Since taking over a majority of the country’s state legislatures in January, statehouse Republicans have launched repeated and continuous assaults on voting rights. 

We’ve known for some time that at least 38 states have introduced legislation that would effectively restrict voters’ access to the ballot box. Twelve of those states have already enacted suppressive measures, and more may do so as state legislative sessions continue. 

We’ve also had an idea of the impact these laws will have on the electorate, but much of the available data up to this point has been five or more years old. 

No longer: 

Restrictive voting laws in states across the country could affect up to five million voters from traditionally Democratic demographics in 2012, according to a new report by the Brennan Center [for Justice at New York University School of Law]. That's a number larger than the margin of victory in two of the last three presidential elections. 

This study breaks down the affected voters by type of law, such as voter ID laws, anti-voter registration drive laws, and laws curtailing early voting periods and absentee voting opportunities. 

Speaking of absentee voting, Virginians may want to start practicing their penmanship if they want their absentee votes to be counted by the state’s GOP-appointed elections board. 

The Republican-controlled State Board of Elections withdrew one set of rules governing absentee ballots - they gave election officials more leeway to count the ballots of voters who made mistakes filling them out - and substituted them with less-flexible guidelines…. 

Removed from the current state absentee ballot regulation is language in the previous version that made it clear that illegible voter or witness signatures on a ballot wouldn't invalidate it, and a catch-all paragraph that specified ballots wouldn't be tossed if a voter's identity could be otherwise confirmed by election officials. 

Fun fact: In the 2008 election, 13 percent of Virginia’s voters cast absentee ballots. How many of those would have been disqualified for having “illegible” signatures? 

And thus Virginia joins the ignoble ranks of GOP-governed states taking unprecedented measures to prevent citizens from exercising their right to vote—and to have those votes counted. 

The effects of all of these voting restrictions will be staggering, particularly on the elections of the very state legislators who are working so hard to make voting so difficult. 

Consider that in 2010, more than 90 state legislative races across the country were won or lost by fewer than 100 votes. Two states where newly GOP legislative chambers passed restrictive voting measures (Ohio and Maine) had sixty-four 2010 statehouse races decided by 500 votes or fewer. Two of the Wisconsin recall elections this summer were decided by only about 2000 votes. 

Even a few thousand uncast or uncounted votes have the potential to tip majority control of a legislative chamber from one party to the other… as well as affect races all the way up the ballot. 

Republicans understand that as surely as we do. And sometimes they let the true motivations behind their suppressive voting laws slip. 

Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Zellers flatly claimed voting was “not a right” during debate over a photo ID bill (a statement he later partially walked back). So, too, did Florida state Sen. Mike Bennett in a similar debate. Republican legislators and party leaders in Wisconsin, Maine and New Hampshire said all sorts of disparaging things about the civic qualifications of college students in the process of seeking to keep them from voting on campus. 

Statehouse Republicans across the country seem to feel that legitimate means of influencing elections are insufficient to maintain a right-wing domination of state governments. Their voter suppression tactics are a reflection of conservatives’ pathetic desperation. The GOP war on voting is simultaneously an assault on democracy and an outrageous power grab. Its effects are far-reaching and potentially long-lasting. And it’s far from over.

The controversy surrounding former Maine GOP legislative candidate Brendan O’Brien (son New Hampshire GOP House Speaker Bill O’Brien) continues to deepen over his history of voting in two states.

Until now, most observers had been content to chastise the elder O’Brien for simultaneously advocating voter suppression tactics against young voters (because young voters are, quote, “voting liberal, voting their feelings, with no life experience”) despite the fact that his own college-age son had not only voted in multiple states over the course of a year, but ran for office as well.

The younger O’Brien, after all, has done absolutely nothing wrong. Citizens have a right to vote wherever they consider their residence, including the area where they go to school. It was the responsibility of local New Hampshire elections officials to notify the state of Maine when Brendan O’Brien registered to vote in New Hampshire, and they apparently did not do so. Therefore, the elder O’Brien’s hypocrisy was the important element of the story. Until now.

