AG Eric Holder takes aim at the GOP war on voting
December 15, 2011
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Last week the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) released a report to document all the cases of voter fraud that have been prosecuted over the last decade. The RNLA failed to make its case for widespread "voter fraud" in America. in fact, the report demonstrated that it is almost non-existent. The GOP war on voting – failing to make its case. "Voter fraud" is the imaginary monster under the bed perpetrated by the right-wing media noise machine.
"Voter suppression," however, is quite another story in this country. This crime is widespread and it has been part of the GOP election strategy for decades. This past year, GOP-controlled legislatures have ramped up efforts at voter suppression in numerous states.
On Tuesday night, Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. denounced recent state laws that restrict voting and, citing the long struggle to ensure voting rights for all, hinted that the Justice Department would challenge some of them in court. Atty. Gen. Holder takes aims at new state voting laws – Los Angeles Times:
In a speech Tuesday at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, Holder quoted Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a veteran of the civil rights movement, as saying that voting rights were being attacked in "a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students [and] minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process."
"The right to vote is not only the cornerstone of our system of government. It is the lifeblood of our democracy," Holder said. "Many Americans, often for the first time in their lives, now have reason to believe that we are failing to live up to one of our nation's most noble and essential ideals."
Holder proposed that the federal government automatically register all citizens to vote.
"Today, the single biggest barrier to voting in this country is our antiquated registration system," the attorney general said. "All eligible citizens can and should be automatically registered to vote."
I posted about the "Universal Voter Registration" proposal from the Brennan Center for Justice back in June 2009. Let's Begin the Debate on The Merits of This Proposal: Universal Voter Registration:
One such creative solution is a proposal to expand upon the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 to require states to upgrade their cross-check electronic voter data bases (social security administration, driver's licenses, vital statistics, etc.) and to institute a system of "universal" voter registration.
What is universal voter registration?
In a universal voter registration system, it would be the government's obligation to ensure that every eligible citizen was registered to vote. Individual citizens could opt out if they wished, but the registration process itself would no longer serve as a barrier to the right to vote.
Here are some of the important ways that federal policy can and should encourage the states to improve on the current voter registration system:
1. Mandate that the states put systems in place that would phase in universal voter registration, while preserving the states' ability to experiment with different systems.
2. Require states to immediately implement permanent registration, so that voters wouldn't have to re-register if they moved within a state.
3. Require states to implement Election Day registration, as a fail-safe mechanism for eligible voters missing from the voter rolls for any reason.
4. Provide the funding that states would need to ensure that every eligible voter is registered.
In essence, every eligible citizen (i.e., who is not a convicted felon who has not yet completed his or her sentence, or is otherwise disqualified by mental condition or guardianship) who is 18 years of age or older would automatically be registered to vote by the state, and his or her voter registration would be permanent (i.e., transportable) within the state. The state's electronic voter data bases would be frequently updated. A voter who moves within the statutory period prior to an election would be permitted to cast a provisional ballot in his or her new precinct and have their vote counted with subsequent proof of current address.
Holder also cited a need to combat discrimination in the allocation of political power. He criticized the Texas Legislature for redrawing its congressional districts in a way that gives "zero additional seats" representing the state's Latino population, whose growth is largely responsible for the state getting four extra House seats as a result of the 2010 census.
Last week, the Supreme Court intervened in the Texas dispute and said it would decide whether the state may use the redistricting map drawn by its Republican-controlled Legislature or one drawn by judges in San Antonio that would give Latinos and Democrats a better chance of winning. A special three-judge panel in Washington had refused to approve the Legislature's map.
Holder promised a "thorough but fair" review of redistricting plans.
Text of prepared remarks by Atty. Gen. Eric Holder are below the fold.
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