Texas Attorney General Almost Disenfranchised By His Own Voter ID Law

BY AVIVA SHEN/Think Progress

As early voting begins in Texas, the state’s new, strict voter ID law has thus far flagged a judge, gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, and another state senator as potentially illegitimate voters. Attorney General Greg Abbott (R), voter ID’s most strident defender, was also flagged as a suspicious voter under his own law’s strict criteria.

Abbott was flagged because his license lists his name as “Gregory Wayne Abbott” while his voter registration record simply calls him “Greg Abbott.”

Longtime voters, particularly married women who have taken a spouse’s name, are being stopped at the polls because their names on their drivers’ licenses differ from their voter registration forms. Thanks to an amendment added by Wendy Davis, voters who clearly have “substantially similar” names can still cast a regular ballot by signing an affidavit affirming their identity. If the law had gone through unmodified as Abbott originally supported, he would have disenfranchised himself.

Though Davis’ amendment will allow many legitimate voters to vote, the process to determine “substantial similarity” and organize affidavit-signing will inevitably clog up Texas electoral processes with unnecessary confusion. Come November 5, Texas’ polling places may resemble Florida’s in 2012, where Republicans’ election law changes created marathon lines and pollworker confusion.

The law has also affected countless ordinary Texans who do not attract as much media coverage as Davis or Abbott. People of color, low-income voters, seniors, and students are most likely to lack the required ID and may not have their votes counted as a result. While Texas officials claim it is easy for these people to get a free voter ID, just 41 out of 1.4 million eligible Texas voters have received one as of the middle of last month. ThinkProgress interviewed one 84-year-old woman who was denied the ID three times despite providing extensive proof of her identity.

12-year-old ‘suffragette’ fires back at NC gov. for voter suppression: ‘I am not a prop!’

By David Edwards/Raw Story

A 12-year-old North Carolina girl fired back at Gov. Pat McCrory on Monday (R-NC) after he called her a “prop” because she had accused him of voter suppression for signing a voter ID law that stripped pre-registration rights for young people.

Earlier this year, Madison Kimrey gained attention for protesting outside the Governor’s Executive Mansion in opposition to the sweeping new law that requires a government ID to vote, cuts the number of early voting days and takes away the right of pre-registration for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds.

The governor’s staff had seemed to mock Kimrey at the time by offering her cake through the mansion gate.

In an August interview, McCrory explained that he would not be meeting with the 12-year-old girl and said that the controversy had been manufactured.

“This is one of the girls that came to our gate and actually asked for food from some of my people,” the governor insisted. “She said she was hungry and we went out gave her food – gave her some cake, and they made it a big political thing. This is very liberal groups using children as props to push a very far-left agenda.”

Speaking to a group of “Moral Monday” protesters in Burlington this week, Kimrey made it clear that she was not a “prop.”

“The elimination of pre-registration was one of the first parts of the new 56-page voting law to go into effect,” Kimrey told the crowd. “Ask yourselves, young people, why? Why do they want to take away our ability to pre-register so quickly?”

“I wanted to meet with our governor to discuss pre-registration but he called my request to meet with him ridiculous and called me a prop for liberal groups,” she continued. “This is not leadership. The young people of North Carolina deserve better.”

“I am not a prop! I am part of the new generation of suffragettes and I will not stand silent while laws are passed to reduce the amount of voter turnout by young people in my home state.”

Watch this video from Story of America, uploaded on Oct. 29, 2013.

North Carolina University Student Beats the GOP’s Vote Suppression Road Show

By: Adalia Woodbury/politicususa

For years, the chairman of Pasquotank County’s Republican Party, Richard Gilbert went out of his way to challenge as many voters as possible at the historically black public college Elizabeth City State University.   More recently, Gilbert challenged ECSU student Montravius King’s candidacy for city council based on the argument that he has always used. Gilbert claimed that since King lives in a dorm, he doesn’t meet the residency requirement. King who has resided in Elizabeth City since enrolling at Elizabeth City State University in 2009, would be the first student elected to the council, if he is elected.

