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The Attack on Voting Rights
Right to Vote Threatened for Millions of Eligible Citizens
Many state legislatures have been working overtime to pass laws to restrict the rights of more than 5 million Americans — mostly students, people of color, lower income citizens, people with disabilities and senior citizens — to vote in the 2012 elections.
From voter ID requirements to severe limits on voter registration, 14 states so far in 2011 have passed laws that threaten to have a “significant impact” on the 2012 presidential race and other state and federal elections, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
And that’s just the beginning: 34 states have introduced state-issued photo ID requirements; 12 are seeking proof of citizenship; 13 are restricting voter registration and nine are reducing early and absentee voting.
Why? The stated reason is “voter fraud,” but numerous studies, including five years of research by the Bush Justice Department, find virtually no evidence of voter fraud and only a handful of mistakes that have allowed ineligible votes.
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“The right to vote is precious — almost sacred — and one of the most important blessings of our democracy. Today, we must stand up and fight. The history of the right to vote in America is a history of conflict, of struggle, for that right. Many people died trying to protect that right. I was beaten and jailed because I stood up for it. For millions like me, the struggle for the right to vote is not mere history, it is experience.” — U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on the House floor, Nov. 1, 2011 |
The real reason is to suppress the votes of elderly, young, low income and minority groups.
Nearly 200 House Democrats have signed a letter to election officials in states nationwide, expressing deep concern about voter ID and other threats to voting rights:
“Whether it is an elderly woman unable to locate her birth certificate for purposes of establishing her U.S. citizenship on election day or a college student whose school-issued identification is not among the IDs deemed acceptable for voting or a disabled veteran whose local polling place has not yet been made accessible, public officials on all levels of government should be striving to facilitate their right to vote, not make it more difficult.”