Assault on Voter Registration

It really is amazing how our country seems to be going backwards relative to making sure that people have the right to vote. So many people and organizations fought for many years to make sure that the burden was lessened in this regard. The civil rights movement was motivated in good part by the restrictions and barriers put up against citizens who wanted to exercise their right to vote. In the 1960’s many black citizens were required to do things like recite the US Constitution as part of a test for literacy and to be allowed to vote. White citizens did not have to meet this same  or other discriminatory requirements. This obviously was racially motivated and was designed to control who would or could vote. When stories like this are told, most people think it’s unbelievable that this occurred in the United States - but it did.

Knowing this makes it frustrating to see the attempts that are now being made in various states for voter identification and verification. Although voter fraud is most often used as the reasoning for these legislative requirements, no one can produce real or meaningful facts relative to voter fraud. As a matter of fact, It just doesn’t exist as presented. The trade off is that many senior citizens, people with disabilities, students and minorities who don’t drive, will have some difficulty producing approved photo ID’s. Do we really want to do this - discourage and reduce the number of people voting in elections? It seems to fly in the face of everything people say about democracy. It seems to contradict the values that this country espouses when discussing things taking place in other countries that discourage democracy. It seems to contradict the pride that Congress expressed as Iraqi citizens held up their purple stained fingers after voting in their elections. Statistically, many of the groups who may be disenfranchised would normally vote Democratic and this seems to be known by the promoters of these pieces of legislation.

These legislative initiatives seem to be directed at particular groups of people during an election cycle that certainly should encourage more voting. The worst aspect of all of this is that in some cases, these new rules are directed specifically at the Hispanic population. The immigration debate and the questioning of legal and illegal status has sparked a lot shameful rhetoric. Voting should not be used as a means to discriminate. These initiatives will and should be challenged in the courts.