The Pasquotank County Board of Elections accepted Gilbert’s argument and disqualified King’s candidacy.  Interesting to note, when Gilbert challenged King’s candidacy, Sue Myrick of the John W. Pope Citivas Institute found time in her schedule to attend the meeting.

After the decision, Montravius King appealed  to the state board of elections. Aside from King’s candidacy there was much more at stake with this decision.

Since the qualifications for candidacy on the city council and for voting are the same, this decision was seen as a first steptoward disenfranchising all students living in ECSU dorms.

Richard Gilbert has extensive experience challenging the voting rights of ECSU students.  He was behind previousattempts  to disenfranchise Elizabeth City State University students by arguing they don’t really meet the residency requirement.  Gilbert got 56 ECSU students dropped from the voting rolls earlier this year based on this very argument. That makes Myrick’s attendance at the meeting especially curious.  Obviously, she wasn’t there to guide Gilbert through the process.  The Institute for Southern Studies  has a more plausible explanation.

Myrick’s presence at King’s hearing has raised questions about Pope’s involvement in efforts to roll back voting rights in North Carolina, which had made great strides in boosting turnout in recent years.

Fortunately, the State Board of Elections unanimouslyreversed the county’s decision on Tuesday.

Montravius King had every reason to be confident the State Board would reverse Pasquotank County’s decision because the question of whether a dorm room meets the residency requirement was already settled law in North Carolina. At the same time, Republicans in North Carolina have a special way of looking at laws protecting voting rights and for that matter any other rights that benefit people beyond the Tea Party/Republican base. If given an opening, right wing ideologues will run with the opportunity to restrict certain votes as much as possible.

That was exactly what Richard Gilbert wanted to do with the earlier decision.  He told the AP that he intended to “take this show on the road“,  following the county board’s decision.  Of course, Gilbert’s road led to ECSU but never has made it to the predominantly white and private Mid-Atlantic Christian College.  Perhaps Gilbert believes that white students living in dorms are some how different from black students living in dorms when it comes to the question of residency.

Now that the state board has reversed the ruling, eligible voters who are students living in dorms at public colleges and were therefore on Richard Gilbert’s radar can breathe a little bit easier. Voting remains a challenge because of restrictions ranging from the sort of ID that’s accepted, to reduced voting hours and in some cases out of the way voting precincts.

And don’t be surprised if Gilbert and the John W. Pope Civitas Institute find yet another act to take on their student vote suppression road show.

92-year-old black woman sues just hours after North Carolina gov. signs voter ID law

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Just hours after North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed a sweeping voter ID measure into law, a 92-year-old African-American woman has sued the state claiming that her constitutional rights had been violated.

At a bill signing with no formal ceremony on Monday, McCrory quietly signed the Republican bill that will require a voters to present a government-issued ID, cuts early voting days, stops same-day registration, ends “straight ticket” party voting, makes it harder for students to vote and gives poll watchers new powers for challenging voters.

The first lawsuit, filed by the NAACP, says that 92-year-old Rosanell Eaton will be disenfranchised after voting for 70 years.

Mrs. Eaton, who was born at home, has a current North Carolina driver’s license, but the name on her certified birth certificate does not match the name on her driver’s license or the name on her voter registration card,” the lawsuit notes. “Mrs. Eaton will incur substantial time and expense to correct her identification documents to match her voter registration record in order to meet the new requirements.”

In a statement on Monday, Advancement Project Director Penda Hair pointed out that North Carolina was the first state to sign a “discriminatory voting law” since the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act.

“With the stroke of his pen, Gov. McCrory has transformed North Carolina from a state with one of the nation’s most progressive voting systems, where we saw some of the highest voter turnout rates of the last two presidential elections, into a state with the most draconian policies we’ve seen in decades, policies that harken back to the days of Jim Crow,” Hair explained.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed a second lawsuit targeting provisions that suppress early voting, voter registration and “out-of-precinct” voting.

