2012 Election Legislation Strips Five Million of Their Vote

Nathan Crites-Herren
The Paw Print

With the 2012 election season on the horizon, a recently released report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan public policy institute, exposed major changes within the election law that could strip the voting rights of more than 5 million people.
This could have a tremendous impact on the election, considering that the 5 million potential discounted votes is a higher number than the margin of victory in two of the last three presidential elections.  The Brennan Center reports that about 3.2 million people in Kansas, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin do not have the proper identification to vote as in prior years. Many others will be kept away from the election booth because of new stricter federal laws against convicted criminals, tougher immigration and citizenship laws as well as redistricting laws. In addition, the report expresses concern over the fact that the new restrictions will overwhelmingly have a major impact on those motivated to vote for Democratic candidates, saying “These new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority and low income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities.”  
“Since the 2010 election, 34 states introduced legislation and 12 states passed legislation—implemented legislation—that’s basically designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, pushed overwhelmingly by Republicans,” said Ari Berman, contributing writer for The Nation magazine. Republican and corporate involvement in the new voting legislation is well documented; Florida Congress Woman Corinne Brown backed by CSX Railways and Honeywell International helped defeat two amendments that would make redistricting more fair in Florida.  Republican Senators and representatives along with their corporate donors in all of the 34 states that introduced legislation were active in support of the newly changed election laws.
The newly implemented election laws consist of requirements for the voting population itself as well as bipartisan voting groups.  Groups like the League of Women Voters have had to suspend their voter registration drives within the states that passed this legislation or face a thousand dollar fine.  States like Maine and Tennessee have banned same-day election day voter registration, while eliminating voting on Sunday before the election when black churches historically mobilize their constituents.  In addition, Iowa, Florida and Texas are disenfranchising ex-felons from the right to vote or run for public office.   “We have six states requiring government or state issued photo IDs. What people don’t realize about these photo IDs, is that 10 percent of American citizens do not have them, including 18 percent of young people and 25 percent of African-Americans,” said Berman.
Redistricting has become a major part in this wave of new legislation, in all the states in which the legislation passed new redistricting polices also took effect.  According to  Lois Beckett, reporter for ProPublica and member of the Brenan Center for Justice, “When you talk to these redistricting groups, they’ll tell you that dollar for dollar, campaign contributions are not as effective as redistricting because redistricting shapes who can win an election in a state for 10 years, for a full decade.”
According to the Brenan Center, gray area around redistricting groups and their funding has become even fuzzier with the new legislation.  Under election law, redistricting groups aren’t required to name their donors who have increasingly become corporate and conservative backers like EXON, Koch Industries, and The Freedom Foundation. “Because they don’t have to disclose where they get their money from, we don’t know what they’re getting, we don’t know how much they’re getting, we don’t know who is giving to them. There’s no way for citizens to tell who is really influencing this, and that is the tragedy,” said Beckett.
According to Berman, these laws signify a major shift towards plutocracy within the election system, “overwhelmingly, the new election laws have expanded the restrictions on voting and have made it easier for governments and influential entities to control election outcomes.”