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Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression
By Keesha Gaskins – 12/13/11
Crossposted at Huffington Post.
Last week, Paul Schurick, the campaign manager for former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich, was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to violate election laws and two counts of election fraud for orchestrating a scheme of robo-calls intended to deter 100,000 Democratic African-American voters from voting in the City of Baltimore and Prince George's County Maryland.
The robo-calls, delivered in a woman's voice, assured Democratic voters that the Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley had already won the election as of 6:00 p.m. on Election Day 2010.
"Our goals have been met. The polls are correct and we took it back. We're OK. Relax. Everything's fine. The only thing left is to watch it on TV tonight."
At trial, Schurick argued his intention was to anger voters sympathetic to his candidate in order to motivate them to vote. A jury rejected his argument and found Schurick's intent was to mislead and discourage Democratic African‑American voters from going to the polls.
Schurick's conviction comes in the midst of a robust national debate about the importance of ballot security and how to protect American elections. Since January 2011, 15 states passed laws — with more legislation currently pending in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Virginia, among others — that burden individual voters by making it harder for citizens to register and to vote. These efforts range from eliminating early voting on Sunday, to making it more difficult for citizens to register, to requiring a specific kind of government-issued photo ID to vote. In almost all cases these laws are justified as a means to prevent voter fraud. This justification fails.
Simply put: these laws do nothing to prevent voter fraud, while putting up unnecessary barriers to the ballot for millions. Making it all but impossible for the League of Women Voters to register citizens in Florida — as a new law does — will not prevent someone who wants to submit a false registration form from doing so, but it could keep thousands from ever getting on the voter rolls. Eliminating days available for early voting will not keep supposed "fraudsters" from the polls, but it will affect the 1-2 million voters who used those early-voting days to vote in the 2008 elections. Requiring a driver's license, gun permit, military ID or passport to vote (while not allowing student IDs or public benefit cards) will not improve the security of our elections, but it may prevent the 3.2 million citizens without the right kind of photo ID from voting. All total, up to 5 million American citizens may be affected by these laws, with no evidence that any voter fraud will be prevented.
These new laws raise concerns for the 2012 presidential election. Five million votes is greater than the margin of victory in 2 of the last 3 presidential elections. Moreover, there are a total of 175 electoral votes controlled by the states that enacted laws imposing new restrictions on voting and voter registration for the 2012 election — equaling 65 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect the next President.
Conversely, the "voter fraud" evangelicals ignore the very real problems created by voter deception. In a case before him in 2009, federal Judge Dickinson Debevoise found that voter intimidation tactics present an ongoing threat to participation in the political process" and continue to pose a far greater danger to the integrity of the process than the unproven and undemonstrated threat of voter impersonation and improper voter registration.
The distribution of misinformation about elections and voter eligibility undermines public confidence and discourages citizens from participating in the electoral process. Examples of voter deception include:
- In 2002 in Louisiana, flyers in an African American neighborhood inaccurately told voters they would be able to vote three days after the election.
- In 2004 in Ohio, flyers in Franklin County told voters that due to heavy voter registration, Republicans should vote on Tuesday and Democrats should vote on Wednesday.
- In 2006 in Virginia, voters living in areas with large minority populations received calls incorrectly reporting that their polling places had changed.
- In 2008 in Philadelphia, fliers posted near Drexel University incorrectly warned that police officers would be at polling places looking for individuals with outstanding arrest warrants or parking tickets.
- In the 2006 midterm election, 14,000 Latino voters in Orange County, California received mailings from the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, warning them in Spanish that "if you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that can result in incarceration" without reference to the fact that a naturalized immigrant may legally vote.
Other types of suppressive voter activity by political operatives or private citizens are:
Voter caging: efforts to identify and disenfranchise registered voters solely on the basis of an undeliverable mailing;
Voter intimidation: conduct that intimidates or threatens voters into voting a certain way or refraining from voting; and
Discriminatory or intimidating voter challenges: formal challenges to the eligibility of persons presenting themselves to vote either at the polls or prior to Election Day in a way intended to intimidate voters or in an intentionally discriminatory pattern.