In a video posted to YouTube on Monday, McCrory argued that he had enacted “common-sense reforms.”

“Many of those from the extreme left who have been criticizing photo ID are using scare tactics,” McCory asserted. “They are more interested in divisive politics than ensuring that no one’s vote is disenfranchised by a fraudulent ballot.”

Rosanell Eaton was expected to appear at a press conference on Tuesday with state NAACP President Rev. William Barber and other plaintiffs.

Watch this video from WRAL, broadcast Aug. 13, 2013.

Watch this video from Gov. Pat McCrory, broadcast Aug. 12, 2013.

Watch this video from Rev. William Barber, broadcast July 16, 2013.

 

 by Taboola

North Carolina Governor Signs America’s Worst Voter Suppression Bill Into Law

BY IAN MILLHISER/Think Progress:

On Monday, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed into law a massive voter suppression bill compiling numerous different provisions used to restrict voting in other states. Among other things, the bill includes a strict voter ID law, which will reduce turnout among minority, low-income and student voters. It will cut a full week of early voting, which is likely to depress turnout amonglow-income and African American voters. And it will prohibit certain kinds of voter registration drives, which tend to register low-income and minority voters.

Students, low-income voters and racial minorities, of course, tend to vote for Democrats. McCrory, and the lawmakers behind this bill, are Republicans.

White House fighting for voting rights

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Justice Ginsburg Reacts To Epidemic Of Voter Suppression Laws: Told Ya So

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

“I didn’t want to be right,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says about her prediction that striking a key prong of the Voting Rights Act will lead to a wave of minority voter suppression, “but sadly I am.” In an interview with the Associated Press’ Mark Sherman, Ginsburg reiterated one of the core points of her dissent from the five Republican justices’ voting rights decision — “The notion that because the Voting Rights Act had been so tremendously effective we had to stop it didn’t make any sense to me,” Ginsburg said. “And one really could have predicted what was going to happen” once the law was struck down.

What has happened is a rush of voter suppression laws in states once subject to federal supervision under the provision gutted by Ginsburg’s Republican colleagues. Just two hours after the decision was announced, Texas’ attorney general announced that a common voter suppression law would take effect in Texas — and several other states are right behind Texas. In Arizona, Republicans want to redraw district lines to make them less “competitive,” now that federal supervision of the state’s redistricting has lifted. North Carolina Republicans are on the verge of enacting the worst voter suppression law in the country.

In her dissent, Ginsburg warned that “the evolution of voting discrimination into more subtle second-generation barriers is powerful evidence that a remedy as effective as preclearanceremains vital to protect minority voting rights and prevent backsliding.” One month later, it’s already clear that Ginsburg was right.

Justice Department Will Ask Court To Reinstate Voting Rights Act In Texas

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Thursday the first step the Justice Department will take to restore the voting rights gutted by a Supreme Court decision neutering a key prong of the Voting Rights Act. In remarks prepared for the National Urban League’s annual conference, Holder announced that the Justice Department “will ask a federal court in Texas to subject the State of Texas to a preclearance regime similar to the one required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act” — effectively restoring the safeguards against voter suppression in Texas that were stripped by the five Republican justices’ decision in Shelby County v. Holder.

Prior to the justices’ decision in Shelby County, states and counties with a history of racial voter suppression were required to “pre-clear” any new voting laws with the Justice Department or a federal court in D.C. Shelby County essentially shut this pre-clearance regime down by declaring the formula used to determine which states are subject to pre-clearance unconstitutional.

The Republican justices’ decision left another provision of the law intact, however. Under section 3 of the Voting Rights Act, a state can be brought back under the pre-clearance requirement if a court find that “violations of the fourteenth or fifteenth amendment justifying equitable relief have occurred within the territory of such State or political subdivision.” Essentially, states with a recent record of attacks on the constitutional right to be free from race discrimination in voting can be brought back under federal supervision.

