Anyone who has read a newspaper or listened to a news broadcast in the past year is aware of the way Republican led states have taken advantage of the Supreme Court's June 2013 decision to gut the Voting Rights Act.
Prior to that ruling, states with a record of voter discrimination had to apply to the federal government before any changes could be made to the way they managed their elections or voter records. Immediately following the Supreme Court's decision to remove federal oversight, one Republican led state after another instituted voter I.D. laws, began purging voter registration records of people they deemed questionable, cut early voter hours, eliminated same day registration, etc. States like Texas re-instituted restrictive voting requirements that, only months before, federal oversight had found to be illegal.
The GOP insists that all these new regulations are needed to eliminate voter fraud.
what eye thynk: How bad is this type of fraud? According to a recent Loyola University study, U.S. citizens have cast nearly one billion votes since 2000. Of all those votes cast, there have been exactly 31 credible cases of voter fraud--THIRTY-ONE! That's a rate of 0.000000031 percent over a 14 year period. Thank God the GOP is on top of this!
There are, of course, exceptions to this red state voting regulation stampede. Deeply Republican states like Wyoming, Idaho and Utah continue to permit same-day registration. And North Dakota, which requires no voter registration at all, reports they have no plans for new regulations, stating that they see no wide-spread voter fraud in their state.
Studies have shown that states that allow same-day registration end up with a voter turnout that is 10% higher than those who do not. In fact, of the five states with the highest voter turnout in 2012, four were states that encouraged voting by allowing same-day registration.
Enter Chris Christie, head of the Republican Governor's Association, into the argument. A bipartisan election commission in Illinois, one made up of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, in an effort to increase voter turnout, has voted to simplify same-day registration in their state--and Governor Christie is "outraged." He finds the changes being made in Illinois "shocking" and calls the new simplified registration an "underhanded Democratic tactic" and proof that Democrats "will try every trick in the book" to ensure the election results swing their way.
The right to vote is the biggest, most important and most time-honored building block of a democracy. So why would Mr. Christie think that encouraging people to vote is "shocking?" Well, maybe the answer can be found in another of his comments on the subject: "(This creates a) major obstacle for the GOP's gubernatorial candidates."
So, there you have it. All the hard work by Republican led states to discourage minorities and the poor, (who overwhelmingly vote Democrat), from voting is going to be undone by this one state's egregious attempt to make voting more accessible.
How outrageous! How shocking! How...how...UNFAIR!
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