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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRepublicans aim to kill voter registration law that's a little too effective for their tastes
Republicans aim to kill voter registration law that's a little too effective for their tastes
Republicans are aggressively mounting their next attack on voting rights by trying to dismantle the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, otherwise known as the "motor voter" law, which required states to let people register to vote at public agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles. It was wildly successful, writes Mother Jones's Ari Burman.
In its first year in effect, more than 30 million people registered or updated their registrations through the NVRA. Roughly 16 million people per year have used it to register ever since.
Too successful, in fact, for Republicans, who are now trying to build on their success of weakening the Voting Rights Act at the Supreme Court in 2013.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear the newest challenge to the law, concerning whether Ohio can remove voters from the rolls who dont vote over a six-year period. If a voter in Ohio misses an election, doesnt respond to a subsequent mailing from the state, and then sits out two more elections, he or she is removed from the registration list, even if this person would otherwise be eligible to vote. Critics of this process say it turns voting into a use it or lose it right and will open the door to wider voter purges.
Ohio purged 2 million voters from 2011 to 2016, more than any other state, including over 840,000 for infrequent voting. At least 144,000 voters in Ohios three largest counties, home to Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, have been purged since the 2012 election, with voters in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods twice as likely to be removed as those in Republican-leaning ones, according to a Reuters analysis.
A federal appeals court ruled in September 2016 that the states purging of infrequent voters violated the NVRA, which states that someone cannot be removed from the rolls by reason of the persons failure to vote. As a result of that ruling, 7,500 people who had been purged from the rolls were reinstated and were able to vote in the 2016 election.
Of course, Ohio isn't the only state where the law is being targeted. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach authored legislation mandating that voters show proof-of-citizenship in order to register. A federal appeals court temporarily blocked the law in 2016 until it could be reviewed, a case that is on the docket for March. But ultimately, Republicans would like to see Ohio-type purges of the rolls take place in as many as a dozen states. In fact, last June the Department of Justice sent letters to 44 states requesting information on how they planned to execute a voter roll purge.
A win in the Ohio case would only encourage Republicans to redouble their efforts, says Vanita Gupta, who led the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division under Obama.
Its a hugely significant case, Gupta says. If the court comes out with a broad ruling that says inactivity in voting is sufficient proof to kick a voter off of the rolls, that could have broad implications across the country for how voters are purged off the rolls per the National Voter Registration Act.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,121 posts)Purging millions of voters, going on all over the place.
Amazing.
C_U_L8R
(45,020 posts)If Republicans cant win without cheating, they should just give up. Perhaps theyll win a few here and there but this strategy will be their demise.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)The longer they get away with it the worse the pushback will be.
Already only 25% of youngsters id with them. Every year they lose a decent percentage of their voters. And the aging Gen Xers are not becoming more conservative.
I do not think we have long to wait. Florida is pretty much at the tipping point. Georgia is next. Virginia is dead to them and Carolina is tipping.
But the big one is Texas. You can suppress the vote and win a few percentage points. The demographics and affiliation of young voters is not going to be stopped.
The trick is to prevent too much damage before then. We can make a big step this fall.
wishstar
(5,271 posts)NC used to have a school program allowing 17 year olds to be registered so they would be ready to vote as soon as they turned 18, but Repub legislature with Repub governor struck down that program several years ago. They also shut down voting sites near universities and tried to restrict college students' ability to vote as residents. Definitely aimed to reduce youth vote that tends to be more Democratic.
procon
(15,805 posts)Certainly the elderly and disabled who may not even read unfamiliar mail or be too ill to bother. The poor, who tend to move more often and may not een get all their mail. Also working poor families who are to busy trying to hold everything together to add one more thing to their to-do list. Students who are so engrossed in school and life that everything is more important than voting.
An automatic, national voter registration is the only way to prevent Republicans in red states from cheating the voters.