Republicans vs. Democrats and the Facts About Voting

Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune at 11:07 AM on August 12, 2008.

I don't know how many undecided voters stumble across this 'Progressive Community', but here's something for you to think about. In every presidential election there is one party that works fervently to register as many voters as possible and another party that works with equal vigor to create obstacles to registration and to cull the rolls of voters (not excluding fully qualified voters). It should tell you something about the nature of the two major parties that they each follow this same pattern year after year. If you are uncertain about which party takes which action, you can begin reading here:

Republicans are moving to examine surges in voter registrations in some states. A Republican lawyers group held a national training session on election law over the weekend that included campaign attorneys for Sen. John McCain and other Republican leaders. One session discussed how party operatives can identify and respond to instances of voter fraud.

Republicans said they are particularly worried about prospects for fraud in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and are beginning to comb thousands of new registrations in those states for ineligible applicants.

Meanwhile, the Democrats:

Obama campaign general counsel Bob Bauer last Tuesday said in a memorandum to campaign supporters that their own voter legal defense operation is under way, earlier than those of previous Democratic campaigns, including legal counsel on the ground in 50 states. The campaign is working closely with the Democratic Party, which said it has spent three years building a voter-protection program that includes more than 18 paid staff and 7,000 lawyers. The personnel deployed Aug. 1 and are dealing directly with local elections officials.

Or, you can put it this way:

Traditionally, Democrats favor fewer checks on verification and greater access to voting to encourage larger turnouts, particularly among lower-income and minority voters, who tend to favor Democrats. Republicans usually push for closer monitoring, in such forms as laws with strict requirements for voters to present identification, which can result in lower turnout.

The Republicans and the Democrats each have self-serving reasons to take these positions. But it remains true that the Democrat Party favors greater voter participation and the Republicans try to keep voter participation down. One of the recent tricks utilized by the Republicans is to claim that there is widespread voter fraud. Basically, they allege that there are voters who cast more than one ballot (say, in two locations on the same day), people that vote for the dead, people voting that should be ineligible to vote (not U.S. citizens, felony record, or too young), etc. The problem with these allegations is that there have been numerous studies done that show that these types of voting fraud cases are extraordinarily rare.

In recent years, the Republicans' favored strategy for combating voter fraud is to enact laws that require photo identification at the polls. Normally, these laws require the Photo ID to be a driver's license or other state-issued card. Most Americans take for granted that everyone has (and needs) a driver's license or official photo ID, but that's not the case. In every major city in the country there are thousands of young men and women that do not have a car, do not drive, do not do any business at banks, and simply have no need or use for an official photo ID. Many times, a school-issued photo ID is sufficient for whatever limited needs they have to prove identification. There are also many elderly people that no longer drive. Oftentimes, nuns have no photo ID. The Republicans know this, and they know that requiring a photo ID will inconvenience these groups, which vote disproportionately for Democrats, by imposing an extra step (including a fee) beyond mere voter registration to voting eligibility.

The Republicans have a relatively easy time winning this argument because the vast majority of Americans can't imagine a culture where car ownership is foreign, where people never use banks for loans, and where the small fee associated with obtaining identification is actually a hardship. Most people are easily convinced that someone that can't be bothered to get an ID probably hasn't reached the minimum level of civic responsibility where their vote should be valued. But, even if this is an easy argument to win, it ignores the shameful history of voting rights in this country. We did not pass the Voting Rights Act until 1965. No one wants ineligible people to vote, but if there is going to be a bias it should be in favor of maximizing minority turnout, not suppressing it as has historically been done. When study after study shows that voter fraud is exceedingly rare, the bias should be against taking strong actions to stamp out that fraud if it can be demonstrated that those same actions have the effect of suppressing minority turnout of eligible (or potentially eligible voters).

And Republicans do not restrict themselves to tactics that are at least intellectually defensible. As the Washington Post reported in May 2001, the election in Florida in 2000 was affected by a highly unethical voter purge of eligible voters. In an effort to purge the Florida voting rolls of convicted felons a private company was hired that mismatched people's names, ignored distinct birthdates and Social Security Numbers, and disenfranchised thousands of innocent people. And it resulted in the election of George W. Bush over Al Gore.

The impact of the botched felon purge fell disproportionately on black Floridians and, by extension, on the Democratic Party, which won the votes of 9 out of every 10 African American voters, according to exit polls.

No one has proven intent to disenfranchise any group of voters, but the snafus have fueled a widespread perception among blacks that an effort was made to dilute their voting power in an election that George W. Bush won by 537 votes -- a victory margin of 0.00009 of the 5.9 million votes counted.

If there had been no effort to purge felons off the voting rolls or if the effort had limited itself to purging actual felons, Al Gore would have won the state of Florida and become the 43d President of the United States. But, rather than focus on that regrettable fact, I want you to focus on the fact that Republicans engage in this type of behavior in every presidential election (and in many state-wide and local elections as well). The Republicans may not consistently break the law, but they do consistently seek to discourage eligible voters from turning out to the polls. Meanwhile, Democrats consistently do the opposite.

Set aside for a moment your position on issues like tax policy or gay rights or abortion or government regulation. You may find that you are generally more sympathetic to the Republicans' point of view on those issues. But it should concern you that the Republicans feel it is necessary to suppress the vote (particularly the minority vote) in order to win elections. In a system like we have in America, where your preferred policies are best promoted by having the politicians that espouse them win elections, it is tempting to support (or, at least, look the other way at) tactics that give you your desired result. But more important that the outcome of any given election is the legitimacy of that election. If you can only win by denying eligible people the right to vote or by inconveniencing so many of your political opponents to the degree that it significantly depresses their turnout, then you are undermining the very principles that confer legitimacy on the winner of elections. Elections are designed to measure the Will of the People at a given point in time. It is this Will which confers legitimacy and gives a political party the right to govern. If the measurement is inaccurate or it is biased so badly as to switch the result, then the Will has not been accurately measured.

There is also an argument that the larger the sample of the Will (the more voters that participate) the more accurate (and therefore legitimate) the measurement. In any case, the Democrats consistently act to maximize the sample size and to assure the accuracy of the count, while the Republicans consistently act to minimize the sample, including by excluding eligible voters (and thereby skewing the accuracy of the measurement).

There is something fundamentally delegitimizing about the Republican tactics and even for an undecided or conservative-leaning voter, that should be a concern that gives pause to unthinkingly supporting the Republican Party at the polls.

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Tagged as: democrats, republicans, vote suppression, voters' rights, minority voting

Booman is the proprietor of the Booman Tribune.