Protecting the Right to Vote
Feature Story by Antoine Morris - 5/29/2008
On May 20, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to examine some of the barriers that may keep Americans from exercising their right to vote. The hearing addressed voter suppression, restrictive voter ID laws, and other inadequacies of the U.S. electoral system.
In his opening statement, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D. Vt., chair of the committee, cited recent incidents of armed vigilantes intimidating Latino voters in Arizona and cross burnings on the eve of an election in Louisiana as evidence that voter intimidation is not just "actions from a foregone era."
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D. R.I., produced copies of fliers that were distributed in neighborhoods with large populations of people of color, deliberately giving incorrect information about which day to vote, and threatening naturalized immigrants with deportation if they show up at the polls.
The hearing also addressed voter ID laws, which have been enacted in several states. The Supreme Court recently upheld one such law in Indiana.
Voter ID laws require voters to present a government-issued photo ID, such as a driver's license, non-driver ID card, or U.S. passport, before casting a ballot. Voting rights advocates claim these laws create unnecessary obstacles for people who don't have a government-issued ID -- mostly the poor, the disabled, the elderly, and people of color.
One of the witnesses, Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who specializes in election law, disagreed with the notion that voter ID laws are used to suppress legitimate voters. She said such measures function as a way to ensure that voters are not exploiting disorder in voter registration rolls.
She cited a recent study in Georgia that found more than 15,000 deceased persons were on the voting rolls in that state, and noted that without voter ID laws, dishonorable people or organizations could exploit these vulnerabilities to sway the results of close elections.
However, election experts say documented instances of in-person voter fraud are extremely rare. As law professor Pam Karlan told the committee, referring to the recent Indiana election where six nuns were turned away because they lacked a photo ID, "there are already more nuns in Indiana that have been disenfranchised in one election than all the proven in-person [cases of] vote fraud in Indiana's history."
Some witnesses told the committee that the focus on passing voter ID laws actually distracts the nation from more pressing concerns about the electoral system.
Jonah Goldman, from the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights Under Law Voting Rights Project, told committee members that instead of devoting resources to deterring the rare instances of voter fraud, the government should focus on repairing real problems with the electoral process.
Goldman urged lawmakers to address malfunctioning electronic voting machines, improve training and resources for poll workers, and develop standards for accurate registration lists that correct routine database errors without erroneously purging eligible voters from the rolls.
"The role of government must be to encourage greater political participation. In America in 2008, the vote must be treated as a right equally shared by all and not as special privilege jealously guarded by a few," said witness John Payton, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
