“Women’s Equality Day”: The Vote — A Right Worth Fighting For
Today, August 26, marks Women’s Equality Day. It is also a little more than two months from the 2014 midterm elections. In my mind, these two things are inextricably linked.
Some of you may be asking, “What is Women’s Equality Day?” That’s a pretty easy question to answer. Every year since 1971, the President of the United States marks August 26 in commemoration of the day in 1920 that the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution — granting women equal voting rights — was certified into law.
Women fought long and hard for the right to vote. In 1848, the document produced by the Seneca Falls Convention was the first formal demand for women’s suffrage. During World War I, suffragists picketed the White House — possibly the first “cause” to do so. Many were arrested and participated in a hunger strike while in prison, leading to force feedings.
But not all women obtained access to the ballot box when the 19th amendment entered the law books. In the southern United States, Jim Crow laws kept most black women and men from voting. It wasn’t until passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 that the right to vote was extended to all adult citizens.
Sadly, the clock is turning back on voting rights. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, relieving dozens of state and local jurisdictions from having to pre-clear changes in their voting laws with the U.S. Department of Justice. They have wasted no time erecting new barriers against voting. In state after state, GOP-dominated legislatures have enacted new rules aimed at suppressing the votes of specific types of people: younger voters, immigrant citizens, voters of color and unmarried women.
The specific voter suppression laws vary from state to state. The most restrictive states require voters to present a government issued photo ID (a driver’s license, a passport, military ID, etc.); currently, 34 states have voter ID laws, and 15 of those states require photo ID.
The voter-suppression crowd argues that requiring a photo ID for voting is not onerous. It’s just a driver’s license, and you have to have that to drive, or get on a plane, or buy alcohol. Besides, they say, we need photo IDs to prevent voter fraud.
Here’s why that’s all wrong: (1) Voter fraud is all but non-existent in the U.S., and photo ID doesn’t address the very few instances that have been found. (2) Just a reminder for anyone who wasn’t paying attention in middle school, voting is not like driving, buying alcohol or traveling by plane. Voting is a constitutional right and essential to the democratic process. (3) The notion that a photo ID is simply something everyone has presumes all eligible voters have the right paperwork (or the money to get the right paperwork, like a birth certificate), transportation to get to their local DMV, and the ability to take time off work to make the trip.
So, if there is no real voter fraud to worry about, what’s the real goal of voter suppression measures? Well, it turns out that the majority of voting-eligible people in the U.S. disagree with the right wing’s anti-woman, anti-social justice, anti-union agenda. Seven in ten Americans support Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. A majority support labor unions, raising the minimum wage, and equal pay for equal work. And 62-63 percent support comprehensive immigration reform with a clear path to citizenship.
The reality is, if enough voters actually turn out for this November’s elections, we could elect candidates who support our issues and turn our country around. Does anyone doubt that the folks trying to suppress our votes are hearing footsteps?
I’ve always been proud of NOW’s position as the grassroots arm of the women’s movement. Our activists and members throughout the country are already doing the hard work on the ground — knocking on doors, making calls, educating and mobilizing voters — to get the word out about how high the stakes are this year. Want to get in on the action? Join me and take NOW’s pledge to vote on November 4th.
The right to vote is precious. Our feminist foremothers were beaten, arrested, went on hunger strikes and endured force-feeding for that right. Our sisters and brothers in the civil rights movement were beaten, jailed and murdered for registering Black voters. This year, let’s honor our proud history by voting in such large numbers that even the most dishonest, most cowardly suppression efforts can’t stop us!
By: Terry O’Neil, President, National Organization for Women; The Huffington Post Blog, August 26, 2014
“Shake The Complacency”: Twelve Percent Turnout Is An Insult To Your Children
The Rev. Al Sharpton, host of msnbc’s “Politics Nation,” spoke at the Greater Grace Church’s services yesterday, and addressed the crisis surrounding Michael Brown’s death from a variety of angles. Of particular interest, though, was one of Sharpton’s challenges to the community itself.
“Michael Brown is gonna change this town,” he said, before criticizing the paltry voting record on the area. “You all have got to start voting and showing up. 12% turnout is an insult to your children.”
