[QUICK LINKS: Voter suppression efforts in Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin]
I posted earlier on an effort in Virgina to disenfranchise college students by scaring them out of registering (by threatening that they'll lose their tax-dependent status or that they'll lose scholarships if they register to vote where their parents don't live). Well, that kind of thing is certainly not limited to Virginia, and as we get closer to Election Day, I'm sure it will only get worse. But, your intrepid blogger will do his best to keep track of these stories as they come along.
Michigan: The headline of the article pretty much says it all: Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote. The Michigan GOP is utilizing a list of people foreclosed upon to challenge certain votes (I'll leave you to guess which ones).
The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.
...
“You would think they would think, ‘This is going to look too heartless,’” said Lagstein, whose group has registered 200,000 new voters statewide this year and also runs a foreclosure avoidance program. “The Republican-led state Senate has not moved on the anti-predatory lending bill for over a year and yet [Republicans] have time to prey on those who have fallen victim to foreclosure to suppress the vote.”
Wisconsin: Particularly perverse case, wherein the Republican state attorney general is using the Help America Vote Act to (wait for it) prevent Americans from voting (or at least making it much more difficult and unpleasant than need be).
A lawsuit filed by the state attorney general Wednesday has the potential to slow down voting lines in what promises to be a staggering turnout for the Nov. 4 election, local voting officials said.
"It will disenfranchise voters. That's what we're concerned about," City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said.
...
St. John, Van Hollen's spokesman, said Van Hollen sees no conflict.
"None of the critics had explained how or why compliance with federal and state election laws favors one party over another," he said. "Fair elections is not a partisan issue."
Well, let me give it a shot. First of all, I'm going to assume some generalities. Let me be clear: these ARE generalities, and obviously do not apply in every case. Old, white people typically vote for Republicans (particularly in Wisconsin). Younger people and non-white people typically vote for Democrats. Voting happens on a Tuesday, which is a work day (obviously). Old, white people (remember, typically Republican voters) also typically have the means to spend as much time as necessary at a voting location. Longer lines, for example, would be unpleasant, but would not be disqualifying. They're not going to lose their jobs for taking extra time to vote. Younger people and non-white people typically do not have such luxuries, in which case that which was merely unpleasant for the typical Republican voter
DOES ACTUALLY BECOME DISQUALIFYING for the typical Democratic voter. Now, it is certainly not my position that government should be in the business of anticipating every possible obstacle to voting and removing them all (though, come to think of it, would that be so bad?).
However, nor should the government go out of its way to erect obstacles to voting, which is what the Wisconsin state attorney general is doing.
Ohio (see
here as well): Pretty routine effort to purge voter registries by sending out obscure "Do Not Forward" mailers. Added benefit of being
illegal.
Ohio election officials are sending out a mass mailer stamped "do not forward" to all registered voters today (Sept. 5) with an absentee ballot application and other important notices for Nov. 4. What's important here is not so much what's going out as what's being returned to sender.
Unbeknownst to the would-be recipients, the same mailer - just 60 days before the election - has the potential to determine their eligibility to vote, challenged not by election officials but by partisan opposition.
A similar mailer in March netted nondeliverable mail from almost 600,000 registered voters in just five Ohio counties who could now have their ballots thrown out for voting under the wrong address.
The National Voter Registration Act prohibits any state from purging names from the voting rolls within 90 days of an election.
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