voters

Two voter-purge programs have now been put to rest now that the state of Michigan has agreed to stop unlawfully disfranchising thousands of Michigan voters (many of these voters being college students). The agreement ends a legal battle commenced in September 2008 when organizations like the Advancement Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Michigan and the law firm of Pepper Hamilton LLP on behalf of the United States Student Association Foundation (USSAF), ACLU of Michigan and Michigan State Conference of the NAACP all filed suit against the state.

“This is a true victory for Michigan voters,” said Bradley Heard, a senior attorney with Advancement Project. “Voter-removal procedures like those at issue in this lawsuit, which allow eligible and registered voters to be suddenly stricken from the rolls without notice, are bad for democracy. We are happy that the state of Michigan finally agreed to right these wrongful practices.”

Michigan’s voter-purge programs disfranchised Michigan voters with out-of-state driver’s licenses or voter-identification records associated with incorrect mailing addresses.

Many of these out-of-state driver's license issues and incorrect address problems occur when non-Michigan college students relocate to go to school within the state. Though this makes them a legal resident, the Michigan voter removal program ignored that.

Michigan’s voter-removal programs had a particularly detrimental impact on students and minority and low-income communities. These populations tend to be more transient and to live in multi-family housing or in dormitory settings where mail can be unreliable and unpredictable. Students often have driver's licenses from different states than where their colleges are located.

“This ruling ensures that, despite the transient lifestyle of college students, they will continue to have an influential voice in the electoral process," said Gregory Cendana, President of USSAF.

Props to Cendana and the organizations fighting this unlawful behavior. This is the kind of injustice that a healthy progressive youth movement can eliminate. Though it took nearly two years, students and low-income voters in Michigan just had some of their rights restored.

• Drew Barrymore talks about the power of young people and the winnable battle against global hunger.
• Sanchez Report: Young Republicans Endangered.
• Gov 2.0: Are you friends with the White House yet?
• Kentucky believes elections can be improved with youth involvement.

• The White House is set to hold a Middle Class Task Force meeting on college affordability.
• Campus Progress launches a micro-site dedicated to the Budget and youth priorites: Funding our Future.
• Check out what's behind the voter registration bill that already has the endorsement of over 20 leading youth organizations including Rock the Vote, the College Democrats of America and the United States Student Association.
• Police, students, use You Tube to wage a PR battle around last week's student protests at the New School.
• Students are turning away from finance careers and instead looking towards jobs in community organizing.
• TPM Cafe reports on the new wave of community organizers for the Obama Era.
• Check out a video from a New Way Forward rally in Austin.
  

Over at Open Left, Chris Bowers notes a fact that seems to elude most political pundits. Among Obama's three top demographics - African Americans, Latinos, Youth - there is a very large amount of overlap. These are not distinct constituencies, but are in fact overlapping groups that are increasing in size and influence as part of a massive demographic shift in America.

Mainly, however, I think there is a failure to recognize how most of the new demographic groups Obama and Democrats are using to win are closely connected to one another, and that these connections represent a new American majority. For example, newfound Democratic success with voters under 45 is closely connected to voters under 45 being far less white than voters over 45 (40% of voters between 18-44 are non-white, compared to 20% of voters over 45). The same can be said of LGBT voters, single women, and voters who do not self-identify as non-Christian. Most of these demographics--young voters, LGBT voters, non-Christians, Asians, African-Americans, single women, Latinos, low-income voters--heavily intermix with one another. The significant majority of people who fit into one of these eight demographic groups actually fit into two or more of these demographic groups. Democrats tend to perform well in each of these groups because they perform well in all of them. It is a trend toward Democrats that is reinforced, for most people, in multiple areas, and should not be understood as success for Obama and Democrats in a laundry list of isolated, ghettoized, discrete demographics. It is a rising pluralist majority, rather than successful politicking with individual groups.

Bower's concludes that because of the growing size and influence of these demographics, the GOP's Southern Strategy of appealing to conservative white voters is no longer operative, and Democrats can effectively ignore calls to court those voters (aka the elusive "Reagan Democrats").

There is simultaneously a recognition that Obama won without increased Democratic support among socially conservative voting groups, and a lack of recognition that this signals a major shift in the center of American political power. Democrats don't need Bubbas anymore, or at least they need Bubbas a lot less than they need young voters and racial minorities.

Bowers identifies these groups as the new "swing" voters in a reshaped/realigned electorate, and he's looking to find a way to properly frame them and their participation.

I would suggest, however, that such a frame already exists, and we don't need to outthink ourselves here in an attempt to reframe the debate. The majority of this demographic change is being driven by the Millennials, 40% of which belong to a racial/ethnic minority. As more Millennials age into the electorate over the next eight years, these trends are going to become more apparent and more influential in our elections. Thanks to the huge turnout in recent years, and the pivotal role of young voters in electing Obama, the political class is already accepting of the influence, activism, and diversity of Millennials. It's a positive brand that is already descriptive of all the trends laid out by Bowers in his piece. Rather than create a new term out of whole cloth, we should be organizing and messaging around this generational tag. Not only will that serve to move Democrats away from failed strategies of courting conservative white voters (those elusive "Reagan Democrats"), it will keep them focused on youth outreach, a necessary party-building/campaign activity that typically gets short shrift from the political class.

As we approach 2018, the oldest Millennials will be approaching their 40s and a new generation will begin to enter the electorate. By then, huge changes in our political system brought about by these demographic shifts will have had almost ten years to take effect and become conventional wisdom. At that time, it may be worthwhile to talk about a broader term that extends beyond a single generation, but that discussion would probably best be had in the future, when the political optics are more clear. For now, I think Millennials is a more than suitable term.

This post is by Chris Golden, who is on the Mobilize.org team and a student in DC.