Paul Schurick's conviction evidences the type of activity that is well-documented and clearly demonstrated to be a real problem.
Niomi Rosenberg, one of jurors from the Schurick trial said it best: "Suppression of the vote is a very big problem. Our country is founded on the right to vote."
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression
By Jonathan Brater – 10/12/11
We reported last week that Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler sued Denver County Clerk and Recorder Debra Johnson. He wanted an order from the court telling her she could not send mail ballots for the upcoming mail-only election to certain registered and eligible voters; namely, those voters who missed the last election. On Friday, a Colorado court denied Secretary Gessler’s request, thus allowing Denver to send mail ballots to all registered Denver voters without interference from the Secretary of State’s office.
Now, more counties are following Denver’s lead. Apparently, emboldened by the court’s decision, counties across Colorado are doing the right thing: making sure all registered voters can participate in the election.
Boulder, Pitkin, and Pueblo Counties will now join Denver in sending ballots to what are sometimes referred to as “inactive—failed to vote” electors. In plain language, this means those voters who are duly registered but did not vote in the last election. Mesa County will send ballots to inactive military and overseas voters. Pueblo County had already planned to send mail ballots to inactive voters, but was waiting for the outcome of the Denver suit. Now, Pueblo County will go ahead with its plans. Boulder, Mesa, and Pitkin Counties announced their decisions after Friday’s ruling. These moves will allow thousands of registered voters, who could otherwise have been prevented from voting, to participate in the election.
Unfortunately, Secretary Gessler has indicated that he will continue to press for restrictive voting rules for the 2012 Election. But for now, at least, the right to vote is on the rise in Colorado.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Other Voter List Issues
By Megan Brown – 09/22/11
Yesterday Maine Secretary of State Charles Summers, Jr. reaffirmed a basic principle of Maine and federal law: Maine students are eligible to vote in Maine, regardless of whether they pay in-state or out-of-state tuition. In July, Maine Republican Party Chairman Charles Webster accused 206 students who paid “out-of-state” tuition at Maine universities of voter fraud because they voted in Maine. Secretary Summers then announced an investigation into these claims, the results of which he announced today. The result? There was, unsurprisingly, no evidence that any of the 206 students committed voter fraud.
As the Brennan Center noted in a letter to Secretary Summers, under both Maine and federal law the standards for tuition status and voting residency are quite different. Students who meet the legal requirements for residency and choose to register may vote as Maine residents, regardless of their public university tuition status. In fact, if the requirements for in-state tuition were applied to voter residency in Maine, they would be plainly unconstitutional. So the mere fact that some Maine student voters paid out-of-state tuition should never have led to a criminal investigation.
Careless public accusations of voter fraud - especially on such thin evidence – are a serious problem. Misinformed accusations carry the real risk of discouraging eligible voters from registering to vote and casting a ballot. Public officials and political parties alike should share an interest in ensuring that all citizens have accurate information about their voting rights – regardless of the party they intend to cast a vote for.
The results of the investigation released today reaffirm a point we at the Brennan Center have repeatedly made: out-of-state tuition status is not a bar to registering or voting in Maine.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Student Voting
By Nhu-Y Ngo – 05/26/11
The Big Picture
We’ve written much about the various voter ID battles in the states, but recent legislative attacks on voting rights go far beyond introducing restrictive voter identification requirements.
In fact, legislators around the country have been pushing bills that make sweeping changes to their election codes to limit the voting rights of students and movers, reduce early voting days, and restrict voter registration and “get-out-the-vote” mobilization efforts.
Rather than making efforts to improve and modernize our election system and ensure that all eligible voters are able to vote, some lawmakers are instead trying to make voter registration and voting more difficult by effectively penalizing civic engagement.
