Voter Rights

Some reading material when you have time to take a break from the craziness:

• Music for Democracy has launched its "Be the Change" project:
  

  Hip-hop stars Chingy, Q and MC Lyte have joined forces with two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Graham Nash in an innovative get-out-the-vote effort that aims to mobilize young voters for election 2008 by leveraging the power of social networks. On November 4, music fans who sign up for "Be the Change" will receive an automated call from the musician of their choice to remind them to go to the polls. A selected number of voters will receive calls from the musicians themselves.

• A recap of why Election 2008 deserves the "historic" label, especially given the generational tensions.
• A commentary on why youth will show up at the polls this year.
• Attention political junkies: Google has created an elections map complete with results since 1980 for each state.
  
• Andy Kroll writes a couple (#1 and #2) posts on pushback on the Hip Hop Republicans and what they're doing to change the culture and approach the contemporary GOP has taken over the last decade or two.
• Want to watch the election results with some fellow liberals? Living Liberally lets you know where you can go.
• 35,000 Colorado mail-in votes from newly-registered voters could be nullified, thanks to confusion over the need to include an ID.
• Obama's not the only politician popular among young voters.
• A public-private partnership to fix our ever-mounting problems. A Green New Deal. Sounds pretty good, huh? Read more.
• Anna Quindlen at Newsweek has her own commentary on the potential of Millennial voters on Election Day

Your Sunday reading. Enjoy!

• All those new Democratic voters are emerging as a huge force for Obama everywhere, especially in Pennsylvania.
• Time's "battleground" profile on the race in Virginia.
• Video of a great interview between Luke Russert and Barack Obama on young people. This was a long time ago politically -- Luke asks Obama about the "lipstick" comments:

• Although they're too young to vote, they're not too young to be politically involved.
• Ari Melber looks at the ground-breaking Obama GOTV operation.
• Talk about a generational divide brewing: a first grade class surprises their lesbian teacher by throwing rose petals at her San Francisco City Hall wedding ceremony.
• An article at the Personal Democracy Forum looks at the renovation of change.org and what it can become.
• Obama signs at Quantico -- one of the largest military bases in America?? Sounds like change to me!
• The Houston Chronicle has a write-up confirming what we already know: college students have to scale a plethora of obstacles in order to actually vote.

In yesterday's Quick Hits I posted a link to a story coming out of Montana this week, where the state Republican Party has challenged the registration of 6,000 Montanans in the Democratic strongholds of the state.

On Friday, the GOP apparently decided their initial suppression effort wasn't enough.

A state Republican Party official said Friday that the party plans to expand its challenge of registered Montana voters who have changed their addresses, beyond the 6,000 voters challenged in six counties this week.

"These counties are the beginning, not the end," said Jake Eaton, executive director for the party. "We're looking at this across the state."

While Eaton goes on to say that the Montana GOP merely targeted those counties with the most discrepancies (and that the fact that they're Democratic strongholds is a coincidence), we can't ignore the context in which this is happening. A Great Falls Tribune article does a good job of explaining:

According to news reports from across the country, courtroom battles over voter registration, absentee ballots and the integrity of state voter lists are happening in politically strategic states such as Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and New York.

In Ohio, the state GOP tried to overturn a new state law that allows same-day registration and voting. State and federal courts upheld the law last week.

In Michigan, the state GOP reportedly plans to challenge the registrations of people who lost their homes to foreclosure.

In Wisconsin, the Republican attorney general is suing the state agency that oversees elections, saying that federal law requires that the agency check the names of more than 240,000 voters against driver records. Election clerks there say it is impossible to perform those checks by Nov. 4.

The problem with the GOP's explanation is that we've seen too many like it over the past few decades to take it at face value. Every election year we get reports of calls and fliers that purposely confuse specific demographics by giving them incorrect information regarding when they can exercise their right to vote. We have local election chairs telling college students they can't vote in the county where their institution is located.

And there's a twist to this particular story out of Montana that demonstrates how un-American this crusade is. Kevin Furey, a 1st Lt. in the Army from Helena, was told that his right to vote was being challenged. Furey found out just before he was to leave for his second tour of duty in Iraq.

"It is ironic that at the same time I am about to return to Iraq to help build a democracy that my own right to vote is being challenged at home for partisan purposes. These challenges are a blatant and offensive attempt to suppress the rights of voters," Furey said in a telephone interview from Chicago, where he was on leave visiting his ailing grandmother.

It's quite apparent that as Election Day approaches and the future of the Republican Party gets bleaker, the voting rights of minorities, college students, the poor, and all other oppressed voters will be in jeopardy. Isn't it interesting how the first party to question patriotism is usually the first to want to undo the very fabric that holds our country together? While a sad turn of events, it's an opportunity for progressives and the Democratic Party to demonstrate their principles by pledging to fight for an inherently American right.

UPDATE: This post at CBS's Youth Vote '08 blog has more detailed information on how this development affects college students. Matt Segal further explains why this is, in fact, a partisan effort.

Matt Segal, CEO of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment, said he was told of the situation in Montana when he was at his Washington D.C. office earlier this week.