As Holder notes in his remarks, Texas is a particularly strong candidate for such federal supervison due to “the evidence of intentional racial discrimination” in Texas that the Justice Department presented to a federal court last year. Among other things, this federal court found that Texas Republicans charged with drawing the states’ legislative maps “consciously replaced many of [a] district’s active Hispanic voters with low-turnout Hispanic voters in an effort to strengthen the voting power of [the district's] Anglo citizens. In other words, they sought to reduce Hispanic voters’ ability to elect” a candiate of their choice.

Section 3 lawsuits, often known as “bail-in” suits, are rare. Since 1975, bail-in has been used to extend the Voting Rights Act to “two states, six counties, and one city.” So the judges deciding whether Texas should once again be subject to federal supervision will have little precedent to guide their decision. Nevertheless, Holder is absolutely correct that Texas is a strong candidate for a bail-in. Just two hours after the Supreme Court neutered much of the Voting Rights Act, Texas Attorney General Greg Abott (R) announced that the state would implement plans that will suppress minority voters.

With Voting Rights Act Gutted, Florida Set To Resume Voter Purge

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

Florida’s controversial initiative to screen for suspected non-citizens and purge them from the voter rolls is allowed to officially resume, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

A Hispanic civil rights group and two naturalized citizens sued last year to block the purge, arguing that it needed to be approved by the federal government because five Florida counties were covered under the Voting Rights Act. After the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out a key section of the law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit had little choice but to dismiss the suit. Secretary of State Ken Detzner (R) said he plans to resume the voter purge.

In 2012, the Department of Justice warned that Florida’s voter purge, which targeted roughly 180,000 people, was illegal, and all of the state’s county election supervisors refused to execute the purge. The lists of flagged individuals — many of whom had Latino-sounding names — also turned out to be largely inaccurate. These flagged individuals would receive notifications in the mail notifying them that they had 30 days to contest the purge.

The state had to partially settle with a civil rights group and restore suspected non-citizens to the rolls, but soon tried to re-start the purge just a month before the November presidential election with a drastically pared down list of 198 voters.

After all the legal battles and thousands of wasted taxpayer dollars, the state could not turn upvirtually any non-citizens who were registered to vote.

Florida voters, particularly in minority-heavy urban areas, suffered some of the longest lines and most chaotic elections in the country last year. The mayhem was largely created by Republican lawmakers’ efforts to suppress votes. Besides trying to purge voters, Republicans cut the number of early voting days in half, changed ballot length restrictions so they could add frivolous constitutional amendments to 12-page ballots, and restricted voter registration. These voter suppression efforts discouraged at least 201,000 Floridians from voting, and black and Latino voters waited nearly twice as long as white voters. The backlash was so fierce that even Gov. Rick Scott (R), the primary defender of these voter suppression laws, agreed to sign an election reform law undoing most of the damage.

Prominent Florida Republicans admitted shortly after the election that the motive behind all these election law changes was to make it harder for Democrats to vote.

North Carolina On Cusp Of Passing Worst Voter Suppression Bill In The Nation

By Scott Keyes/Think Progress

Voting in North Carolina may soon change, much in the same way a wrecking ball changes a building.

The highly-conservative North Carolina legislature just released a new voter suppression bill that would enact not just voter ID, but a host of other new initiatives designed to make it more difficult to vote. A significant roadblock to the legislation was removed last month when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, making it easier for states with a history of racial discrimination like North Carolina to enact new voter suppression laws.

The Senate will consider substituted language for HB 589 on Tuesday afternoon. Among the dozens of changes, these are the most onerous for North Carolina voters:

