Are Voter Registration Drives Being Put Out of Business? (AlterNet)

[marmar]

Are Voter Registration Drives Being Put Out of Business?

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted July 25, 2007.



After the wave of successes in 2004 voter registration drives by groups like ACORN, a half-dozen states passed severe laws that scared off voting activists -- and now the Senate is weighing in.

In 2004, Floridians overwhelmingly voted to raise their state minimum wage after low-income advocates collected ballot petition signatures, registered thousands of new voters and turned out the vote. The following spring, Florida's Republican-majority Legislature reacted. It passed a law that so severely regulated voter registration drives that before the 2006 primary, Florida's League of Women Voters stopped registering voters for the first time in its history. The League feared mistakes on just 14 voter registration forms could result in penalties equal to its entire $70,000 budget.


Florida's actions were not unique. In Ohio, where the 2004 presidential election lingered as its Electoral College votes were challenged in Congress, Ohio's Republican-majority Legislature passed a series of election reforms including tough new rules and penalties for voter registration drives. In 2006, that law stopped the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, and community and church groups from registering voters in the state.


"In Florida, it absolutely shut down voter registration by all groups going up through the primary election of 2006," said Wendy Weiser, Deputy Director of the Brennan Center, a New York-based public-interest law firm that challenged the Florida and Ohio laws. "In Ohio, before there was an injunction in the case, voter registration was halted."

Both Florida's and Ohio's voter registration laws were challenged in court and were enjoined, or suspended, before the 2006 election allowing voter registration to resume. Federal judges found they violated First Amendment rights and were hurting efforts to sign up new voters. But the trend of regulating voter registration drives did not end there. Between the 2004 election and today, six other states adopted similar laws -- Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico, Missouri and Washington -- and like-minded bills have been proposed in New Jersey, Arizona and elsewhere, according to the Brennan Center.

Not all of these laws were passed by Republican partisans seeking political revenge. But the line between ensuring an accurate registration process and intentionally suppressing voters is very thin, according to academics, opponents and supporters of these laws. On Wednesday, July 23, the Senate Rules Committee will hold a hearing on sections of an election reform bill (The Ballot Integrity Act of 2007 or S. 1487) that would ban states from passing laws that would negatively impact voter registration drives. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/57815/

[Vanje]

1. Very bad news K&R

[bread_and_roses]

2. Hey, the Democrats don't need those irritating Lefty voter-reg orgs anyway, don't you know?

The ones that registered millions of voters, sent activists from safe states like NY to Ohio and Florida, did GOTV for those new voters (and old voters), called into Ohio and Florida from phone banks, door-to-doored in PA, etc., etc., etc.

After all, the DLC and especially Rahm Emmanual won '00, '04, and '06 all by themselves, and the DLC wants to get rid of crazy Lefties who actually think that the Democrats should work for a people's agenda instead of Corporate $$. ACORN, USAction, etc., who needs 'em? They just mobilize a lot of Greens and Socialists and other crazies to work for Democrats and then expect to see results - makes democracy too messy.