I’ve decided to write today about the voter suppression campaign
that is underway in several states. If
you aren’t already familiar with what’s happening, here’s the skinny: several
states have changed, or are in the process of changing, their voting laws so
that voters have to show a particular kind of ID at their polling center;
sometimes they are now requiring a photo ID.
The stated rational of this is to eliminate voter fraud. As I will explain below, this explanation doesn’t
hold up to logical scrutiny.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is this: Is voter
fraud a problem? According to a nationwide study of election fraud since 2000
conducted by News21, it is not. (News 21
is a program of the Carnegie Corporation and the John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation, headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of
Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.)
The study found that of all of the cases of voter fraud they
investigated, they only found 10 cases of in-person impersonation fraud. (That’s the only type of fraud that these
voter ID laws would be able to stop.) That’s
it – only 10 cases. That’s nationwide,
since the year 2000. The number is infinitesimal,
and clearly does not create the need for new laws. With 146 million registered voters in the
United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every
15 million prospective voters.
Now that we see that these new laws are not needed, the next
question we have to ask ourselves is this: Why are certain states changing
their voter laws, especially now? Their
motive can’t be that they think voter fraud is a legitimate problem, so they
must have another motive.
First, let’s look at the states where this is
happening. In every one of them, the Republican
Party controls the state legislature.
Second, let’s look at who these new laws are most likely to affect. That’s simple; it’s anyone who doesn’t
already have a photo ID. That’s young
people, old people, low income individuals, and minorities. It just so happens that almost all of these groups
tend to vote for Democratic candidates more often than they do for Republican
ones.
The answer to why this is happening is simple: Republicans
are trying to ensure that the Republican candidates on the ballot in these
states win the election. This isn’t just
for President, but for the U.S. House and Senate, as well as state-wide
races. The Republicans are afraid they
might lose some of these elections, and to try to ensure that that doesn’t happen,
they want to stop people from voting who they feel are more likely to not vote
for a Democrat.
Essentially, they are afraid that they won’t win the game if
they play by the rules, so they’ve decided to cheat.
They are working to deny citizens of our country their
constitutional right to cast a vote. It’s
the height of irony, not to mention hypocrisy, that a political party that
claims to value the Constitution so much would so brazenly and obviously ignore
it. They have essentially decided that
the Constitution is irrelevant. What
matters to them is winning elections, no matter the cost.
This is wrong; terribly, terribly wrong. One of the foundations of our country is that
every citizen be allowed a voice when deciding who our elected officials will
be. Our state governments should do
whatever they reasonably can do to make it as easy as possible for people to
vote, not harder. If we truly value the
system of government we have, that means we value the idea of all citizens
having the ability to vote. It is repulsive
that a political party has decided to try to make it more difficult for people
to vote, and then lie about why they are doing it.
Regardless of your political leanings, I hope you feel as
disgusted by this as I do. If you do,
please do something. Write a blog about
it. Post something on Facebook. Talk to your friends and family. Call your elected officials. Don’t sit quietly while this is happening. It shouldn’t matter that they might not vote
for the same candidate that you would.
Denying someone the right to vote is wrong, period.
