Ghosts of Joe Slovo

Steve Rosenfeld, writing in the journal Social Policy, has authored a comprehensive look at the recent history of partisan attacks on the voting process itself and the unfolding attempts to roll back all of the voting rights gains of the past 50 years that have gained speed and urgency under the Bush Administration.

Pointing out that modern voter suppression attempts and larger projects to reshape the entire electorate to favor conservatives no longer rely on the open fear and intimidation that characterized past practices from American history, Rosenfeld opens his in-depth survey with this observation,

“Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the 21st century he is apt to be a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers, proposed legislation and talking points about “voter fraud” and protecting the sanctity of the vote.”

The entire article, which Social Policy has placed outside their subscriber wall (pdf), is worth reading in its entirety.

From the article, here’s the overall thesis:

The newest barriers include state laws that target various phases of the voting process. Registration by individuals has been made more rigorous. Mass registration drives face new deadlines and increased potential fines. Citizens must present new identification to register and to vote, and in some states newly registered voters face increased prospects that partisan challengers will question their credentials before voting. Civil rights groups have noted that all of these new laws and procedures disproportionately fall on people of color, poor people, senior citizens and the disabled.

The Department of Justice, which for decades fought to ensure all eligible citizens could vote, has encouraged states to take these steps in the opposite direction. Political appointees who advocate for stringent requirements before ballots are cast and votes are counted now drive much of the Voting Section’s actions. As a result, the Justice Department has been pushing states to purge voter lists, and to adopt newly restrictive voter ID and provisional ballot laws – actions all that are known to cause delays if not confusion at the polls. Meanwhile, the Justice Department’s Voting Section has not enforced other federal laws, such as the requirement that state welfare offices offer public aid recipients a chance to register to vote. Similarly, the Bush Justice Department has filed few cases on behalf of minority voters.

The Department’s political appointees have also pressured federal prosecutors to pursue “voter fraud” cases against the Bush administration’s perceived opponents, such as groups like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which conducts mass registration drives among populations that tend to vote Democratic. Two former federal prosecutors have said they believe that they lost their U.S. attorney posts for failing to pursue those cases. The proponents of this renewed impetus to police voters are almost all from a powerful and well-connected wing of the Republican Party that believes steps are needed to protect elections from what they call “voter fraud,” or allegations that Democrats – or their allies - are fabricating voter registrations en masse, and voting more than once to win. It is “an article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections,” Royal Masset, the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas said in a May 17, 2007 Houston Chronicle report. The report continued, “He [Masset] doesn’t agree with that, but does believe that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a drop off in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3% to the Republican vote.”

Rosenfeld’s piece adds deeper context to the Art Levine piece we highlighted yesterday. Taken together, these two articles show the depth and breadth of recent partisan attempts to shape the electorate and the resulting corruption of independent non-partisan agencies and departments including the Department of Justice itself. They further show the mechanics of those attempts and how they centered largely on ACORN, a national organization fighting for the rights of low- and moderate-income families. (ACORN is also one of Project Vote’s field partners in our Voter Participation Program.)

Here's a recent IM exchange regarding some fundraising for a program to get states to comply with teh National Voter Registration Act of 1994. This was the "motor voter" bill. It also has a provision that requires public assitance agencies to offer voter reg to people coming in for assistance. So basically in addition to people getting driver's liscenses, you are supposed to be reaching the really poor people too.

Guess what part of the law goes unenforced? If you said the part that targets poor people exclusively (and also disproportionate numbers of poeple of color), then you win the prize!

So we're running a program to get the states to comply with this aspect of the law. Here's an exchange based on raising money for that and the relative cost savings of registering people this way versus large-scale voter registration drives.

Kevin: Mike (redacted) was comfortable estimating that 100,000 voters were left out per year. a back of the envelope % of citizens in CA who are latinos would be a fine way to make a very conservative esimate

Nathan: Oh, must have missed that estimate in the drill down in these proposals. I'll get a "conservative estimate" based on that.

Kevin: it was back of the envelope in a way that i won't even tell you research gurus -- you would have a stroke

Nathan: Believe me, I'm familiar with a lot of "quick and dirty" techniques here. That Doug (redacted) response was more of an example of someone ready for an anyeurism. I asked a very simple question and even told him I'd be will to do something very dodgy just to get any kind of number, and got that paragraph back.

Kevin: then don't tell doug this, but 120,000K is what Oregon does and we know CA must be able to do at least that. Again, a very conservative estimate, if not very precise.

Nathan: And since they only did 20K in 2006... bingo on the 100K. (Which puts 2006 CA at the same level as 2006 OR).

 

Nathan: 36,000 (35.9% Latino)

Nathan: Cost per latino registrant via enforcement = $2.78, via voter registration program = $15. Assumes $100K budget, which is overstated by quite a bit.

Kevin: what a deal! PLUS there is a match, so it is really half price--now how much would you pay--don't answer yet, because you get a free press hit on the Governater at the same time!

Nathan: All this AND [organization] will throw in African-Americans AT NO EXTRA CHARGE! That's right, you get the Latinos, the African-Americans, AND THE Guvernator ALL FOR ONE LOW PRICE! Now how much would you pay? WAIT DON'T ANSWER YET! Because you ALSO GET ALL POOR PEOPLE GENERALLY! All at a gigantic cost savings to YOU the feel-good liberal philanthropy community. Operators are standing by, please have your credit card numbers ready and GIVE GENEROUSLY!

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