The GOP's 2012 Campaign Plan: Disqualify Eligible Voters

Across the country, Republican lawmakers are resurrecting one of their party's favorite but most cowardly tactics to quote, win elections. They are seeking to create new barriers to voting by passing stricter voter ID laws intended to prevent the very electoral segments who helped to elect President Obama in 2008 from receiving ballots in 2012, particularly the young, poor and elderly, according to voting rights groups.

"Touted under the guise of addressing so-called 'voter fraud,' the proposals are part of a quiet but coordinated effort to reduce the voting strength of minority voters who saw greater turnout in 2008," reads the Advancement Project's new report, "What's Wrong With This Picture: New Voter ID Proposals Part of a National Push to Turn back the Clock on Voting Rights." "The 2008 elections saw record turnout by black and brown voters, offering a glimpse of what a more equitable voter participation might look like. The photo ID proposals are part of a concerted effort to turn back the clock on voting rights."

The Advancement Project, a non-profit voting right law firm, said there were bills or new laws in 32 states requiring voters to present specific forms of government-issued photo IDs to get a ballot. Most states now require voters to show ID to vote, but those can range from driver's license to bank statements to utility bills. In contrast, the proposed or just-passed bills--in Texas, Missouri, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Minnesota and Ohio -- would only accept non-expired photo IDs from the federal government or state in which they vote.

"These photo ID proposals stand to create second-class citizenship for classes of voters, particularly racial minorities, senior citizens, young voters, people with disabilities, immigrants, the working poor and students, who are disproportionately less likely to have current state ID or face substantial hurdles to getting one, who stand to be turned away or denied a regular ballot," the Advancement Project report said.

"Studies show that approximately 11 percent of Americans, about 21 million people, lack a current government photo ID, disproportionately racial minorities, senior citizens, young voters, the working poor and people with disabilities - including: 25 percent of African American voting age citizens -- more than 5.5 million people; 15 percent of those earning less than $35,000 a year; 18 percent of those age 65 and above--more than 6 million voters; [and] 20 percent of young voters 18-29."

Republican Fears

These strident state legislators and governors would rather keep untold thousands of eligible citizens from voting on the merits of issues and candidates than have public debates and high-turnout elections where the best ideas win.

Their political rhetoric has been to claim there is a big problem with so-called voter fraud: people pretending to be someone else on Election Day and fraudulently casting more than one ballot. This belief--that Democrats are engaging in broad voter fraud--is an article of faith among die-hard Republicans, even prompting George W. Bush's Justice Department to fire career federal prosecutors who could not find real voter fraud cases to pursue and instead focused on actual, not imaginary, crimes.

Moreover, where voter fraud cases have occurred, they are exceptionally rare and almost always involve lone actors -- usually a relative of a local candidate trying to help them to win not swaths of partisan, let alone Democratic conspirators. States have prosecuted violators from both parties, and the penalties have been severe including jail.

Indeed, what the country's latest voter fraud crusaders are seeking to do is precisely the inverse of what they are accusing others of doing: instead of inflating vote totals, they are seeking to disenfranchise whole sectors of the electorate to better their odds of winning. To seek new laws prohibiting hundreds or thousands of eligible voters in state after state from casting ballots is not a response to the actions of a few lawbreakers who almost always get caught. It is a calculated and brazen move to game the outcome of those elections by disqualifying people who they presume will support their critics.