It turns out there’s one tiny little detail that has been overlooked:

The Attorney General’s Office has been asked to investigate the handling of voter records kept in Mont Vernon, hometown of Speaker of the House William O’Brien.

Town resident Joyce Cardoza filed a complaint this week after reading news reports that O’Brien’s son Brendan was registered to vote in both his hometown and in Lewiston, Maine, where he attended college and ran for public office in 2009.

Cardoza, a registered Democrat, noted that Speaker O’Brien’s wife Roxanne is one of three supervisors of the checklist who handle voter registration matters. State law requires local election officials to take specific steps to notify officials in a voter’s previous town of a change in registration.

In this case, the registration form young O’Brien filled out when he voted in Mont Vernon in November 2010 never made it to Lewiston. State law requires supervisors of the checklist to send a copy of the registration form to a voter’s previous town if it lies within New England.
[emphasis added]

The Attorney General’s Office will no doubt investigate the complaint, if it has merit. This could be a criminal matter, but it could also be a simple case of a local official’s (Roxanne O’Brien’s) ignorance of the laws governing elections and voting rights.

That’s certainly plausible, since she would not be the first O’Brien to have missed Democracy: 101.

Former President Bill Clinton addressed one of the most pressing issues facing the electorate in a speech on Wednesday. 

The issue is the very ability of that electorate to cast ballots. 

From Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn: 

“I can’t help thinking since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time,” Clinton said at Campus Progress’s annual conference in Washington. 

“There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today,” Clinton added. 

President Clinton’s assertions regarding new restrictive voting measures in states across the country are bold, even jarring, but succeed in spotlighting this critical issue. 

He specifically called out Republican proposals in Florida, Ohio, and New Hampshire that restrict ballot box access in various ways. 

In Florida, the new voting restrictions cover both casting and registering to cast ballots. Not only will all organizations that wish to conduct voter registration drives (such as the League of Women Voters) be required to register with the state elections board, but also each person who registers voters will be required to sign and file an oath with the board. Additionally, the early voting period is reduced from 12 days to eight. Frank Cerabino of the Palm Beach Post makes an interesting observation about that part of the law:

On line 2409 of the legislation, the part that establishes the time period of early voting, it had been law that in elections with federal races, the early voting period was to end on the "2nd day before an election."

The new law changes that to the third day before the election.

What possible difference could that one day make?

Well, the second day before an election is a Sunday. And those who have been combing over the Florida results during the last presidential election discovered that nearly a third of all the early voters on that final Sunday were black.

In Ohio, legislation passed just last week by the GOP-controlled legislature will effectively reduce voters’ access to the ballot box. As we previously noted, restrictive provisions of this bill include:

• Cuts the early voting period by more than half: instead of 35 days, voters will only be able to cast ballots on 12 of the 17 days prior to the election
• Eliminates early voting on Sundays
• Permits early voting on Saturdays from only 8 a.m. to noon
• Cuts early voting by mail from 35 days to 21
• Eliminates the weeklong period during which voters could register and cast ballots at the same time (“Golden Week”)
• Prohibits boards of elections from mailing absentee ballot forms without receiving specific requests (forms are currently mailed to all registered voters)
• Prohibits boards of elections from paying return postage to encourage completion of absentee voter forms
• Eliminates local control, preventing boards of elections from adjusting poll hours and taking other previously permissible measures to prevent long lines and other issues seen in the 2004 elections 

The New Hampshire bill, which was vetoed by the Governor but may still be overridden by the heavily GOP-controlled legislature, requires voters to present state or federal government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot.

President Clinton surely faced time constraints, but his list of states with GOP legislatures pushing regressive voting legislation could have extended far beyond those three.

Maine’s Republican-controlled statehouse revoked the state’s long-standing policy to allow eligible voters to register at the polls on Election Day before casting ballots.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker and the state GOP slammed a voter ID bill through the legislature this spring in a desperate attempt to move the goalposts for the upcoming recall elections.

