88 Years Later: A Promise Unfulfilled for Millions of Disenfranchised Women Voters

[defendandprotect]

by Brittany Stalsburg and Scott Novakowski
- Demos -


All over America, there were plenty of reasons to celebrate women last month: August marked the 88th anniversary of the 19th Amendment's ratification, which gave women the right to vote. Women's Equality Day, which was on August 26, commemorated that victory. There are now more women in the U.S. Congress than ever (88) and 2008 was a year when a woman came within a hair's breadth of becoming a major ticket presidential nominee.

But this year, there's also a real threat to the voting rights of millions of low-income women, and it is in direct violation of Federal law.



• In 2006, only 63 percent of women in households making $25,000 or less were registered to vote compared to 81 percent of women in households making $75,000 or more. Photograph by Guido Alvarez •Take, for instance, the story of Dionne O'Neal. Ms. O'Neal is a resident of St. Louis, Missouri, where she works part-time while pursuing her GED. Like millions of Americans, Ms. O'Neal receives Food Stamps and government health care benefits to help meet her basic needs. If anybody has a deep concern about the future of economic policy, she does. But her right to have a say in government and what it does is being thwarted because Missouri, like many other states, has long ignored federal voter registration requirements designed to reach low-income voters.
The most disadvantaged women in our society are the least likely to express their voice in the political process. Ms. O'Neal is just one of the 32.5 million women--31 percent of all eligible women--who were not registered to vote at their current address in 2006. Low-income women like Ms. O'Neal are disproportionately represented in that number. In 2006, only 63 percent of women in households making $25,000 or less were registered to vote compared to 81 percent of women in households making $75,000 or more.

There is, though, a federal law on the books to help reverse this trend.



http://thewip.net/portal/2008/09/88_years_later_a_promise_unful.html