• Implementing a strict voter ID requirement that bars citizens who don’t have a proper photo ID from casting a ballot.
• Eliminating same-day voter registration, which allowed residents to register at the polls.
• Cutting early voting by a full week.
• Increasing the influence of money in elections by raising the maximum campaign contribution to $5,000 and increasing the limit every two years.
• Making it easier for voter suppression groups like True The Vote to challenge any voterwho they think may be ineligible by requiring that challengers simply be registered in the same county, rather than precinct, of those they challenge.
• Vastly increasing the number of “poll observers” and increasing what they’re permitted to do. In 2012, ThinkProgress caught the Romney campaign training such poll observers using highly misleading information.
• Only permitting citizens to vote in their specific precinct, rather than casting a ballot in any nearby ward or election district. This can lead to widespread confusion, particularly in urban areas where many precincts can often be housed in the same building.
• Barring young adults from pre-registering as 16- and 17-year-olds, which is permitted by current law, and repealing a state directive that high schools conduct voter registration drives in order to boost turnout among young voters.
• Prohibiting some types of paid voter registration drives, which tend to register poor and minority citizens.
• Dismantling three state public financing programs, including the landmark program that funded judicial elections.
• Weakening disclosure requirements for outside spending groups.
• Preventing counties from extending polling hours in the event of long lines or other extraordinary circumstances and making it more difficult for them to accommodate elderly or disabled voters with satellite polling sites at nursing homes, for instance.

Each of these changes, on their own, would be a significant step away from increasing voting rights. Taken together, this is the voter suppression magnum opus.

Republicans currently hold strong majorities in both legislative houses and control the governorship, leaving Democrats with little recourse to block HB 589. In the last few weeks, Republicans have passed conservative legislation on a range of issues, from a major anti-choice bill to tax cuts for the rich paid for by the poor.

If passed, HB 589 will almost certainly have a disastrous impact on voting in North Carolina. As Ari Berman notes, 56 percent of North Carolinians voted early in 2012, including a disproportionate number of minorities. In addition, more than 155,000 voters registered to vote at the polls last year. And with 10 percent of North Carolinians — 613,000 people, a third of whom are black and half of whom are registered Democrats — lacking photo ID, it doesn’t take Encyclopedia Brown to figure out which party will be helped by HB 589.

In December, the Center for American Progress released a report detailing 11 specific pieces of legislation state lawmakers could enact to strengthen voting rights. This North Carolina bill is what you would get if you looked at that report, then did the exact opposite.

North Carolina Prepares To Suppress Black Voters, Now That The Voting Rights Act Lost Its Teeth

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, North Carolina is moving forward with a host of bills to roll back voting rights. Republican lawmakers are accelerating a new agenda to eliminate early voting, Sunday voting hours, and same-day registration provisions. GOP leaders also vowed to move quickly to pass a controversial voter ID law that would make it much harder for minorities, seniors, students, and low-income voters to cast their ballots.

The court’s conservative majority decreed last Tuesday that the formula used to identify states with a history of using election law to discriminate against minorities has “no logical relationship to the present day.” Many of the covered jurisdictions celebrated the decision by promptlyadvancing voting restrictions that disproportionately target minorities and low-income voters. Texas enacted their previously blocked voter ID law mere hours after the ruling.

North Carolina’s newly unfettered attack on voting rights has three main prongs:

• Require ID at the polls. North Carolina’s voter ID bill could pose problems for 1 in 10 voters, according to an analysis by the State Board of Elections. About 613,000 North Carolinians lack the required government-issued ID. Nearly a third of these voters are black, while over half are registered Democrats.
• Penalize college students for voting. Republicans are also pushing a bill to raise taxes on families with college students who choose to vote at school rather than at home, effectively discouraging college students from voting.
• End early voting and same-day registration. Other states that restricted early voting, like Ohio and Florida, needlessly created mammoth lines on Election Day, forcing some voters to wait until 1 a.m. to cast a ballot. The backlash in Florida has been especially strong, prompting Gov. Rick Scott (R) to reverse his own voter suppression laws. In North Carolina, black voters make up 29 percent of early voters and 34 percent of voters who took advantage of same-day voter registration at the polls.

The Republican-dominated legislature and new Republican governor will likely do all they can to speed along these restrictions. However, polls show that North Carolinians overwhelmingly oppose these new voter suppression measures. “Moral Monday” protests are cropping up all over the state to challenge these bills and a slew of other draconian policies targeting the poor, women, minorities, and seniors.

