AlterNet: Top Senator And 10 States Attack Veterans Affairs for Banning Voter Registration Drives

[marmar]

Top Senator And 10 States Attack VA for Banning Voter Registration Drives

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted July 10, 2008.

Officials overseeing the VA and state elections say the VA's policy is unnecessary and insulting to veterans who sacrificed for our country.



The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), has called on the Department of Veterans Affairs to reverse its new policy barring voting rights groups, "partisan or otherwise," from holding voter registration drives on campuses where injured veterans are living or receiving medical care.

"Veterans receiving care at VA facilities risked life and limb to defend the freedoms we enjoy, including the right to vote," Akaka said in a July 10 letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary James B. Peake. "Current VA policy makes it unnecessarily difficult for some veterans to participate in the electoral process." Akaka said the VA's most recent explanation for barring registration drives -- that they would violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in political activities on official time or federal property -- made no sense.

"The Office of Special Counsel has issued policy statements that federal employees may assist in non-partisan voter registration drives on federal property and on official time without violating the Hatch Act," said Akaka, who also chairs a Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Act. "In addition, the Hatch Act does not prohibit outside groups, partisan or otherwise, from registering voters at a VA facility if federal employees do not participate."

Akaka's letter was also signed by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who repeatedly have urged the VA to designate itself as a voter registration agency like state motor vehicle departments, where the public is asked by staffers if they would like to register to vote. Under current VA policy, vets have to specifically ask for that assistance before the VA will help former soldiers to register and to vote.

"There is no reason why the Department of Veterans Affairs should not proactively assist veterans in exercising their right to vote. To do otherwise is an insult to the sacrifices these men and women have made for our country," the joint letter said.

A spokeswoman at the VA's public affairs office declined to comment Thursday, saying, "We can't discuss correspondence with you." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/democracy/91128/

[Doctor_J]

1. I would really like to see Obama make voting rights a campaign issue

this stuff needs to be discussed every day.