Democratic Governors Fight Voter ID Bills

A wave of voter suppression legislation is emerging from newly elected GOP governors and Republican legislators that would make it much more difficult for traditional Democratic constituencies to vote, just in time for the 2012 election. About a dozen states are are actively considering legislation that would make voting much more difficult for college students, minorities, the elderly and the disabled.

Wisconsin
The law would would require a photo ID for the first time in Wisconsin history and only a very narrow range of ID's would qualify. Voters would have to show a Wisconsin driver's licenses, state-issued ID cards, military IDs, passports, naturalization certificates, IDs issued by a Native American tribe based in Wisconsin or certain student IDs. Students not living in dorms would have to show fee payment receipts. Common Cause Wisconsin characterizes the Wisconsin measure as "the most restrictive, blatantly partisan and ill-conceived voter identification legislation in the nation."

While Governor Scott Walker has pushed forward an anti-union agenda with gusto and justified the push by repeating that "Wisconsin is broke," money is apparently not a concern when it comes to voter suppression. AB-7 is expected to cost the state some $5.7 million. That includes $2.2 million for the Government Accountability Board, almost $2 million for the Transportation Department (to cover employee expenses and the cost of free IDs) and more than $1.6 million if universities chose to remake student IDs.

The Isthmus reports that there were some modest changes to the bill in committee: "Most significantly, the Assembly version would include university-issued student identification cards as an acceptable form of ID. But there's a catch: the student IDs must include a current address, birth date, signature and expiration date, requirements no college or university in Wisconsin currently meets."

Ohio
House Bill 159 was passed on March 23, 2011 by the Republican led Assembly and is now awaiting a Senate vote. HB 159 would require all voters to show a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot in person. Five forms of photo identification make the bill's list: an Ohio driver's license, state ID card, military ID, U.S. passport or a new photo ID being issued by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to citizens who qualify. College IDs would be unacceptable.

Those who oppose the bill say close to 1 million voters in Ohio will be disenfranchised. Rock The Vote, a campaign protesting the changes, says: "Under this bill, more than 600,000 students in Ohio would be restricted from using their student IDs to vote and over 40,000 out-of-state students who are legally registered Ohio voters would be out-of-luck. An estimated 25 percent of African Americans and 18percent of seniors wouldn't have the right kind of photo ID under HB 159."

North Carolina
The Republican General Assembly in North Carolina wants to pass a proposal that would require a state-issued ID at the time of voting, eliminate same day registration at early voting sites and disallow 16 and 17 year olds to pre-register.
Duke University's Student Free Press reports that Democrats in the Assembly say the changes would disenfranchise people who traditionally vote Democratic like African Americans, college students and the elderly. "State Sen. Martin Nesbitt, D-N.C., argued that these groups often do not have state-issued photo IDs, adding that the requirement serves as a partisan roadblock to keep these demographics from voting. 'It is blatant voter intimidation—there is absolutely no problem with voter fraud. It's a political bill,' Nesbitt said. "It's fine to play politics. It's not fine to disenfranchise people."

Maine
Citing problems with voter fraud as a reason to end election day registration and require people to present a photo ID prior to voting, Maine legislators are trying to pass two bills that would disenfranchise 11 percent of the state. Maine has one of the highest voter turnout rates in the country. Apparently, Maine Republicans think this is bad for democracy.

The Sun Journal reported that in early March, "A legislative panel [Joint Finance Committee] voted 6-6 along party lines to recommend LD 199 to the Legislature ... Same-day registration could soon come to an end under a bill [LD 203] proposed by Rep. Gary Knight (R-Livermore Falls). His bill, which has yet to be heard by the committee, would halt voter registration seven days before an election."

LD 199 and LD 203 would cost the state "millions of dollars as well." Neither bill has been voted on yet in the Senate or Assembly.