Two Hours After The Supreme Court Gutted The Voting Rights Act, Texas AG Suppresses Minority Voters

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

Just two hours after the Supreme Court reasoned that discrimination is not rampant enough in Southern states towarrant restrictions under the Voting Rights Act, Texas is already advancing a voter ID law and a redistricting map blocked last year for discriminating against black and Latino residents. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott issued a statement declaring that both measures may go into effect immediately, now that there is no law stopping them from discriminating against minorities.

In 2012, the Justice Department blocked these measures under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Federal courts agreed that both the strict voter ID law and the redistricting map would disproportionately target the state’s fast-growing minority communities. Still, Texas filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court over the Voting Rights Act case complaining that the DOJ had used “abusive and heavy-handed tactics” to thwart the state’s attempts at voter suppression.

In the case of the new electoral map, a panel of federal judges found that “substantial surgery”was done to predominantly black districts, cutting off representatives’ offices from their strongest fundraising bases. Meanwhile, white Congress members’ districts were either preserved or “redrawn to include particular country clubs and, in one case, the school belonging to the incumbent’s grandchildren.” The new map was also drawn in secret by white Republican representatives, without notifying their black and Latino peers. After the court blocked the map, the legislature approved small changes to appease Democratic lawmakers last week. Now that they are free to use the old maps, however, Gov. Rick Perry (R) could simply veto the new plan and use the more discriminatory maps.

The strict photo ID requirement blocked by the DOJ and a federal court would require Texans to show one of a very narrow list of acceptable photo IDs. Expired gun licenses from other states are considered valid, but Social Security cards and student IDs are not. If voters do not have an ID — as many minorities, seniors, and poor people do not — they must travel at their own expense, produce their birth certificate, and in many cases pay a fee to get an ID.

Thanks to the Supreme Court, the DOJ no longer has any power to block these laws, even with the backing of federal judges who found blatant discrimination. Under the remaining sections of the Voting Rights Act, individuals may sue to kill these measures, but only after they have gone into effect and disenfranchised countless Texans of color.

According to the 2010 Census, non-Hispanic whites have become a minority in Texas, down from 52.4 percent to 45.3 percent of the population. Latinos have accounted for 65 percent of the state’s population growth over the past decade. Projections show that the eligible voter pool will shift to roughly 44 percent white voters and 37 percent Hispanic voters by 2025. Faced with this demographic reality, conservatives have alternated between changing their messaging to appeal to Latino voters, who overwhelmingly supported Democrats in 2012, and making it harder for them to vote.

It is only a matter of time before other states with voter ID laws and other election law changes blocked by the DOJ last year follow Texas’ example. Besides Texas, the attorney generals of Alabama, Arizona, South Dakota, and South Carolina argued that the Voting Rights Act was getting in the way of their ability to enact discriminatory laws.

UPDATE

North Carolina and Mississippi also plan to pass strict voter ID laws

Republican law would punish Ohio colleges for helping students vote

By David Ferguson/Raw Story

Republicans in the Ohio state legislature are promoting an amendment to a state budget bill that would punish public universities that provide students with the necessary materials to register to vote. According to Talking Points Memo, the legislators say that they are trying to resolve discrepancies between residency requirements for in-state tuition and voter registration. Democrats accuse the Republicans of attempting to disenfranchise another traditionally Democratic constituency in an important swing state.

“What the bill would do is penalize public universities for providing their students with the documents they need to vote,” said Ohio University professor and election law expert Daniel Tokaji to TPM. “It’s a transparent effort at vote suppression — about the most blatant and shameful we’ve seen in this state, which is saying quite a lot.”

To vote in Ohio elections, a person must be a resident of the state for at least 30 days prior to the election in which they intend to vote. To register to vote, they must present a photo ID, a current utility bill, bank statement, current government check or other government document (besides voter registration acknowledgment) that bears their name and address.

Students living in on-campus housing may not have some of the above items, so universities in Ohio typically supply necessary documents to students wishing to register to vote.

