LOS ANGELES – Several national organization officials are urging citizens to not get lured by deceptive voting practices and to remain vigilant about their right to vote at the polls as the Presidential election nears.
“We are concerned that as we approach this very important Presidential election with senate and house members up for re-election and other candidates stepping forward, that when I go to vote or anyone going to vote, they are able to vote and not dissuaded by these deceptive practices that we’ve seen in previous elections,” said Robert Edgar, President and CEO of Common Cause, and former US Congressman at an event hosted by New America Media earlier this week.
Edgar was joined by Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF; Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Steward Kwoh, president and executive director Asian Pacific American Legal Center; and Myrna Perez, senior counsel, Democracy Program, The Brennan Center.
The press conference comes at a time when several states have either passed new laws or are introducing legislation that could make it difficult for Americans to vote.
Texas and Florida have each passed new laws restricting voter registration drives, causing all or most of those drives to stop. In Florida, 176,000 people have used those drives to register to vote in the 2008 election, according to the Brennan Center.
Alabama, Kansas and Tennessee passed a new photo ID law with each person requiring to prove citizenship to the US. Florida, Georgia and Ohio have passed laws eliminating the early voting period. And in Maine, the state eliminated election day registration.
“State governments across the country enacted an array of new laws which could make it difficult for up to five million Americans to vote,” said Myrna Perez of the Brennan Center.
“That number, five million, represents real people, including elderly citizens who may not be able to get the identification they now need to vote because they do not have birth certificates, or economically disadvantaged Americans who previously used early voting periods on Sunday because of their work schedules, or young Americans who depended on community registration drives for information and registration assistance.”
Perez said the Brennan Center has been tracking this wave of anti-voter legislation, and “is on the front lines of pushing back against these unfair and counterproductive laws.”
“Our nation’s goal should be a system of elections in which every vote counts and we count every vote,” she said. “As a country, we should focus our efforts on enhancing our democracy; on protecting a voter’s constitutional right and obligation to have their voices heard; and giving every voter the equal opportunity to elect her and his candidate of choice.”
Deceptive practices
Each official stressed the importance of voting in this very important election and warned citizens that there are several groups planning to hold down the minority and immigrant vote.
“When people want to hold down the vote, they invent all kinds of craziness and we want to stop all the craziness,” said Edgar.
Edgar gave several examples from the last election about these “deceptive practices” including:
In the 2008 election, a Virginia man was caught passing out literature that said “because of the pressure of voting, Republicans should vote on Tuesday and Democrats on Wednesday.”
In Philadelphia, there were calls to registered voters saying that if you had a traffic ticket or owe child support you could not vote. The call was specifically targeting the African American community.
In Denver, there were calls in Spanish, targeting the Hispanic community, saying that they did not have to come in to vote and could do it by phone.
In Maryland, there were robo-calls to voters in the late afternoon saying ‘you’re candidate is winning you don’t have to go out and vote.’
In each instances, Edgar said these deceptive practices are clear examples of holding down the vote of immigrants, citizens of color from voting and we want to make sure that the laws are fair, that the voting machines work and the people at the polls know what the law is.
“Our democracy is based on every citizen having a right to vote and that their vote counts,” he said.
Edgar just has one advice to voters when it comes time to vote later this year: “Our message to all the voters across the country – don’t listen to robo calls, or any of the tactics just go and vote and insists you have the right to vote.”
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend Jan 28-31, 2012 Sec A pg.1)
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