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Akron
Beacon Journal...
States
of depression
October 5, 2011
The
partisan battling over election
laws in Ohio reached another boiling point last week when opponents of
a
misguided bill pushed through the Republican-led legislature gathered
sufficient
signatures to put it on hold. If enough signatures are valid, House
Bill 194
will remain stalled until November 2012, voters having the final word.
The
main objection raised by Democrats
is that the bill would shorten the time available for early in-person
absentee
voting, a helpful voting method for President Obama in 2008. Ohio also
has seen
battles over whether to require voters to present a photo ID and
whether county
elections boards can send out absentee ballot applications to all
voters.
Ohio
hardly is alone. The legislative
clout Republicans gained in statehouses across the country this past
November
has led to similar efforts in more than a dozen states, according to a
report
this week from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University
School of
Law. The strategies closely mirror what Republicans have pushed in
Ohio, adding
up to what amounts to a national campaign to depress voter turnout.
The
Brennan Center, after an analysis
of laws and executive orders in 14 states, estimates that more than 5
million
eligible voters could find it “significantly harder” to cast their
ballots in
next year’s presidential elections, a number that would have made a
difference
in both the 2000 and 2004 contests. Michael Waldman, the executive
director of
the center, rightly termed the trend “the most significant rollback of
voting
rights in decades.”
Most
burdensome is the requirement
that voters produce a government-issued photo ID on Election Day,
passed in
five states. (Fortunately, the Ohio effort stalled.) Republicans favor
a strict
ID requirement as a way to combat voter fraud, even though instances of
impersonation are extremely rare. Meanwhile, the Brennan Center
estimates that
11 percent of potential voters do not have state-issued photo ID. Many
are
poor, black or elderly, groups that tend to vote Democratic.
By
raising the false fear of voter
fraud, Republicans risk disenfranchising millions of voters. In seeking
to gain
an edge, they erode confidence in the foundations of the country’s
democracy.
Read
it at the Akron Beacon Journal
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