In North Carolina, the Governor vetoed a voter ID bill that would have cost state taxpayers $1.4 million and could have disenfranchised the 147,100 active black voters in the state who do not have photo ID.

In Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled House has passed legislation requiring presentation of government-issued photo ID to vote. If it passes the Republican Senate, the Republican Governor is almost certain to sign it.

In Missouri, the Governor vetoed the voter ID bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature. So the state GOP bypassed her by approving an amendment to the state constitution that would have the same effect. The amendment is slated to appear on the ballot for Missouri voters’ approval this fall.

The Brennan Center for Justice found in a 2006 study that 11% of U.S. citizens do not possess any form of government-issued photo ID. Civil rights groups assert that minority and low-income voters constitute an outsized portion of that group and would inevitably be disenfranchised by these voter ID laws.

Add that to the reduction of the time available to cast ballots states like Florida and Ohio, and we could be looking at a presidential electorate in 2012 that’s missing large chunks of what made Barack Obama’s victory possible in 2008—not to mention the inevitable effects of voter suppression all the way down the ballot.

President Clinton has sounded the alarm on a critical issue. Republicans’ only defense seems to be raising the specter of virtually nonexistent voter fraud and “illegal voting.”

Actually, until recently it was illegal to make voting more difficult for eligible citizens.

Republicans in state legislatures around the country are rewriting voting laws to make exercising one’s right to cast a ballot more difficult. 

After examining the plethora of bills introduced in statehouses this year that, among other things, would reduce poll hours and require voters to show photo ID, it seems clear that Republicans are trying to make it harder for certain groups to vote. The Advancement Project, an advocacy group of civil rights attorneys, called the push “the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century.”

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Republican legislators have introduced bills that would diminish access to the voting booth in over 40 states.* All of these Republican proposals focus on one apparent goal: restrict ballot access and shrink the electorate—often in ways that would decrease Democratic votes.

Many of the proposals are in the form of voter ID legislation, which would require potential voters to present specified forms of identification in order to cast a ballot. Republicans supporting these measures claim they’re necessary to prevent “voter fraud.”

Too bad that “voter fraud” isn’t a problem that actually exists. In New Hampshire, investigations conducted since 2004 revealed no cases of voter fraud. In South Carolina, where a voter ID bill that would become among the most stringent in the country is currently under consideration, the state Elections Commission knows of no confirmed cases of voter fraud. An elections supervisor in Florida says “there’s no evidence of a problem, none whatever.” Voter impersonation is the only type of voter fraud addressed by laws requiring presentation of a photo ID to vote, and repeated studies have confirmed this crime to be extremely rare.

Speaking of study results, here are some fun facts about groups included in the 11 percent of Americans without a current government-issued photo ID: 

• 25 percentof African American voting age citizens

• 15 percent of those earning less than $35,000 a year

• 18 percent of those age 65 and above

• 20 percent of young voters 18-29

In sum, GOP legislators may be using baseless allegations of fraud to make voting more difficult for constituencies not known for their reliable GOP vote.

The broad GOP voter discouragement push goes beyond voter ID bills.  Florida provides an example of one of the most restrictive proposals in the country.

Florida House Bill 1355 (and companion Senate Bill 2086) recently passed both GOP-controlled chambers and includes the following provisions: 

• Forces anyone updating his or her name or address on election day to fill out a provisional ballot (which often go uncounted). Since 1973, Florida voters have been able to update name or address without major issues.
• Forces any group running a registration drive to fill out paperwork for every volunteer and paid worker with the state.
• Halves the time that citizens would have to collect signatures to get an initiative on a ballot.
• The senate version of the bill (SB 2086) also reduces the early voting period from two weeks to just one week.

Indeed, reducing the length of early voting periods is a restrictive voting measure Republicans are advocating in several states. In North Carolina, for example, a GOP-sponsored bill would cut the 16-day early voting period by an entire week. 

In both Florida and North Carolina (as well as in almost every other state with early voting) the majority of early voters in 2008 voted for President Obama.  