However, for students to qualify for in-state tuition at public universities in the state, they must have attended an Ohio school or have a parent or spouse who lives in the state prior to enrollment.

Republicans say this is a double standard, and the new law would force colleges and universities to charge in-state tuition to students it helps to vote.

“The amendment has the purpose of getting a discussion going on sort of the mismatch that exists in Ohio, where we have one requirement for when a student becomes in-state for tuition purposes and another requirement for voting,” Republican state Rep. Ron Amstutz told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Losing out-of-state tuition would cost state colleges and universities an estimated $272 million. The institutions say they intend to continue to distribute the materials, however.

Democratic Ohio Senate Minority Leader Eric Kearney told the Enquirer that Republicans’ real intent is to nullify an important constituency which helped President Barack Obama carry Ohio in the 2008 election against former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA).

“They’re somehow trying to thwart the strategy that worked to elect President Obama,” he told the newspaper.

Tokaji warned that the strategy could backfire.

“The way that they’ve written this bill makes it clear that its only purpose is to suppress student voting,” he told TPM. “What I’d say to the Republican Party is this is not only a shameful strategy, but it’s a stupid strategy because, you know, the Republican Party already has a signifcant problem with young voters. They’re on the verge of losing a generation of voters. Their path to victory is not to suppress the student vote, but to win the student vote.”

Ohio Republicans and the state’s Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted ran afoul of the Department of Justice in 2012 when they tried to do away with early voting in the November election. Early voting has historically been an important resource for hourly workers and other people who can’t get to the polls on Election Day.

By eliminating voting, Husted and the Republicans hoped to dilute the African-American vote, an intention made explicit when Franklin County, Ohio Republican Party Chairperson Doug Priessetold the Columbus Dispatch, “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine. Let’s be fair and reasonable.”

Ohio GOP's new voter suppression campaign

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Undeterred By Court Order, Iowa Official Tries Again To Push Through Voter Purge

By Nicole Flatow/Think Progress

When Secretary of State Matt Schultz attempted to purge voters from the rolls in advance of the November 2012 election, a county judgetemporarily blocked the move, finding that the rules issued by Schultz created fear and uncertainty and could deter legitimate voters. But that risk of voter suppression hasn’t stopped Schultz from proposing a new slightly tweaked rule to remove registered voters in the name of alleged voter fraud.

The rule would allow Schultz’s office to challenge the legitimacy of registered voters who are listed as noncitizens in the Department of Transportation database. Citing a DOT list of some 3,000 registered voters labeled noncitizens, Schultz said, “I have to do something. I can’t just sit back and do nothing when we know people are taking advantage of the system.”

But Schultz’s testimony just last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee shows that he doesn’t know people are taking advantage of the system. When probed by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) for evidence of voter fraud, Schultz cited just six arrests — not convictions – out of 1.6 million votes cast. And this was after a special agent was designated to specifically target voter fraud.

As for the list of 3,000 people, that claim was easily dismissed by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund’s Nina Perales during the same hearing:

Secretary Schultz … said he had identified 3,500 noncitizens using the driver’s license rolls. He did not. He identified 3,500 people who were noncitizens at the time that they obtained their driver’s licenses. And we know that since that time and before they registered to vote, the overwhelming majority and perhaps all of them have become naturalized citizens. So at this point, anyone who undertakes to accuse people of non-citizenship based on driver’s licenses should be on notice that this is not correct and should not be done. It’s fundamentally unfair.

Attempts to prove voter fraud nationwide have fallen similarly short, with less than 20 instances of fraud charges offered in most states. Florida GOP officials have even publiclyadmitted voter suppression was the goal of that state’s aggressive and inaccurate purge.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are also arguing that Schultz cannot implement a purge without going through the state legislature. The ruling that blocked Schultz’s last attempt said that, at the very least, Schultz should have gone through the proper rulemaking procedure that allows for public input instead of going forward on his own. Schultz is now going through that procedure, but the court could still hold this process insufficient.