Connecticut voters ratified a state constitutional amendment this week which would grant voting rights to 17 year-olds in party primaries if they will reach the age of 18 by Election Day. The amendment, which would make Connecticut the 19th state to put into law such a measure, was approved by voters by a nearly 2:1 margin.

“This will help encourage lifelong voting habits among young people. This will encourage not only voting, but working on primary campaigns and getting involved in the political process. It shows that with hard work, perseverance and a good idea, we really can amend our constitution to expanding voting rights in Connecticut,” said State Representative James Spallone, a member of the Judiciary Committee.

As an example of what this amendment will mean, if a young voter turned 18 in August 2008, making him eligible to participate in the November election, he would also have been able to vote in the February 2008 primary to select the candidates for the November ballot, even though he would still have been 17 years old at the time.

“With the passage of this constitutional amendment, thousands of 17 year-olds can now participate in the political process sooner and hopefully become lifelong voters. The passage of this amendment was due to the hard work and perseverance of high school students throughout the state of Connecticut who joined forces…we owe them a sincere set of gratitude,” said Secretary of State Susan Bysciewicz.

In an October statement released in support of the Amendment, Bysciewicz argued that if 17-year olds can sign up to serve their country in the military, then they should be able to choose their preferred candidates for office when they will be able to vote. “If our state’s young men and women at 17 years of age can make a decision and commitment of that gravity—knowing there is a great chance that they will be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan—they certainly are capable and mature enough to cast a ballot in primary elections,” she said.

The passage of the amendment holds special significance for Connecticut because it was the first state to ratify the 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which lowered the national voting age to 18, in 1971. That Amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as not restricting states from setting a voting age below 18 but rather prohibiting them from setting an age above it.

A 1986 Supreme Court decision, Tashjian v. Connecticut, further specified that a state political party has the power to determine who is eligible to vote in their primaries, under their existing legal authority. As Adam Fogel, the Right to Vote Director for Fair Vote, explained in testimony to a Pennsylvania House of Representatives Committee in May 2008, it is in the political party’s interest to extend primary voting rights to 17 year-olds, “Studies show that if a young person votes for one party in three consecutive elections, that person votes with that party for life. Parties should be encouraging participation, not discouraging it—if a young person cares enough to participate and will be eligible to vote in the general election, we should provide them with that opportunity.”

Officials with the Connecticut Office of Secretary of State estimate that the passage of this Amendment could make as many as 10,000 new voters eligible to vote in the next primary elections, scheduled in September 2009 for municipal elections. The office said that it would work with high schools across the state to integrate knowledge of the Amendment into an existing requirement for civics education.

Connecticut joins Alaska, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Washington in having a 17-year old primary voting law.

By Chris Golden, Mobilize.org, originally posted on the MoBlog on 11/9/8

From www.juniorpolitics.com

I remember having a conversation months ago with someone on politics in general. I don't remember the exact topic, but it had to do with current events, and eventually also Iraq. In any case, she was mentioning how her parents knew a certain Republican official, and that if he ran for president, her parents would vote for him. And so would she. Naturally, I ask her why. And she can't tell me.

We start to discuss other issues. I bring out all sorts of reasons as to why the Iraq war has nothing to do with terrorism in and of itself. She can't counter any of my arguments, as she has no arguments of her own to make. Does this mean she believes in the Iraq war due to false misconceptions and a blind backing of her family? Of course. I'm not saying don't support your family on issues. But come on, even I would want a reason as to why my family thinks a certain way, and if I have to defend that reasoning, I would definitely want to be prepared for it.

I can't stand ignorance. There are people all over the United States who vote for the red candidate just because he's republican or the blue candidate just because he or she (let's face it, when I see a woman running for president on the republican ticket, I'll correct the other side's pronoun) is a democrat. Even if you yourself belong to a particular party, that does not mean you can opt out of knowing why you're voting for that particular side. Yes, belonging to a party and voting for that party's candidate means you are voting for a certain set of values the party always brings with it. But, not all candidates are alike. No one can ever convince me of that. Politics does not produce robots (although some politicians do seem that way). I had better get a clear answer to why you support or do not support a particular candidate, or I do not want you voting.

That brings me to another complaint of mine, not voting. Some who are ignorant choose not to vote. My solution? Read up and vote. Don't just stay ignorant. You have no right to complain about the current state of affairs in America if you never vote. You've basically forfeited your opinion when you do, and you have left your fate in the hands of the rest of the American public. I, for one, could never do that. Quite simply I don't trust anyone else in making the correct decision. I could never give up that kind of control. There are those of you who say it's pointless anyway, and that your vote doesn't really matter. Well, let's see what happens if 200 million people in America choose not to vote on election day. Let's see how much our opinions really don't matter...

Not voting also happens with those who are incredibly opinionated. I'm talking about my generation of course. Those who talk the talk on college campuses and don't actually take their opinions to the polls. This I feel is incredibly hypocritical. As far as I'm concerned, you're not allowed to have any sort of opinion at all if you let America decide its fate for itself. It's like complaining about a current state of affairs and not doing anything about it. It's like complaining that your house is messy and yet you do not bother to clean it. It's like... well I'll stop there. I think everyone gets the point.

So here are some of my suggestions. If you don't know anything about what's going on at all in American politics, learn. Don't spew out some crap that it's not important or pointless, because that's only true with that sort of mindset. If you don't vote, vote. If you have any sort of opinion at all, learn what the other side has to say about the issue, make up your mind, and then go to the polls. Otherwise, I don't want to hear any complaining, and I certainly don't want to hear what you think, because if you don't think it's important enough of an opinion to vote on it, then neither do I.

The youth voters have a lot to bring onto the table, and we could have just as big a voice as any other age group in America. The politics of today will affect us for years and years to come, isn't it about time we do something about it?