Another strain of restrictive measures popping up in several states involves hobbling voter registration and mobilization efforts. The North Carolina bill would prevent anyone from engaging in get-out-the-vote efforts outside of his or her own voting precinct. Legislation in Maine would end the long-standing practice of election day voter registration. The Florida bill mentioned above will prompt the League of Women Voters to end their registration efforts in that state.

This apparently concerted effort on the part of Republicans in state legislatures nationwide to effectively suppress voting is as disturbing as it is un-democratic. Additionally, these restrictive measures often are costly and do nothing to balance state budgets and create jobs, which are the top priorities for voters across the country right now.

To be fair, Republican legislators in some states are working to promote voting rights among some groups: hunters and fishers.

*Research compiled by DLCC.

With six Republican state senators likely to face recall elections this summer, Governor Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP are understandably nervous. 

Their fear of Democrats retaking a majority in the state Senate and halting the extreme GOP agenda spurred them to fast-track a vile piece of legislation through the statehouse this week. 

Assembly Bill 7 would require voters to show ID at the polls, sign poll books when they vote, and to have lived in their voting ward for 28 days before the election. (Current law requires voters to live in a ward 10 days before an election.)

The current version of the proposal would waive the ID requirement until next year; voters in this summer’s recall elections would be asked for photo ID, even though they’ll be allowed to vote without one. Recall voters will have to sign poll books and meet the 28-day residency requirement. 

The significance of the timing of the sudden push on this legislation is not lost on Wisconsin Democrats. 

"They're trying to push things through as fast as they possibly can," Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) said. "I think they hear footsteps, and they know that their days very well could be numbered of controlling every element of state government." 

"We were all wondering why there's such a rush on this bill — now we know," said state Rep. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse. "It's about the recall elections. You feel the rules need to be changed right in the middle of the game." 

The new residency requirement will certainly reduce the number of eligible voters in this (and every subsequent) election, and those disqualified are more likely to be younger and poorer than the average voter. 

Requesting an ID to cast a ballot in the recalls creates opportunities for discouragement and harassment at the polls and will likely reduce turnout among those without IDs on election day. 

And who, specifically, would be less likely to turn out because of voter ID requests? Glad you asked. 

Almost 170,000 seniors, 200,000 students and young people, and potentially more than half of all African-American and Hispanic residents in Wisconsin do not have valid drivers licenses. Students may find themselves with a remedy down the line (no IDs currently issued by Wisconsin schools meet the requirements of AB 7), but where does that leave the rest of these Wisconsinites? 

It leaves them exactly where the GOP wants them: nowhere near a ballot box.

This Monday is the last day Virginia residents can register to vote in the 2009 general election, so if you live in Virginia, make sure to have your application in the mail by then. Also, we have a brief update from some of the House of Delegates races making news this week:

• HD-10: Democratic House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong -– who also serves as the DLCC’s Finance Chair -– juggles a lot of responsibilities, but his constituents back home always come first. Armstrong has been fighting a proposed utility rate hike for over a year – he’s lobbied the state utilities commission, held interactive town halls, and even organized a letter-writing campaign against the increase, noting that “People are hurting and the last thing they need is another rate increase.”
  
  

• HD-25: After Republican Delegate Steve Landes’ shaky debate performance last week, it appears he’s had enough. Landes is ducking a forum co-hosted by the Staunton News-Leader, complaining that the paper is too biased. That’s a pretty flimsy excuse, since the News-Leader endorsed both George W. Bush and former Republican Sen. George Allen in recent elections. More likely, Landes is just afraid he'll have to defend his record again.
  
  

• HD-86: Democratic challenger Stevens Miller has a new ad taking Republican Del. Tom Rust to task for breaking a promise to require insurers to cover autism treatments. Rust campaigned on the issue, but then he voted against it. Blue Commonwealth has the ad, and they also dug up some incredible video of Rust refusing to even move the bill out of committee.
  
