Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

In the aftermath of the presidential primaries, stories of unprecedented voter registration and turnout are drifting to the back burner. But with an exceedingly imbalanced electorate, the fight to create access to the voting rolls and enforce the voting rights of all Americans continues. With historic voter registration drives underway and a preview of the types of problems that could occur in November, the focus of the media is beginning to shift towards the less sexy, but crucial elements that work to maximize voter participation while ensuring eligible voters can cast their ballots and have them counted. In Project Vote's view, this is a welcome development since many of the potential issues require more time to sort out than is available if problems are noted only weeks in advance of the election. This week, election officials, advocates and a presidential candidate worked to assist in or restore voting rights for hospitalized veterans in Connecticut, minority citizens in Georgia, and former felons in Tennessee.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

In light of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold Indiana's voter ID law, the state-by-state battle to pass similar legislation has escalated with politicians seeking partisan gain furiously pushing laws that hinder access to the ballot. However, lawmakers seeking to dismantle barriers to electoral participation are just as committed to election integrity and protecting the voting rights of potentially millions of voters by calling out voter ID laws as "sheer political posturing." Meanwhile, positive measures to increase participation through Election Day Registration (EDR) are gaining ground in several states even as Iowa prepares to test-drive its new EDR law in the June 3 primary.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

By Erin Ferns

At the age of 18, every American citizen is free to exercise his or her right to vote, as guaranteed by the Constitution. However, more than five million Americans in 48 states are denied access to this right due to an array of legislation barring former felons from the polls. This week, three states made headlines with starkly different takes on the voting rights of former felons. From an excited former felon who voted for the first time on Tuesday to a secretary of state who hopes to restrict the voting rights of all felons, the question of who gets to exercise their Constitutional rights is at the center of an expanding debate.

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

An increase in turnout among historically underrepresented voters Tuesday brings hope for outstanding voter participation that represents all Americans in November. Project Vote's Super Tuesday exit poll analysis found young and minority voters made a strong presence at polls in key states across the country, including record-setting turnout among Latinos in California. While voter participation appears to be on the rise in this critical presidential election year, polling place problems persist as some voters - and their precincts' poll workers - were unaware of state and federal voting procedures, creating the risk of intimidation and disenfranchisement. In order to maintain fair and open access to voting for all Americans, it important to prepare voters and facilitate effective poll worker training before November.

Ohio's electorate is not reflective of the state's voting eligible population, according to a new report by Project Vote. "Ohio Votes: Civic Engagement in the Buckeye State," written by Benjamin Spears,  examines disparities in registration and voting rates by race/ethnicity, income and age.

Key findings from "Ohio Votes" include:

Project Vote released a report this week that shows persistent bias in the Kentucky electorate: those who were registered to vote and vote in the Bluegrass State were not representative of the state's overall eligible population in 2006. This report takes a state-level look at the same topic as a recently released Project Vote report by Doug Hess, Representational Bias in the 2006 Electorate.

By Ben Spears and Michael Slater

Contrary to a belief by the political cognoscenti that a wide gap exists between the voting rates of minorities and their white counterparts, the difference is small and appears to be shrinking. Once registered, blacks and other minorities vote at or near the same rates as whites. Registration rates, however, still show marked disparities between white and non-white citizens.

According to the Census, there were 14.3 million blacks registered to vote in 1996 and 11.4 million showed up at the polls - an 80 percent turnout among those registered. The same report shows that 5 million Latinos voted among the 6.6 million registered, or 75 percent; and 91.2 million whites voted of the 110 million registered to vote, or 83 percent.

By Michael Slater and Nathan Henderson-James

There has been a tremendous amount of time and attention paid to issue of electronic voting machines and their negative impact on the transparency and integrity of elections in the United States, and rightly so. In fact, this intense focus by organizations and advocates concerned with voter participation and the specter of stolen elections has led to substantial movement on this issue in Congress and the Statehouse. Recently New Mexico dumped their Direct Recording-Electronic (DRE) machines for optical scans last year and Florida is talking about doing the same thing this year. Other states and the Congress are moving to set touch standards for DRE, including mandatory audits and paper trails.

However, the actual system for enfranchisement of eligible voters is complex and contains many aspects that are much less transparent than even the rather abstruse world of electronic voting. Maintenance and list matching regulations for the voter files are an example of this. Therefore, progressives and voting rights advocates shouldn't feel like we've solved potential election problems through these reforms; many problems still exist within the system with potential to disenfranchise tens of thousands of legally eligible voters.

A close examination of the process by which people become registered voters, by which they cast their ballots, and by which their ballots are counted, indicate that the potential for disenfranchisement occurs at practically every step.