P R O P O S A L
Fight Back Against Conservative State Legislation to Suppress the Vote
Since the 2010 elections swept Republicans into the State houses and Legislatures across the country, a concerted effort has been pushed to cement the electoral gains achieved by the recent elections. One way that the state legislatures are protecting their fiefdoms is to limit the ability of people who normally vote for liberals (usually, the poor, students, minorities). This firewall against voting rights comes to us primarily through the form of voter identification laws requiring all people to have local, state photo identification cards to allow them access to the voting booth. New voter identification laws have been recently passed in Idaho, Kansas, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, Rhode Island and Hawaii. These laws have been passed under the guise of “preventing voter fraud”. This is a specious claim, at best, as occasions of accusation of voter fraud are limited to no more than 1% of voting day activity. After further review of the accusations, almost none of them have any substantive grounds. This is purely a ploy to suppress the vote.
Another hurdle
There are many anecdotal instances of people trying to comply with the new laws and being told that they need one more piece of identification before they can obtain their ID. One 86 year old woman, trying to follow the rules brought her birth certificate, her utility bill (to prove residency), a copy of her tax return to the registrar’s office. However, she went by her married name. Even though she outlived 2 husbands, she could not find her marriage certificate and as such, she was denied her voter ID card. Out of state students will be denied access to the voting booth because they do not carry local ID’s. People who recently re-located for a job to a new state will be denied access because they have not updated their driver’s licenses. In South Carolina alone, over 200,000 people will potentially be removed from the voter rolls because they do not carry photo identification. The state has offered to give people rides to the local registrars, but only 22, 22 have taken advantage of the service.
Need
People are being denied their right to have a voice in their democracy. Hurdles like these voter ID laws are tantamount to a poll tax and while many of them will not withstand judicial review, it is clear that the 2012 elections will be run under these laws because right now, no one has been dis-enfranchised as a result of the new requirements. People will need education about the new requirements and assistance in meeting the needs of truly un-just laws because time is not on the voters’ side.
Proposal
We propose to work with public service agencies and local colleges to reach out to the potentially dis-enfranchised and comply with the laws so that voices will not be silenced. We will provide outlines of the local state requirements detailing documentation needs for compliance with the new regulations to ensure that the ploy of attempting to turn people away at the voting booth blows up in the face of the politicians trying to establish a bought and paid for noble class. Our implementation approach for outreach will include the following:
Reaching out to Senior Citizens
1. Utilize services of Seniors’ organizations such as AARP to get out the information about the new requirements
2. Bulk mailing to all persons on the voting rolls, where available, to advise them of the new law changes
3. Cross-reference voter rolls against DMV records to preliminarily identify persons who may not have driver’s licenses
4. Utilize local volunteers (college students, etc.) to manage phone banks and operate a door to door campaign to reach out to seniors to compile the information needed to obtain the new ID cards
5. Utilize local volunteers, churches and senior service organizations and community centers to provide transportation to locations to obtain ID cards
6. Coordinate with the state government, when possible, to bring local authorities to community locations to generate large numbers of ID cards for registrants
Reaching out to the Community at Large
1. Utilize services of community organizations such as churches, local media to get out the information about the new requirements
2. Bulk mailing to all persons on the voting rolls, where available, to advise them of the new law changes
3. Cross-reference voter rolls against DMV records to preliminarily identify persons who may not have driver’s licenses
4. Utilize local volunteers (college students, etc.) to manage phone banks and operate a door to door campaign to reach out to people to compile the information needed to obtain the new ID cards
5. Utilize local volunteers, churches and other service organizations and community centers to provide transportation to locations to obtain ID cards
6. Coordinate with the state government, when possible, to bring local authorities to community locations to generate large numbers of ID cards for registrants
Reaching out to College Students
1. Utilize services of college media and community message boards to get out the information about the new requirements
2. Utilize local volunteers (college students, etc.) to manage phone banks and operate a door to door campaign to reach out to people to compile the information needed to obtain the new ID cards
3. Utilize local volunteers, churches and other service organizations and community centers to provide transportation to locations to obtain ID cards
4. Coordinate with the state government, when possible, to bring local authorities to college locations to generate large numbers of ID cards for registrants
Financial Needs
This outreach will require substantial financial resources to cover the costs of mailings, transportation, media access and volunteer support. We will seek crowd funding and also small grants from interested organizations. THIS PROGRAM MUST NOT AND WILL NOT ASSOCIATE ITSELF WITH ANY POLITICAL PARTY. WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET BUY IN FROM PEOPLE WE ARE TRYING TO HELP IF WE SAY THAT WE SUPPORT ANYTHING OTHER THAN PEOPLE HAVING A VOICE IN THEIR COMMUNITY. Although we are assisting people, we are asking folks to jump through hoops that are new; a requirement that is being thrust upon them purely because of who they are. If people think something is in it for us, we will get no buy in.
Program Roll Out
The general election is 13 months from now. We expect to complete registrations before Labor Day 2012. Our program implementation schedule looks as follows:
December 2011 – Complete summarization of local law changes
January 2012 – Engage local Colleges and Universities for student participation
May 2012 – Begin Community marketing and outreach
June – September 2012 – Complete voter re-registration efforts