That was not an exaggeration. The historical and institutional trends that created the current dynamic in Ferguson – a largely African-American population led by a largely white local government – are complex, but the fact that black voters haven’t been politically engaged has contributed to the challenges facing the community. In the most recent elections, turnout really was just 12%.
Patricia Bynes, a black woman who is the Democratic committeewoman for the Ferguson area, told the New York Times that last week’s developments may shake the complacency that too often shapes local politics. “I’m hoping that this is what it takes to get the pendulum to swing the other way,” Bynes said.
To that end, Ferguson residents have had an enormous amount of work to do over the last several days – mourn, grieve, protest, and recover, all while struggling through moments of violence – but haven’t forgotten about the importance of civic engagement in general, and voter registration in specific.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a piece over the weekend that included a striking detail (thanks to my colleague Laura Conaway for the heads-up).
Rev. Rodney Francis of the St. Louis Clergy Coalition pointed to voter registration tent at the scene. “That’s where change is gonna happen,” Francis said.
Debra Reed of University City and her daughter, Shiron Hagens, were working at the registration tent. They said they set it up on their own.
“We’re trying to make young people understand that this is how to change things,” Reed said.
Note, some Republican-led states have made voter-registration drives far more difficult in recent years – Florida, for example, has imposed harsh restrictions without cause – but no such hindrances exist in Missouri.
State GOP policymakers have taken steps to restrict voting rights and curtail early voting, but none of this should be seen as an excuse to discourage Ferguson residents from registering and participating. The kind of systemic changes many in the community crave can be achieved through the ballot box.
To repeat Sharpton’s message: “You all have got to start voting and showing up. 12% turnout is an insult to your children.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 18, 2014
“We Need More Voting, Not Less”: Republicans Are Gaming The Electoral System By Suppressing The Vote
For decades, we in America have lamented our voter turnout. There has been widespread concern about not only the 60 percent participation in presidential elections, but the drop-off to about 40 percent in off years and the miserable turnout for local elections and primaries that often doesn’t reach 20 percent. So why do Republicans in key states seem intent on preventing certain citizens from voting?
The critics of our system cite European countries that continuously have turnout numbers between 70 percent and 80 percent. (Austria, Sweden and Italy usually hit the 80 percent mark.) They point to how hard we make it for citizens to register, the problem with requiring additional documents at polling places and the recent passage of laws to combat so-called “voter fraud.”
We can go one of two directions in this country: We can make voting easier or we can make it harder. It is difficult to understand why some Republicans desire to make it harder. It is even more difficult to understand their desire to stop African-Americans, Hispanics and young people from voting, unless, of course, you take the view that Republicans have cynically decided to suppress the vote of these more Democratic-leaning groups.
The New York Times editorial board today pointed to those who are trying to make voting easier and those who are trying to make it harder. It cited six states that have recently created online registration systems and four that have either allowed voters under 18 to pre-register or put in place election day registration or expanded early voting.
Sadly, the Times also pointed to the 15 states that have passed new restrictions on voting that are mostly controlled by Republicans. 11 states have put in place restrictive voter ID laws, reduced time for early voting was passed in eight states, and some students are being prevented from voting where they reside for college.
According to he Times, 10 states have made it more difficult to even register to vote. A total of 34 states now have restrictive voter ID laws.
One of the most outrageous aspects of this movement by Republican operatives is that it is combating a problem that doesn’t exist. Voter fraud is not a serious problem in our elections, but preventing key groups of minorities, poor people and the young from exercising their constitutional rights certainly is becoming one.
We need to open up our electoral system, not close it. We need to have universal voter registration at 18. We need to have more early voting, not less, more vote by mail, not less, more consolidation of voting days, not less, and more use of technology to provide online registration. We need to explore weekend voting and also new ways to clean up voter lists and keep them current.
At the end of the day, it is time for Republicans to stop trying to game the system and win elections by denying citizens the right to vote. It will only come back to bite them – and bite them hard.
By: Peter Fenn, U. S. News and World Report, August 12, 2014
“The Struggle For Voting Rights Continues”: Honoring The Civil Rights Act, 50 Years Later
Fifty years ago today, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. On that great day in 1964, surrounded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other national leaders, President Johnson outlawed discrimination based on race. While the Civil Rights Act did not eliminate literacy tests, those evil tools used in the South to prevent blacks from voting, it did require that voting rules be applied equally to all races. And it paved the way for the landmark passage of the Voting Rights Act one year later.
