House Forum Explores Threats to Voting Rights

by Jonathan Arogeti

In fewer than 12 months, millions of Americans nationwide will head to the polls for the 2012 election. With the presidency, 33 Senate seats, all 435 House seats, 11 state governorships, and more than 80 percent of state legislature seats on the ballot, some are considering it to be the among the “most important election[s].”

But a spate of new restrictive state voting laws threatens to limit voter participation during this election, as documented by a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice. During a forum convened by leading Democratic congressmen, several prominent voting rights experts lamented the abrupt “shift” in momentum away from expanding the franchise. Laws that require photo identification or proof of citizenship, reduce registration opportunities and limit early voting could “make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters” to cast ballots in 14 states, the report estimates. And these estimates do not even take into account the potential consequences of proposed measures states that have not yet passed in at least 24 other. Click here for video of the forum.

“These new laws threaten to silence the voices of those least heard and rarely listened to in this country -- the poor, the elderly, racial and ethnic minorities, the young and the differently abled. Now is the time to act,” said League of Women Voters President Elisabeth MacNamara during the forum.  

This month has also seen calls by leading Democratic congressmen for a hearing in the House on new state restrictions on voting, and a letter signed by more than 200 House members urges all 50 state secretaries of state to oppose these laws.

In a recent ACS Issue Brief, Estelle H. Rogers, the director of advocacy for Project Vote, suggests ways to increase access to registration, as envisioned by the the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), in light of this cascade of state activity.

Next Thursday, ACS will host a voting rights symposium in Washington, D.C. that will explore these state efforts to suppress the franchise, with lunchtime remarks by Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. The first panel at 10 a.m. will examine the impact of state voting law changes for 2012. The second panel at 12:30 p.m. will look at the consequences that redistricting will have not only in 2012 but for all elections for the remainder of this decade. For more information and to RSVP, click here.