

“If you're not winning at the ballot box, try your chances in the registrar's office, or in court,” the Virginia Pilot editorialized. “[That's] [h]ardly democratic.”

Following the success of voter registration drives that have increased registration among low income, minority and young people, almost all claims of rampant voter fraud have come from Republican leaders, despite lack of substantiation of a real problem. The most vicious and corrupt efforts made were part of what has become the US AttorneyGate scandal that subsequently exposed the widespread politicization of the Department of Justice and led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. All of that unraveled because former US Attorney David Iglesias refused to make false accusations of voter fraud against ACORN’s 2004 voter registration drive in New Mexico.

The fact is between 2002 and 2005 – when the Department of Justice carried out the most intensive investigation of voter fraud in US history – only 24 people were convicted of illegal voting nationwide. However, partisans still made public allegations and the press, in many instances, ran these claims with out real evidence. Armed with these published anecdotes and buoyed by manufactured public outcry about the possibility of their votes being canceled out by illegal voters, legislators fought to pass laws that disenfranchise certain classes of voters. As a result, states like Indiana and Georgia have implemented some of the most draconian voter ID laws despite the lack of any evidence of actual voter fraud.

Reporters practicing ethical and rigorous journalism should recognize that merely using the “rhetorical hand grenade” of voter fraud - without an explanation of how voter registration and elections are administered or an investigation into the evidence of voter fraud - is the real threat to democracy.

Quick Links:

Minnite, Lorraine. “The Politics of Voter Fraud. ”Project Vote. March 2007.

Voter Registration Guides and Surveys [By State]. Project Vote

In Other News:

A voting penalty after the penalty – Birmingham Press-RegisterAnnette McWashington Pruitt watched her 18-year-old son graduate from high school this May. She proudly tells people that he is going into the Navy, following in the footsteps of his older brother (who is serving in Iraq) and his grandfather (who was in the Air Force).

Voting Rules Create Land of Disenchantment: Advocacy groups are battling New Mexico's strict voter registration laws as election looms – Miller-McCune
Jo Ann Gutierrez-Bejar remembers volunteering for the annual voter registration drive in Albuquerque, N.M. She remembers the camaraderie as the group of usually 30 to 40 volunteers headed out in the morning, clipboards in hand, to knock on doors and register new voters.

Denogean: 97-year-old voter can't prove she's a citizen: On deathbed, father told her to vote Democratic – The Tucson Press
Shirley Freeda Preiss of Surprise is one ticked-off little old lady. And who can blame her? The 97-year-old retired schoolteacher and onetime traveling showgirl has voted in every presidential election since 1932 when she cast a ballot for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But thanks to the state's voter identification requirements, it's looking unlikely that she'll be able to vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Watch your (official) language - Stateline.org
Missouri, a key presidential swing state and home to one of the most hotly contested gubernatorial races, will test what some see as voters’ attitudes toward immigrants this November with a ballot measure to make English the only language of state government.