Florida
"Florida is on the verge of passing a law that will make it harder for groups like Rock the Vote and volunteers to register voters, harder for you to cast your ballot, and, ultimately, harder to have your ballot counted," states the Rock the Vote website. Bill HB 1355 would disallow address changes at the polls, end volunteer-run voter registration drives, limit early voting periods, as well as greatly increase the number of provisional ballots used.

Florida's League of Women Voters (LWV) said the bill "when taken as a whole, unduly burdens Supervisors of Elections and third-party voter registration groups and assumes that voters are guilty until proven innocent."

The New York Times reported that the bill "would tighten the rules on third-party voter registration and limit the number of days early voting can take place, an effort that Democrats portrayed as blatant voter suppression" The Florida Senate passed the bill last week, 25-13. It will most likely pass in the Assembly.

Texas
SB 14 is awaiting the governor's signature to become law. The bill amends the Texas Election Code to "require a voter to present an acceptable form of photo identification in order to cast a ballot. Acceptable identification includes a drivers license or personal identification card issued by the Department of Public Safety, a U.S. military card, a U.S. citizenship document with photograph, a U.S. passport, or a state-issued concealed handgun license. Exceptions to these requirements are made for those 70 years of age or older and who have a disability rating of 50 percent or greater."

As Republican governors implement unfair, unjust new voter suppression laws, two states with Democratic governors are championing Americans' basic voting rights.

Just this past week, Democratic Governors Jay Nixon of Missouri and Bev Perdue of North Carolina, leaders in two crucial swing states, vetoed laws pushed through by Republican controlled legislatures that would have severely hampered people’s ability to vote.

As this blog has consistently been fighting any kind of voting suppression, we all need to take part in our own way to allow every registered voter the opportunity to select their candidates and stop candidates selecting their voters.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Primary System distorts Democracy

This post is from Americans Elect 2012.

In 2007, the New York Times editorialized, “The presidential primary system is broken…The two parties should begin a discussion of the best reform proposals now, and plan on having a new system in place for 2012.”

Four years later, the parties have done nothing to change a system that, among other flaws, elevates the Iowa and New Hampshire votes above all other states.

A new study published in the Journal of Political Economy, which examined the 2004 presidential primary, confirmed “the often-held notion that early states have a disproportionate influence over the selection of candidates … and thus represents a significant departure from ‘one person, one vote.’”

In fact, the researchers found that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire can have as much as eight times the influence as voters in other states.

David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times that the current primary system does not just distort our democracy, it also distorts our economy – based on another study in Political Research Quarterly.

“Above all, Iowa and New Hampshire lack a single big city, at a time when large metropolitan areas are crucial to lifting economic growth,” he writes.

Leonhardt quotes Brookings vice president David Katz, “Our political tilt toward small states and small towns, in presidential campaigns and the governing that follows, is not only a quaint relic of an earlier era but a dangerous distraction at a time when national prosperity depends on urban prosperity.”

Various reforms to the presidential primary process have been suggested, such as having each region of the country kick off primary voting on a rotating basis every four years.

If you are a reader of my blog, you know how I thing the primary process should be changed. Since I vote for candidates and not the party, here is a sample of the current voting process fails us.

In NY we have closed major party primaries. Some look at opening the process by allowing independents, called blanks in NY, to ask for a party ballot at the poll, a form of Open Primaries. But I want to vote for candidates. will this type of voting allow me to take different ballots and select the candidates I want to vote for? The answer is NO.

For me an Open Primary is all candidates presented on One Ballot.

What is your change to our current different voting systems?









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Primary Election Systems Face Scrutiny

As an activist for Open Primaries with a Single Ballot and Self Paid Party Selection processes, here are three Editorial Boards from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Utah sound off on these issues.

Mansfield News Journal: "Today's political climate does not allow moderates to emerge from the candidate selection process. If we believe that real work gets done in the middle, with collaboration from both sides of the political spectrum, how do we change the primary election process. One solution would be a national non-partisan primary election...This approach would require candidates to appeal to both sides of the two-party political spectrum in order to gain enough votes to be successful. Moderates would most likely emerge from this process, increasing the chances for a more collaborative approach to problem solving."