"This is clear voter caging," Segal said. "What we are seeing here is Republican Party taking advantage of a loophole. This is legal. But, I think as a society we need to be cognizant that few people barely stay in one place. Voter right could be challenged every time someone moves every election year. What is being done is legal but hardly nonpartisan."

Saturday evening reading:

• As we're moving closer and closer to Election Day -- one month from today! -- make sure to go over to the website for the November Fifth Coalition. Here is an excerpt from the front page of their site that explains their objectives:
  

  The November 5th Coalition is an all-partisan alliance committed to civic partnerships that address our biggest challenges. The Coalition is named for the day after the election in 2008 when a new chapter of America's civic history begins. Wherever the people gather they should be able to ask candidates “November 5th questions” about how they plan to tap the talents of the whole society, instead of posing as superheroes who will solve our problems for us. We will also develop leadership networks and civic policies that can serve as resources for a new administration. We encourage our fellow citizens to join with us in calling on candidates to rise above excessively divisive partisanship and to promote the common good.

• The Personal Democracy Forum has the top five reasons you won't be able to vote.
• Gizmodo takes you on a tour of the new Obama iPhone application. Very impressive! You can download it here.
• More scare tactics from the Republicans, this time aimed at Montana voters. Alternet has the details.
• Young Nevadans are overwhelmingly registering as Democrats:
  

  In the 18 to 24 age group, for example, Democrats have 54,192 registered voters compared with 31,405 Republicans, or 45 percent of the total registered voters for Democrats versus 26 percent for Republicans. That's a 19 percentage point difference.

• More youth attempting to be politically engaged. More youth being told not to. This time in Texas.
• Prop 8, the evangelical-led effort to amend California's constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, has gradually grown less and less popular; this Washington Post article explains that young voters are the main reason for the decline in popularity.

The latest nonsense threatening citizens' freedom of speech:

Now, a political fight over what voters can wear to the polls is headed to court in Pennsylvania — with the Republican Party favoring a dress code and Democrats opposed.

[...]

The political showdown was triggered by a Pennsylvania Department of State memo advising counties last month that voters' attire doesn't matter as long as the "voter takes no additional action to attempt to influence other voters."

Because the memo is not legally binding, some counties have kept past restrictions on clothing and political buttons.

But two Pittsburgh-area elections officials sued to have the memo rescinded. Their lawsuit warned that if the memo stands, "nothing would prevent a partisan group from synchronizing a battalion of like-minded individuals ... to descend on a polling place, presenting a domineering, united front, certain to dissuade the average citizen who may privately hold different beliefs."

"...A domineering, united front." Right. I thought the introduction of the secret ballot in most states at the end of the 19th Century took care of all this?

Just another Republican scare tactic.

What I've been reading today...

• A Politico piece looks at the meltdown's impact on student loans.
• An extremely large coalition, Election Protection 2008, is now on the scene this fall to protect voters rights.
• Obama continues his ascent in today's Gallup tracking poll; he now leads McCain 50-44.
• Barack Obama's going to debate camp in Florida this week.
• MyDD has the details on the unveiling of a Voter Suppression Wiki. Check it out.
• My home state (Ohio) is in the middle of trying to make itself more marketable for businesses, but there seems to be no mention of a lightrail system or other infrastructure discussions that would go a long way toward approaching their goal.
• Paul Rosenberg at Open Left looks at all facets of the Palin Plunge.
• A nice summary of the youth outreach effort this year by Peter Dreier at Huffington Post.
• The Guardian looks at student organization on American campuses.
• Usher co-authors a piece with Tom Nelson, also at Huffington Post, on service-oriented Millennials coming together with members of the Silent Generation and older Boomers, to make a difference.
• McCain adviser: We'll balance budget by 2013, even after bailouts. That's not budgetary policy we can believe in, my friends.

Some reading to supplement your weekend down time:

• The Daily Trojan's recent piece covering each candidate's youth vote operation can be found here (and yes, the fact that they think McCain has any outreach to youth points to the accuracy of the article and the competence of those interviewed. Look at this:
  

  Ann Crigler, director of the Department of Political Science and a professor of political science at USC, agreed that youth voters are targeted because they are not yet devoted to either party.

  "The youth vote is really important because it is traditionally not aligned with a party or candidate yet, so people want to get them to participate because they haven't traditionally," Crigler said. "It is easier to attract those who aren't already committed to a party."

  I don't think that's why it's important, and I don't think that's true. A recent poll in swing state Ohio, for instance, shows that Obama is preferred over McCain by a margin of 60-33 percent.

• Florida is now requiring that all potential voters have an ID in order to vote.
• What a difference having a Democratic head of elections makes in Ohio -- Secretary of State Jennifer Bruner is attempting to prevent vote caging.
• Apparently the GOP doesn't care about copyright law when their power is threatened.
• PowerVote: getting one million green youth voters to the polls.
• The 2008 presidential campaign invades college orientations.
• An excellent piece in the Cornell Daily Sun finds that McCain is in favor of cutting and running -- from the youth vote.

The scare tactics against young voters have started this fall.