It’s hard to believe that in 1964, less than 7 percent of Mississippi’s African Americans were registered to vote. I was reminded of the hardships of that era the other day while watching Freedom Summer, the incredible PBS documentary on the young black and white volunteers who flooded Mississippi in 1964 to increase voter registration, educate African-American children and draw attention to the countless injustices taking place every day in the Magnolia State.
“What we were trying to do was to organize these communities to take possession of their own lives. For the last hundred years the ability of black people to control their own destiny had been taken away from them,” Freedom Summer organizer Charlie Cobb recalls in the film.
Freedom Summer volunteers walked through neighborhoods, struck up conversations in cotton fields, and sat on porches. They reminded local African-Americans that they could vote for sheriff and stop intimidation by the local police. But it was not an easy pitch.
“Immediately, what you found out you were dealing with was fear,” remembers Cobb, who at the time was a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi. “They would say, ‘You’re right, boy. We should be registered to vote, but I ain’t going down there to mess with them white people.’ ”
Cobb, who would become a distinguished journalist and author and visiting professor at Brown University, told PBS that the fear was overwhelming. “Within that small group of people who did try and register to vote, very few of them actually got registered to vote.” Voting forms were designed to be absurdly complex, and local registrars controlled who was accepted to vote. “In some counties, when people went in to register, their names would appear in the newspaper the next day. That could have recriminations for all members of their family,” said historian John Dittmer. “It could mean they would lose their job. There were real consequences to taking this risk.”
That was 50 years ago, but the struggle for voting rights continues. Today, strict photo ID requirements and cutbacks to early voting are creating obstacles at the ballot box that disproportionately affect seniors, students, low-income individuals and people of color. Twenty-two states have passed new voting-restriction laws, and advocates are fighting back in court. We must continue to support free and fair voting for all Americans, and to honor the civil rights pioneers who came before us.
By: Page Gardner, The Huffington Post Blog, July 2, 2014
“He’s Not Alone”: Florida’s Yoho Connects Voting Rights, Property Ownership
Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) has already made quite a name for himself after just 17 months in Congress, but yesterday, Right Wing Watch published arguably the most striking quote yet for the Tea Party congressman’s greatest-hits list.
Recently unearthed footage of Rep. Ted Yoho speaking at Berean Baptist Church in Ocala, Florida, during his candidacy for Congress in the 2012 election cycle shows the Republican politician suggesting that only property owners should have the right to vote.
“I’ve had some radical ideas about voting and it’s probably not a good time to tell them, but you used to have to be a property owner to vote,” he said to applause.
The part about the applause isn’t an exaggeration – there’s video showing exactly that.
A Yoho spokesperson told msnbc yesterday, “The congressman was making a reference to how voting was structured when America was in its infancy (from a historical perspective). He does not believe that this is the way it should be now.”
And while that’s reassuring, listening to Yoho in the 2012 video, his reference connecting property ownership and voting rights didn’t quite sound like criticism, either.
Zachary Roth added:
Yoho’s comments on voting are firmly within the tradition of conservative thinking on the franchise, which sees it less as a right and more as a tool to make an informed decision about government.
Versions of that notion were used to justify restricting the vote to property owners in the republic’s early days, as well as later voting restrictions like literacy requirements. Even in the 21st century, Yoho is far from alone among prominent conservatives in suggesting that voting should be made more difficult in order to produce a better-informed electorate.
In this case, the congressman isn’t even alone among conservatives suggesting voting rights be connected to wealth. In February, Tom Perkins, a very wealthy venture capitalist who compared contemporary American progressives to Nazis, gave a speech that argued along similar lines.
When challenged to say, in 60 seconds, how he would change the world, Perkins made a playfully controversial response. He suggested that, in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson’s voting land owners and Margaret Thatcher’s idea of only allowing taxpayers to vote, “The Tom Perkins system is: You don’t get the vote if you don’t pay a dollar in taxes. But what I really think is it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars, you get a million votes. How’s that?” To which the audience responded with laughter.
It wasn’t long ago that those who expect to be taken seriously in modern American life would avoid rhetoric like this.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 21, 2014
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