Common characteristics of these bills, proposed by legislators in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, respectively, are that they are long, dense, and cover a wide variety of topics affecting access to the polls. In Texas, the legislative attack on voting has been done through a series of bills, which is bound to confuse citizens who must sift through a pile of proposed laws.
These bills are more than mere proposals of some overzealous legislators. The Florida bill became law last week, and Governor Scott Walker signed Wisconsin’s bill on Wednesday. Bills in North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas are still under consideration.
We provide a summary of these restrictive laws and bills below.
Florida
Florida’s House Bill 1355, a mammoth 158-page omnibus bill that was signed by the Governor Rick Scott on May 19th, includes language that would:
- Require voter registration groups to pre-register every single volunteer or employee (by requiring each person to sign a sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury) and turn in every registration form they get within 48 hours or face strict penalties and fees
- Eliminate Florida’s longstanding policy of allowing voters who have moved to update their new address at the polls on Election Day
- Reduce the early voting period from two weeks to one
As the Brennan Center’s Lee Rowland wrote earlier, the pre-registration requirement means a student council member can’t swap in to take a turn to pass out registration forms without first signing a sworn affidavit, under penalty of perjury, with the State. The tight turnaround time means that registration groups will be unable to follow up with voters who leave forms incomplete and will incur high fines for going a minute over the deadline.
The burdens of this bill will fall disproportionately on low-income and minority voters, renters, and students: eligible voters that already face the biggest hurdles to vote. And the groups that try to register these voters, from student organizers to the League of Women Voters, could be penalized for their attempts to bring more eligible citizens into our democracy.
The bill was signed by the Governor on May 19th despite urging from voting rights advocacy groups that the new law will only harm voters.
Ohio
Ohio, seemingly not wanting to be outdone by Florida, has a longer bill. Coming in at 297 pages, House Bill 194 is definitely competing with Florida in an imagined voter restrictions dance-off, perhaps to “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas, which was playing in the background of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s voter ID bill signing.
This bill is not all bad. Perhaps most importantly, it limits opportunities for unwarranted challenges at the polls that could be used to intimidate voters. It also makes it easier for people who change their names (i.e., recently married women) to vote a regular ballot.
But there are a number of new restrictions including:
- Significantly reducing locations and times for early in-person voting
- Prohibiting counties from sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters or sending return postage on absentee ballots
- Eliminating requirements that an election official must direct a voter who is in the wrong precinct to the voter’s correct precinct (which is especially crucial as provisional ballots only count if cast in the correct precinct)
- Eliminating the ability of provisional voters to provide additional information or identification to ensure their ballots are counted in the 10 days after they voted
- Discarding votes that the voting machine reads as “overvotes” (i.e., voting for more than one candidate in a contest), even when a subsequent review makes the voter intent clear
H.B. 194 does allow voters to electronically update their registration information online, which is a reform we support, but only if the voter already updated this information with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (meaning this will benefit far fewer voters than it could).
North Carolina
North Carolina has its own “Voting Integrity” bill, as it is short-titled. Instead of securing the election administration process in smart ways, Senate Bill 657 would undo some of North Carolina’s best voting practices by:
- Cutting down the early voting period by one week
- Ending pre-registration for 17 year-olds, which has become an important way to promote civic participation among young people
- Repealing Same Day Registration (current law allows eligible voters to register to vote or update their registration information during the early voting period)
We are particularly troubled by the last two items. Eliminating Same Day Registration in North Carolina will discourage voters who already encounter other voter registration barriers from participating. The motivation behind eliminating pre-registration is unclear and unfairly punishes young voters who are lawfully eligible to vote.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin Assembly Bill 7 is widely known as a bill that would require Department of Transportation-issued photo ID, a passport, military or tribal ID, or naturalization certificate in order to vote. Student IDs could in theory be acceptable, but in practice, the ones that the University of Wisconsin currently issues would not be. The University will have to issue new cards to all students at an estimated cost of millions if it wants its IDs to be accepted as appropriate identification for voting under A.B. 7.
