Roach

On November 7, 2000, all eyes turned to Florida, where a weeks-long recount and a court fight that
would go to the United States Supreme Court were just beginning. None of us can forget the butterfly
ballots and the hanging chads; the injustice that some votes were counted, while others, for no good
reason, were not; the thousands of African Americans, eligible to vote in Florida, discovering that they
had been “mistakenly” removed from the voter rolls; the untold instances of administrative error or
intentional misuse of the law that resulted in the denial of the right to vote. My own family experienced
one such story. While I was serving as the manager of Vice President Al Gore’s campaign, my sister,
a Florida resident, was a target of voter suppression. When she went to vote, poll workers asked
her—unnecessarily and illegally—for multiple forms of ID and proof of residency. That winter, after the
Supreme Court decided our election, many of us vowed never to see such injustice repeated.
As we enter the 2012 election year, I fear we are dangerously close to going back on that promise. As
the Voting Rights Institute of the Democratic National Committee demonstrates in the following report,
a systematic, widespread and unjustified denial of the right to vote is underway in the United States.
This year alone, 40 states have passed or promoted legislation that will make it harder for eligible
Americans to exercise their most basic civil right. The right to vote is one for which countless Americans
have struggled, fought, and even died. Nearly 50 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act—that
landmark piece of civil rights legislation—Republic ans are turning back the clock.
From Texas to Wisconsin to Mississippi to Maine, Republicans have launched an assault on voting rights.
Their primary aim is to ensure their reelection—at the expense of the voting rights of eligible Americans,
particularly persons of limited means, minorities, young people, and our seniors. For decades, our laws
have sought to expand access to the franchise; today, Republicans seek to reverse this progress. Some
of the ways Republicans are trying to make it harder to vote in 2012 include penalties for conducting
volunteer voter registration drives, citizenship challenges, and laws that overtly compromise the rights
of students and veterans. And they’re planning more attacks on this fundamental right. It seems that no
blow is too low and no trick too dirty for Republicans seeking to ensure their own victory in 2012 and
beyond.
Democrats have demonstrated time and again our commitment to protecting the right to vote. In 2000,
we fought for the fair and equitable counting of votes in Florida. In 2004, we pushed to keep polls open
in Ohio, so that no eligible person would be turned away without voting. In 2008, tens of thousands of
Democratic volunteers monitored the polls, working hard to protect the right of all eligible citizens to
cast a ballot.
And we are even more dedicated to that goal today. I hope you will stand with us. Please start now,
by reading the Voting Rights Institute’s report, A Reversal in Progress: Restricting Voting Rights for
Electoral Gain.
Donna Brazile
Vice Chair for Voter Registration and Participation
November 21, 2011

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THE MOVEMENT AGAINST VOTING
In 2011, Republicans have introduced laws in 40 states that would make voting more difficult for all
citizens, but especially for voters who supported Barack Obama and Democratic candidates in 2008. By
restricting different stages of the voting process, each measure is designed to cut eligible voters from
the electorate. This year, the GOP is:
• Restricting voter registration drives
• Repealing Election Day Registration
• Cutting early voting
• Enacting laws that challenge the citizenship of eligible voters
• Mandating that voters produce unexpired government-issued photo identification at
the polls
And each bill narrows the American electorate merely for the benefit of Republican candidates.
According to former Bush administration officials and GOP strategists, restrictions on the right to vote
are necessary to prevent voter fraud. But every major investigation into voter fraud in the United States
has arrived at the same conclusion: There is almost none. The real fraud has been the use of baseless
allegations to change election laws in ways that will lead to partisan Republican gains.
Voter impersonation is a myth, but the effects of Republican voting restrictions are all too real. Eleven
percent of Americans lack the photo identification that new laws require—and that rate is much
higher among people of color, Americans with limited means, young Americans, and seniors. Millions
of Americans register through voter registration drives—and minority voters do so at twice the rate
of white voters. Early voting allows everyone more opportunities to cast a ballot—and there is clear
evidence from Florida and North Carolina that African Americans used early voting at higher rates than
other voters in 2008.
Voting restrictions affect real people: Under Tennessee’s new photo ID mandate, Dorothy Cooper,
a 96-year-old African American woman, was denied state-issued ID because she lacked a marriage
certificate despite bringing her birth certificate and voter registration card to the DMV. Under Florida’s
onerous new restrictions on voter registration drives, teachers at public high schools face state
investigation and may face fines of up to $1,000 for helping their students register to vote.

The Republicans’ political motivation shines through not only when we consider who these laws burden
but also where they have been proposed and enacted. Many of the strongest efforts to restrict the right
to vote have been made in states that were intensely competitive in 2008: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Missouri. And in Pennsylvania and Nebraska, the GOP even advanced
conflicting changes to the way their states allocate electoral votes with the overt purpose of defeating
President Obama.
In 2011, the Republican Party has invested in a movement that changes how we vote in the United
States—a wager that, whatever the political outcome, carries a tremendous cost to our democracy.

The Republican Effort to Restrict Voting Rights | Protectingthevote.co m

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