“Here’s one thing I know: that throughout our history, our country’s always been stronger when everybody’s had a voice. It took a long time to make sure the franchise expanded to everybody. But we should be thinking about ways to make it easier for folks to vote, not to make it harder for folks to vote.”

President Barack Obama, when asked by Jay Leno on The Tonight Show about voter suppression. (The Nation)

(Source: campaignmoney)

“

Teresa Sharp is fifty-three years old and has lived in a modest single-family house on Millsdale Street, in a suburb of Cincinnati, for nearly thirty-three years. A lifelong Democrat, she has voted in every Presidential election since she turned eighteen. So she was agitated when an official summons from the Hamilton County Board of Elections arrived in the mail last month. Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, is one of the most populous regions of the most fiercely contested state in the 2012 election. No Republican candidate has ever won the Presidency without carrying Ohio, and recent polls show Barack Obama and Mitt Romney almost even in the state. Every vote may matter, including those cast by the seven members of the Sharp family—Teresa, her husband, four grown children, and an elderly aunt—living in the Millsdale Street house.

The letter, which cited arcane legal statutes and was printed on government letterhead, was dated September 4th. “You are hereby notified that your right to vote has been challenged by a qualified elector,” it said. “The Hamilton County Board of Elections has scheduled a hearing regarding your right to vote on Monday, September 10th, 2012, at 8:30 A.M… . You have the right to appear and testify, call witnesses and be represented by counsel.”

“My first thought was, Oh, no!” Sharp, who is African-American, said. “They ain’t messing with us poor black folks! Who is challenging my right to vote?”

The answer to Sharp’s question is that a new watchdog group, the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, which polices voter-registration rolls in search of “electoral irregularities,” raised questions about her eligibility after consulting a government-compiled list of local properties and mistakenly identifying her house as a vacant lot.

The Sharp household had first been identified as suspicious by computer software that had been provided to the Ohio Voter Integrity Project by a national organization called True the Vote. The software, which has been distributed to similar groups around the country, is used to flag certain households, including those with six or more registered voters. This approach inevitably pinpoints many lower-income residents, students, and extended families.

”

JANE MAYER, writing in The New Yorker, “The Voter-Fraud Myth” (via inothernews)

Voter Integrity Project is a stupid organization using millions of dollars to track down the what?  Hundred cases of voter fraud accidentally committed in the United States, instead of actually looking at the real people committing voter fraud routinely and then, running for office on the GOP ticket.  

If you only knew the kinds of questions I hear on a daily basis from people that want to vote and either can’t, because they received wrong information prior to October 9th or think they that can’t, because they’re currently receiving the wrong information as much as possible, you’d be frustrated, too.  

Here in Houston, our own acting County Clerk, Stan Stanart, sought to disenfranchise thousands of mostly African-American and Hispanic voters, by sending out “Dead Letters”.  

I understand the yeiding of power to be difficult, but damn… I thought we were this great country - “of the people, for the people, and by the people…”  I thought we were a beacon for other countries - an example - and we once were… and the thing is - when we disenfranchise ANYONE by race, we don’t bring honour to the founding fathers - we actually slap them in the face. 

This is, arguably a heated subject right now… but, I encourage you, to make sure your neighbors, friends, and family get out and vote.  It doesn’t matter how they do (my neighbor is a Mormon and has a bumper sticker that says “Moms for Mitt”), because they deserve to have their voice heard.  (I even thanked her for voting in the Republican Primary Run-off and standing in line for hours to do so.)  The important thing is - people need to be heard - and they aren’t… and they aren’t because of asshole groups like this and True the Vote, who do everything they can to strip people of their rights and intimidate them as they take every possible step they can towards the voting booth.  

(via sarahlee310)

“The Justice Department announced today that it will monitor primary elections on May 29, 2012, in Fort Bend, Harris and Jefferson Counties in Texas, to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other federal voting rights statutes. The Voting Rights Act prohibits discrimination in the election process on the basis of race, color or membership in a minority language group. In addition, the act requires certain covered jurisdictions to provide language assistance during the election process.

Under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department is authorized to ask the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to send federal observers to jurisdictions that are certified by the attorney general or by a federal court order. Federal observers will be assigned to monitor polling place activities in Fort Bend and Jefferson Counties based on the attorney general’s certification. In addition, Fort Bend is subject to a court order entered in 2009, which requires the jurisdiction to comply with the minority language and assistor of choice requirements of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the requirements of the Help America Vote Act. The observers will watch and record activities during voting hours at polling locations in these counties, and Civil Rights Division attorneys will coordinate the federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials.

In addition, Justice Department personnel will monitor polling place activities in Harris County. A Civil Rights Division attorney will coordinate federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials.

Each year, the Justice Department deploys hundreds of federal observers from OPM, as well as departmental staff, to monitor elections across the country. To file complaints about discriminatory voting practices, including acts of harassment or intimidation, voters may call the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931.

Visit www.justice.gov/crt/voting/index.php for more information about the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting laws.”

Justice Department Press Release, dated Friday, May 25, 2012