In the bill, there are also provisions to:
- Extend the length of residency period before an eligible person may register to vote from 10 to 28 days
- Move the deadline for a late registration to the Friday before an election, rather than the day before an election
A.B. 7 passed in a hasty vote, during which Senate President Mike Ellis cut off debate and declared the bill passed before all members of the Senate could cast their votes.
See the video here:
WI Senate Vote on Voter Suppression Bill 5.19.11 by nicknice
After the vote, Governor Scott Walker tweeted his glee. Walker signed the bill yesterday.
And then, there is Texas
Lone Star legislators did not seek to package their voting restrictions into one giant bill, defying the adage that everything is bigger in Texas. But there is still reason to be alarmed by what’s happening in Austin.
Two bills would make it harder for persons to become deputy voter registrars. There is even a bill that will slap you with a Class C misdemeanor if you help more than two voters in a day.
Priorities in Texas seem a bit misguided. For example, thanks to recently passed legislation, Texans will be able to legally “noodle,” the art of catching fish by hand. The author of the bill, State Senator Bob Deuell, is quoted as saying, “I personally don't noodle, but I would defend to the death your right to do so.”
No word on if he will defend to the death your right to vote.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Election Day Issues, Student Voting, Voter ID, Voter Registration Drives
By Wendy R. Weiser – 11/02/10
Crossposted from The Hill's Congress Blog.
Voting is our most sacred civic ritual. Polling places are its temples. They should be oases of calm and reason, where voters can register their choices privately, free from the heat of election campaigns. But because of widespread mobilization around efforts to stop voter fraud this year, our “temples of democracy” are under threat of being converted into partisan battlegrounds.
It is important to understand the singularity of these so-called "ballot security" activities. Private citizens, working with political parties or groups, take it upon themselves to enforce the law. In those states that allow direct challenges to voters, citizens not only assume the guise of law enforcement, but that of prosecutors as well.
Compare ballot security drives to other areas of law enforcement. Many believe there is an epidemic of fraud on Wall Street, just as many claim there is massive voter fraud. Yet citizens rely on state and federal governments to enforce the securities laws. They do not post themselves on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, confronting traders each time they sense something wrong. If that were the case, traders involved in legitimate activity would never get their work done.
The same is true with voting. State and local election officials, and federal and state law enforcement personnel, have the legal responsibility to ensure that voting is fair and accurate. It is their job to protect against – and prosecute, if necessary – voter fraud as well as vote suppression. Judging from the extremely low rates of voter fraud in American elections, they do this job quite well. No one argues that these officials should perform their jobs without oversight. Citizen observation and monitoring can be a beneficial safeguard.
But the reality is that ballot security efforts are frequently disruptive to an orderly voting process. Far too often – especially in the emotionally heated environment of a hotly contested election – these efforts go awry, crossing the line into voter intimidation, discrimination, or vote suppression. And even if they don’t result in intimidation, discrimination or suppression, ballot security operations can slow down the voting process, creating long lines and confusion, and depressing turnout. They undermine morale too, creating an atmosphere of mistrust in the very places where Americans come together to participate in the defining act of self-government.
The downsides to ballot security operations are many, and there is little upside. These operations almost never uncover any voter fraud. And for good reason: the kinds of fraud that actually do happen, albeit rarely, cannot be detected at the polls. While “Mickey Mouse” may still be able to submit a registration form, unless he has valid government records or appropriate ID, he cannot vote. In any event, the answer to inaccurate voter rolls is modernizing our voter registration system, not obstructing the vote.
Other advanced democracies do not allow citizens to police fellow voters and challenge them at the polls. Citizens can comment on the voter rolls before Election Day, so that all concerns are resolved beforehand and all citizens can vote in peace. We should show the same respect for American voters.
