Voting law changes affect eligibility

Issue 17, News, Shelby tatomir, Voting law changes affect eligibility - By Shelby Tatomir on Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 03:22

“Going into the 2012 elections, there will be millions of Americans who will find that since 2008, there are new barriers that could prevent them from voting,” stated in a study conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Since 2008, the laws governing voting requirements have been shifting and changing, putting many previous voters at risk of losing their voting eligibility.

More than 30 states have changed their voter laws and 19 new laws regarding voting requirements, as well as two new executive actions, have currently been enacted. At least 42 bills are currently pending for authorization, resulting in further changes to various states’ regulations.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law has conducted a survey estimating how many Americans these changes will affect, and they have reached a consensus. “Five million voters could be affected by the new laws,” states their overview of the study.

Seven states have added amendments to their current laws. For example, some states have made it necessary for voters to show photo identification at their polling places. According to The Wall Street Journal, Republicans argue for these changes, feeling that limits on early voting are needed to cut the administrative costs of elections, and strict identification requirements are necessary to defend polling places from fraud. “I would find it necessary for one to have an I.D. in general [to vote], but to require one to vote seems arbitrary,” senior Wesley Hackenberg said. “I feel any form of identification should be suitable, be it student I.D. or credit card with your name and picture on it.” Hackenberg also posed the question: “Is there a lot of fraud going on in voting via lack of I.D.?”

A political video journalist James O’Keefe investigated this very question at the New Hampshire primary. According to newsmax.com, O’Keefe’s organization, Project Veritas, dispatched three videographers to New Hampshire and on Jan. 10. They accompanied him to the voting polls and taped as O’Keefe requested the ballots of ten deceased citizens who were registered voters. “Live free or die,” a poll worker reassured one investigator she thought was Reynold Caron, who died Oct. 14, 2011. “This is New Hampshire. No I.D. needed.” O’Keefe returned the ballots at the conclusion of the experiment unused and unharmed, proving the point that anyone can request anyone else’s ballot.

The Brennan Center’s study summarization claims that the new restrictions specifically affect young, minority and low-income voters most heavily, as well as on voters with disabilities. Democrats agree with this sentiment and feel that the new laws are aimed at suppressing their vote. “The Obama campaign was adept in 2008 at bringing first-time voters to the polls during early voting periods,” states The Wall Street Journal article. “[The] groups it’s now targeting—students, the elderly and the poor—are the most likely to not have a government-issued photo I.D.”

Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin have a voting age population of just under 29 million. Three point two million of those potential voters do not have state-issued photo I.D., a new requirement to place your votes at the polls there, making 11 percent of the population ineligible to vote. New proof of citizenship laws will be in effect in Alabama, Kansas and Tennessee.

The citizen voting age population in Alabama is 3.43 million; 240,000 of those potential voters do not have documentary proof of citizenship, totaling seven percent of the voter population. To minimize campaign costs, states have been cutting back and even eliminating voter registration drives.

Florida and Texas have passed laws restricting voter registration drives, causing all or most of those drives to stop in those states. “In 2008, 2.13 million voters registered in Florida and, very conservatively, at least 8.24 percent, or 176,000 of them did so through drives,” according to the Brennan Center study.

“At least 501,000 voters registered in Texas, and at least five point one three percent, or 26,000 of them did so via drives.”

Through Election Day voter registration, 60,000 voters registered in Maine in 2008. Despite this, Maine abolished Election Day registration.

Early voting periods have been cut in Florida, Georgia and Ohio, even though in 2008, nearly eight million Americans voted early in these states.

An estimated one to two million voted on days eliminated by these new laws. It is facts such as these that has led the Brennan Center to conclude that more than five million people have the potential to be affected by the new laws.