President Obama on Voting Rights at the National Action Network Convention

President Obama addressed the National Action Network Convention on the issue of voting rights in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, and the wave of GOP voter suppression laws that it has unleashed. Obama denounces apathy — and Republican- supported voter ID laws:

President Obama on Friday continued to denounce voter apathy in a push to get more Democrats to the polls for midterm elections and blasted Republicans for passing laws he said make it harder to vote.

Addressing the annual convention of the National Action Network, a nonprofit group founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Obama said people need to put aside distrust and frustration with politics and get to the polls.

“The number of people who voluntarily don’t vote dwarfs” the potential effect of any “laws that are put in place to diminish the voting rolls” might do, Obama told a cheering, fired-up crowd of 1,600 at a Manhattan hotel. “We can’t use cynicism as an excuse not to participate.”

Obama also continued hammering a theme he first raised at a Houston fundraiser this week: that Republicans are trying to keep people away from the polls.

“This recent effort to restrict the vote has not been led by both parties. It’s been led by the Republican Party,” Obama said. “If your strategy depends on having fewer people showing up to vote, that’s not a sign of strength. That’s a sign of weakness. And not only it is ultimately bad politics, ultimately it is bad for the country.”

Obama blasted efforts to make voters produce identification cards, saying that about 60 percent of Americans don’t have passports.

“Just because you don’t have the money to travel abroad doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to vote here at home,” he said.

Obama’s focus on voting rights is part of a broad Democratic strategy to boost turnout for the midterms, which strategists have identified as the best, and perhaps only, way for the party to make gains in the House and retain control of the Senate. In 2012, 42 percent of eligible voters didn’t vote, according to the United States Elections Project, up from 38 percent in 2008. However, African American turn­out was up sharply in 2008 and 2012 — it surpassed white turnout for the first time in the latter year — and Obama’s appearance at the Sharpton event was geared toward sustaining that trend in the midterms.

After making his case, Obama brought up an issue that most thought he’d rather forget — the controversy over his birth certificate.

“And just to be clear, I know where my birth certificate is,” Obama said to applause. “You remember that? That was crazy. I haven’t thought about that in a while.”

Obama also invoked the memory of three civil rights workers who were killed in Mississippi in 1964 while campaigning for equal voting rights.

“The least you can do is take them up on the gift they have given you,” Obama said to the standing, clapping crowd. “Go out there and vote. You can make a change. You do have the power.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FYpcoGzH0s]