In Montgomery County, Virginia, home of Virginia Tech, the college students were treated to a county-issued press release that contained gross exaggerations of the consequences should students not originally from the county register to vote using their college address:

The Code of Virginia states that a student must declare a legal residence in order to register. A legal residence can be either a student’s permanent address from home or their current college residence. By making Montgomery County your permanent residence, you have declared your independence from your parents and can no longer be claimed as a dependent on their income tax filings — check with your tax professional. If you have a scholarship attached to your former residence, you could lose this funding. And, if you change your registration to Montgomery County, Virginia Code requires you to change your driver’s license and car registration to your present address within 30 days.

When asked the rationale for the press release, the county registrar of elections explained that in the student rush to get involved with GOTV drives, they often forget the consequences of the change in registration. Experts, like Sujatha Jahagirdar from the PIRG New Voters Project, though, explain that many of these warnings just aren't true.

“For a county registrar to issue what really are in our experience unsubstantiated warnings for a particular demographic is alarming,” said Jahagirdar. “It’s upsetting that this is coming up in Virginia. But it’s even more upsetting that the ability of young people to vote is questioned in many other states too.”

She added: “In 25 years of registering young voters around the country, none of the staff has ever heard of a single incident where a student has lost their tax status or their scholarship because of where they’ve registered to vote.”

Of course, the Obama campaign was all over this. The Virginia spokesman for the campaign, Kevin Griffis, explained that in their calls to the top ten health insurers in the country, none of them told the campaign that voters would be penalized for changing their voter registration. And some of those companies even laughed at the thought.

The reason this is important is clear when one looks at the voter registration numbers in Montgomery County this cycle. 2,000 voters have been added to the rolls in the county, but about 25 students have already called the headquarters to inquire about re-changing their registration.

UPDATE: Shakowsky just announced it on the House Floor in the late night session about 30 minutes ago.

At a time when organizations across the country are focused on increasing voter registration, the Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) has worked hard to make sure that when those newly registered voters go to the polls, their votes will count.

Today the movement to protect our votes will take a giant leap forward when SAVE teamed up with Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Congresswoman Jan Shakowsky of Illinois and Congressman Steve LaTourette of Ohio present the Student VOTER Bill of 2008.

Durbin said on the floor:

"The success of America's experiment in democracy lies in broad participation and deep civic engagement,from the Civil Rights Amendments, to women's suffrage, to the abolition of the poll tax, and finally the ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment we have witnessed a steady by difficult march toward a more inclusive nation. To realize the full potential of these great strides, the Student VOTER Act provides a pathway to participation for America's youth."

SAVE has worked non-stop for 4 years as a national non-partisan, non-profit with a mission to increase youth voter participation by removing access barriers and promoting stronger civic education. They constantly lobby Congress and the Senate in efforts to ensure that the right to vote is accessible to young people and that those votes are protected.

"Voter protection is personal to me,"said Director and Founder Matt Segal earlier this summer in an interview. He began SAVE after standing in line for more than 12 hours on election day in 2004 to help encourage his fellow students who stood in the cold and rain just to cast a ballot.

"We held umbrellas, we brought them pizza, we got them excused from class so they wouldn't lose their places in line, we did everything we could to ensure everyone who wanted to vote got to vote. Voting is our right, that should never happen again."

Segal says he applauds Senator Durbin and Representatives Schakowsky and LaTourette for their leadership and attention to student voter turnout and the barriers students face when voting.

"All the while many congressional members pay lip service to the idea of increasing civic engagement, it is refreshing to see these members act, and call on our education institutions to be more proactive in getting student signed up and aware of the laws in their various states and districts."

Young voters face some of the most difficult obstacles when it comes to going to the polls.

The Higher Education Act of 1998 was passed in efforts to increase youth participation in elections by requiring that U.S. colleges and universities make a "good faith effort" to register students to vote. This could easily be done at a student orientation or during class registration. But it isn't.

Durbin continued to say on the Senate floor

"Several obstacles stand in the way of youth voting. Because so many students are first time voters, they often are unfamiliar with how to register. In some states, including my own state of Illinois, first time voters must register in person in order to cast an absentee ballot. For students who attend college outside of their home state or who do not have access to transportation, these requirements can be cumbersome, confusing, and insurmountable."

Many schools forget about that civic duty. When that happens the partisan groups move in to fill the gap, fighting it out between College Republicans and Young Democrats the groups debate and register students off campus and on. But the result is that some students who remain undecided and independent can become alienated by the partisanship.

The bill would amend existing laws that say colleges would have to be like the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is supposed to ask folks if they want to register or re-register to vote when they get their driver's license or public assistance benefits. The new law would make state colleges and universities abide by that rule. So now, new students would be asked if they wanted to register when they sign up for classes, or get a new student ID for example.

The Student VOTER Bill of 2008 seeks to institutionalize the distribution of voting procedure and register more young people. SAVE's bill will apply a much more up to date standard to the existing 1994 "Motor Voter Act." This can help state colleges and universities, and ensure that all students will have their votes counted.

Forty-four million young people (ages 18-29) will be eligible to vote this November and with the help of the House and Senate, we can move forward to stop disenfranchisement this election year.