York Daily Record: "[Independents] stood with their noses pressed to the window, watching as Republicans and Democrats picked their elected officials for them...The commonwealth is among the 25 states that have closed primaries, meaning that only affiliated voters can cast ballots in those elections, except in the case of referendums. Pennsylvania also allows candidates to cross-file in judicial and school board elections. The combination means that voters who choose not to belong to either major party are effectively disenfranchised...The best way to serve democracy would be to allow all voters to vote in all elections, to make it easier for voters to have their say, rather than make it more difficult or discouraging."

Daily Herald: "Political parties should be left entirely on their own when it comes to selecting who will represent them on an election ballot. They are private organizations; their goals are purely partisan. As such, they shouldn't be taking taxpayer dollars...A party might opt for voting on the Internet (it is the 21st century, after all). This would show voters that it is open new ideas and efficiencies. Internet primaries would be no more difficult to achieve than it is to make a credit card purchase online...It's time to place the costs of partisan primaries back in the laps of the partisans and save money for the taxpayers of Utah."









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Open Primaries / Open Ballots Playbook

Since returning from the National Conference of Independents and posting about it, I have been thinking about the question of Open Primaries and Open Ballots. If you have been reading this blog, you have read how I looked at opening the primaries and ballot access. But after the conference, I realized that the audience of independent activist have many different opinions on what the idea means and how it is looked at in their states.

The morning panel:


Panel Discussion
Moderated by Jackie Salit and IndependentVoting.org General Counsel, Harry Kresky with:

•John Avlon, Senior Political Consultant, TheDailyBeast.com; Founder, No Labels
•Theresa Amato, Ralph Nader’s Presidential Campaign Manager in 2004
•James Mangia, Executive Director, St. John's Well Child & Family Center and Founding Secretary, National Reform Party
•Bradley Tusk, Founder, Tusk Strategies; Campaign Manager Bloomberg 2009
•Lenora Fulani, Co-founder, IndependentVoting.org
•Michael Hardy, General Counsel, National Action Network
•Cathy Stewart, Chair, New York County Independence Party
•Douglas Schoen, pollster and author

Use this link to view the panel discussion.

Before I can decide on how things could work, I need to define what they should fix in our current political process. These panelist's thoughts helped me to begin this process:



As I have been blogging this issue, I have said that it is time for all voters to take part in the political process and should be able to select candidates and not parties. So the concept of opening a party's primary forces the voter to only select candidates pre-selected by the party and fails the ability for the voter to pick any candidates those choose for each position on the ballot . Then there is the issue of denying potential candidates the opportunity to get on the ballot.

The ballot issue should be easy to address by designing a process that is even and fair to all protential candidates: filing fee, equal number of petition signatures, write-ins, and the parties paying for their selection process. Write-ins are a little harder to decide. They are part of any primary system, but should they also be part of the General Election with the type of primary I am looking at? Of course what ever primary system we pick must take into account prior Supreme Court decisions.

Now we have the General Election. I have been looking at CA's Top Two but now I am not sure. Since most voters in our current system may not take part in the primary and only vote in the General. So I disagree with the concept of some % value that will negates a candidate from going to a general election. I will continue this General Election problem in future posts.

To create a system to answer all the Supreme Court issues, I would create a system with these features:

1. All Candidates selected by their parties paid for system, ballot accepted new and existing minor party candidates, independents, and write-ins are on one ballot.

2. There is two boxes. One optionally indicates the Candidates registered party. The other optionally indicates all endorsements.

3. General Election - TBD

A possible additional element in the primary could be IRV. This would allow the first selection of a favorite son or daughter, vanity candidate, etc.

What do you think is a way to Break the Two-Party Monopoly?









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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