Welcome to the latest edition in our war on voting series, a joint project of Joan McCarter and Meteor Blades. |
Wisconsin Republicans were “giddy” over voter suppression potential
Word came down this week that Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin had met behind closed doors five years ago to evaluate the impact on election outcomes in Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee if a voter ID requirement was imposed. Todd Allbaugh, a top aide to a former Republican state senator, testified in federal court on Monday that one state senator said he supported the requirement because it would win elections for GOP candidates. Allbaugh said other Republican lawmakers seemed “giddy” at the prospect of damaging Democrats at the polls with this restrictive proposal.
Mark Sommerhauser of the Wisconsin State Journal reports that the strongholds in question contain a large portion of Milwaukee’s black and Latino population. He also wrote:
Others testifying in Monday’s trial spoke of difficulties they encountered to get special IDs for voting from the state Department of Transportation.
One woman testified her elderly father, born in Mississippi during the Jim Crow period, was unable to get an ID because his name was misspelled on his birth certificate.
Attorneys for the state, which is defending the voter ID law in the case, called the testimony about what elected officials discussed five years ago “hearsay.” But Allbaugh added punch to his testimony by naming names of people who were at the closed-door meeting for the first time.
Kentucky’s Republican governor puts felons back on the no-voting list
One person who didn’t get to vote in Kentucky Tuesday was Alonzo Malone Jr. In another of those infuriating stories about the criminal injustice system making sure that people convicted of a crime is forever punished for it, Kira Lerner explains what happened to Malone and thousands of other felons.
Alonzo fully concedes that he made some mistakes and did a little prison time, three years worth. He missed some child support payments and wrote a bad check. But, at 55, he’s been on the straight and narrow for 16 years. And it appeared that one of humiliating penalties for his years-ago crimes was going to be erased. His right to vote was being restored by Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear. The governor had set up an application process for felons to request their voting rights be restored.
Kentucky has very strict felon disenfranchisement laws. And at 16.7 percent, blacks are more than three times more likely to have had their voting rights taken away as has the overall state population. Consequently, more than 140,000 Kentuckians are permanently disenfranchised, Lerner reports.
But Beshear’s late-in-the-day efforts to at least make a dent in this appalling statistic fell by the wayside when the new governor, Republican Matt Bevin replaced Beshear and reversed the executive order restoring voting rights. Lerner writes:
“I paid my debt,” [Malone] continued a minute later. “I don’t do nothing wrong today. I can pay taxes here in the state of Kentucky, but I can’t vote. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution … does it say that my right can ever be taken away from me. I’ve read it and I’ve read it, and I’m not illiterate. I feel cheated and robbed.”
The felon disenfranchisement policies that are still in use today were created after the Civil War specifically to keep black citizens from gaining political power. Today, nearly one in four black U.S. voters is blocked from the ballot box because of these policies combined with tough-on-crime laws which send a disproportionate number of black men to prison. Malone said that he believes that Kentucky continues “giving African American males felonies to stop them from voting.”
That Tuesday morning of the primary, Malone sat up writing a letter to President Obama about his lost vote. He says what he is most upset about is that he won’t be able to vote for Hillary Clinton:
“Mr. Trump talks all the time about making America great,” [Malone] said. “I will say this: If America is to be great, it ought to allow people who have made a mistake and who are being productive citizens in these United States the right to vote.”
Malone has it exactly right about that.
Kobach’s campaign to require citizenship proof to register to vote takes a hit
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been crusading for years to require anyone who registers to vote in the state to provide citizenship proof. He’s tussled with the federal government frequently in the matter. But last week U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson ruled that the state cannot force people registering at motor vehicle departments to show proof of citizenship. That requirement, Robinson said, likely violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which mandates only “minimal information” should be used to determine a voter’s eligibility.
Robinson ordered the state of Kansas to register thousands of voters whose incomplete paperwork is in limbo because they have not been carrying the required citizen proof when they tried to register at the DMV. They were supposed to return with that proof and complete their registration forms, but 18,372 did not do so. There are other thousands who tried to register at other locations, but the court order only covers those who tried to do so at a DMV office—a process that was established by the NVRA, nicknamed the “motor-voter law.”
The state said immediately after the ruling that it would appeal. Unless a higher court halts Robinson’s order before the end of the month, the law will take effect then, clearing the way for those residents to cast a ballot in the upcoming federal elections. Early voting in the August primary begins in July.
Michigan House passes bill setting in stone the 180-limit on initiative petitions
Getting a measure on the ballot would be tougher if a bill passed in the Michigan House of Representatives last week becomes law. While it’s already customary for groups pushing such proposals to collect all their signatures within a 180-day time-frame, older signatures can be counted as long as they go through a lengthy verification process. Advocacy groups have tried to get that process simplified, but the House legislation would eliminate it altogether by making the 180-day arrangement hard and fast with no exceptions for older signatures.
Emily Lawler reports:
It's a seemingly small change to Michigan election law, but could have a big impact on future ballot proposals. Two current ballot proposals are fighting the bill: MI Legalize, which would legalize recreational marijuana use for those over 21, and Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, which would put a stop to hydraulic fracturing in the state.
The House Elections Committee had recommended delaying the implementation until 2017, after current ballot proposals had cycled through. But the full House shot down that amendment on the floor.
Federal judge upholds Virginia’s voter ID law
U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled Thursday that two plaintiffs had not made their case that partisan prejudice had motivated passage of a state law requiring a person to present photo ID be shown before voting. He called the law fair and neutral, and said in a 62-page decision that he had seen no compelling evidence in court demonstrating that the law was passed intentionally to reduce the votes of people of color and youth. Frank Green at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports:
“Virginia Republicans enacted Virginia’s voter ID law for the sole purpose of making it more difficult to vote. These measures disproportionately affect minority, low-income, and older Virginians,” said Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Virginia.
“Democrats will continue to fight to protect the most fundamental right we hold as Virginians and Americans. Exercising the right to vote is how we preserve and expand all other rights, and enacting measures intended to make it more difficult to vote is un-American and unconstitutional.”
Ari Berman points out at The Nation that Virginia first passed a voter-ID law in 2012 that let voters identify themselves with non-photo IDs like a utility bill, pay stubs, bank statements, government checks, or Social Security cards. Because Virginia was covered by the Voting Rights Act, the U.S. Justice Department had to pre-approve that law, which it did. But the Republican legislation changed the law after President Barack Obama carried Virginia in his 2012 reelection campaign. Acceptable IDs were restricted to “drivers licenses, voter ID cards, student IDs, and concealed handgun permits,” MSNBC reported. But by then the Supreme Court had wrecked a key portion of the Voting Rights Act, so Virginia, with a long history of voter discrimination against blacks and Indians, no longer had to get its voter ID law okayed before putting it into effect.