Our most sacred rite of democracy should not turn into a battleground with citizens confronting and accusing one another at the polls. Those citizens who take the time to vote deserve peace and respect. The last thing voters need is to become unwitting pawns in a partisan struggle.
Tags: Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Election Day Issues
By Lee Rowland – 10/28/10
Election Day should reflect our democracy’s fundamental principle that every eligible voter should be able to cast a ballot that counts. Instead, there is a real threat that partisan election monitors funded by political parties and independent groups will turn polling places into something closer to a political circus on November 2nd.
Political parties, movements like the Tea Party, and corporate elections-related spending have created widespread, well-funded programs that – in the name of ballot security – place hundreds of partisan operatives at polling places. Political poll monitors’ role is to challenge individual voters based on residency, age, or citizenship - and the concern is that the process is largely aimed at voters who do not share those monitors’ political beliefs. As one U.S. District Judge noted with respect to certain challenges lodged in Montana before the 2008 election, “[t]he timing of these challenges is so transparent that it defies common sense to believe the purpose is anything but political chicanery.”[1]
These efforts carry a high risk of discouraging voters from casting valid ballots. No matter how well-intentioned, throngs of partisan monitors clog already-taxed polling places and can create a climate of fear and uncertainty for voters. Even under the best of circumstances, with political operatives jockeying for space in the polls alongside voters, there will be confusion and misapplication of poll monitoring laws. The Brennan Center is very concerned that these targeted poll monitoring operations can and will cross the line into voter suppression.
Unfortunately, these efforts are frequently concentrated in the most vulnerable voting precincts, and thus may disproportionately disenfranchise minority, low-income, and foreclosed voters on Election Day. One federal court in Ohio found that under a challenge operation planned in that state for 2004, only 14 percent of voters in majority-white districts would be subject to voter challenges, while a stunning 97 percent of new voters in predominately African-American polling districts would face such a challenge.[2] Voter challenges based in whole or in part on race violate the federal Voting Rights Act – and we at the Brennan Center will be vigilant this election to monitor challenge operations to ensure they do not disenfranchise voters based on race.
Eligible voters should demand their right to cast a ballot that will count. If you experience intimidation, confusion, or discrimination at the polls, you can call Election Protection’s voter hotline to report any interference with your fundamental right to vote at 1-866-OUR-VOTE or, en español, 1-866-Ve-Y-Vota. Voters may also report problematic conduct to the Voting Section of the United States Department of Justice by calling (800) 253-3931. You can read more about the Brennan Center’s concerns about suppressive voter challenges here and read about current reports of aggressive "ballot security" operations here.
Every American has a right to cast a vote that counts. Poll monitoring efforts based on race, or intended to disenfranchise eligible voters, are flat-out unlawful. A fundamental requirement of our democracy is ensuring that eligible voters are not turned away from the polls. To the extent that “ballot security” operations discourage eligible voters, they fail us all.
[1] Montana Democratic Party v. Eaton, 581 F.Supp.2d 1077, 1081 (D.Mont. 2008).
[2] Spencer v. Blackwell, 347 F.Supp.2d 528, 530 (S.D.Ohio 2004).
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Election Day Issues
By James Sample – 10/03/08
Former Montana State Representative Kevin Furey, a First Lieutenant in the Army Reserves, is presently in New Jersey preparing to return to Iraq. The reward for his service? Try disenfranchisement. At least that's what it could be if an error-laden effort by the Montana Republican Party to purge the voter rolls were to go forward.
As is too often the case with targeted, partisan efforts to challenge voters and get them purged from the rolls, an effort by the Montana Republican Party this week ostensibly aimed voter fraud appears to be, in the words of Matt Singer of the non-partisan Forward Montana, actually little more than an effort to "suppress the vote, targeting counties with large Indian, student, and low-income populations."
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Other Voter List Issues, Purges, Voter Registration Drives
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