  

• Student Voting: The Virginia Board of Elections has recently approved a new rule allowing college students to register to vote using their dormitory addresses. Some localities already allowed this, but now the standard will apply statewide. We encourage all students who want to vote from their school addresses to register, but be sure to do it by Monday!

The U.S. Justice Department has struck down a controversial Georgia election law as a violation of Voting Rights Act:

In a letter released on Monday, the Justice Department said the state's voter-verification program is frequently inaccurate and has a "discriminatory effect" on minority voters in Georgia.

"This flawed system frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian and/or Hispanic voters to additional, and more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote," said Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's civil-rights division. Ms. King's letter was sent to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker on Friday.

(…)Justice Department officials said the citizenship match has flagged 7,007 individuals as noncitizens but that many of those matches have been shown to be in error.

"Thousands of citizens who are in fact eligible to vote under Georgia law have been flagged," the Justice Department letter said.

Last month, we spotlighted a recently-passed Georgia law (SB 86) requiring voters to provide citizenship documentation when registering. That law also requires database matching, and we noted at the time that such systems routinely disqualify a high percentage of lawful voters – sometimes as high as 30%. Now we have proof that Georgia’s system would be no different, and the Justice Department acted accordingly.

Hopefully, the Justice Department will soon strike down SB 86 as well.

Indiana has made voter registration simpler and easier with a new law allowing voters to register online:

The election bill will let people with valid driver's licenses or state identification cards file voter registration forms over the Internet. Currently, people can download registration applications online, but they must print out and mail in the forms.

The law, which passed unanimously in both houses of the legislature, makes Indiana the 4th state to approve online registration. This comes on the heels of Colorado passing a similar law just a few months ago.

Voting rights advocates argue that online registration encourages participation by simplifying the process, especially for younger voters. Online security technology can also make it a more secure registration option than traditional paper forms.

Georgia Republicans in the legislature and Gov. Sonny Perdue have enacted a controversial new law that imposes onerous new documentation burdens for new voters and requires registration information to match records in the state driving database. This new law threatens to disenfranchise thousands of lawful voters and hamstring the efforts of nonpartisan registration groups.

The law's most widely-reported change forces new voters to submit documentation proving US citizenship (such as a passport or birth certificate) with their registration forms -– a requirement that has voting-rights advocates outraged:

The law revived a racially charged battle in Georgia. Critics complain it would disenfranchise poor and minority voters — many of them U.S. citizens — who lack required documents.

Starting Jan. 1, 2010 if Justice approves, the Georgia law would require all applying for voter registration to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship. Those who stay on active voter rolls and have already registered before then would not have to submit such documents as a U.S. passport, naturalization documents or driver's license or birth certificate.

"It's tantamount to a poll tax," said Elise Shore, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She said the group was considering a legal challenge if the law clears the Justice Department.

Another, arguably more worrying, section of the law orders the Secretary of State to verify all new registrations using the state’s Driver Services database.

Ohio faced this same issue in 2008, when Ohio Republicans sued to force the Democratic Secretary of State to perform similar database matching. In that case, which eventually went to the Supreme Court, independent analysts like NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice noted that such requirements routinely invalidate thousands of lawful voters –- sometimes at rates as high as 30 percent.

If upheld by Justice Department officials, who must evaluate the changes under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the new law will likely make it much more difficult to register to vote, and it could leave thousands of lawful voters disenfranchised by clerical typos completely beyond their control.

Colorado will soon become the third state in the country where voters will have the freedom to register to vote online.

One month ago, the House of Representatives passed HB1160:

[The bill] would allow people to register to vote, request a mail-in ballot or change their voting address online through what bill proponents say will be a highly secure website run by the Colorado secretary of state's office. The bill would not allow people to cast votes online.

The measure enjoyed sweeping support, with a final vote of 60-4.

Today, the Senate passed its version of the bill with unanimous support.

Voters in Arizona and Washington currently utilize this kind of online process, and advocates say that the system has led to higher registration numbers. Others point out that this system is in many ways more secure than the paper registrations processed in other states.