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Published on Monday, November 10, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
The Disenfranchisement of My Daughter
Growing up in Mississippi and North Carolina in the late 1950s and early
1960s, I have vivid memories of African-Americans hoping to participate
in their first election being turned away at the polls, denied their most
basic right to vote.
Little did I know that near fifty years later, in 2008, my daughter would similarly be prevented from voting.
Her entire adolescence has been under the shadow of the Iraq War, just as my youth had been under the shadow of the Vietnam War. (See my article: A Letter to my Daughter: We Tried to Stop This War.) Rather than becoming angry and cynical, however, Kalila threw her youthful idealism into the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, who opposed the invasion, called for change and promised hope for a better future. She spent countless hours making phone calls, volunteering at campaign offices, and even skipped a couple of days of classes at her California high school in January in order to travel to Nevada to campaign for Obama in the caucuses.
Though I had volunteered in the presidential campaign of George McGovern in 1972, I was too young to vote that year and subsequent Democratic nominees have failed to inspire me. As a result, I was quite pleased that my daughter would be able to cast her first vote for someone she actually believed in.
Moving to the Midwest to enter college in August, Kalila again became involved with the Obama campaign in the run-up to the general election. Now living in the swing state of Indiana, she decided to register to vote there.
It was not that easy, however.
Earlham College is located on the western edge of Richmond, a small rust-belt city near the Ohio border. The lack of adequate public transportation made it difficult for her to get downtown to the Wayne County Courthouse to register. She discovered that in order to register by mail, she needed to provide a utility bill for proof of residence, which was not available for those living in college dormitories. She had heard stories that at Earlham and a number of the other private liberal arts colleges located in Republican-dominated counties in Ohio and Indiana, registration cards collected on campuses had sometimes mysteriously disappeared. So, she decided to register at the nearby Townsend Community Center, where she volunteers once a week in the America Reads program.
Delighted with the fact that she was turning 18 less than a month prior to the election, Kalila had been anticipating her first vote with unbridled enthusiasm. You can imagine my shock when she called home in tears early Tuesday morning saying that she had gone down to her precinct and had not been allowed to vote, having been told there was no record of her registration.
I immediately got on the phone, making a series of calls to try to rectify the situation, with the kind of passion and determination which can only come from a father whose beloved daughter has been wronged. I was able to make little headway, however. The voter suppression hotlines were jammed and the Indiana Democratic Party headquarters was not particularly helpful either, as all the numbers they suggested I call either went unanswered or connected me to voice mailboxes that were full.
As I should have realized, however, Kalila was hard at work herself. Missing her classes that day, she went by the county clerk’s office, normally open from 9:00 to 5:00 on weekdays, only to find it inexplicably closed. At one point, she returned to her precinct requesting a provisional ballot, but she was refused. She sought help from the Obama campaign office and from lawyers they had on call. (During breaks in this arduous process, she worked the phones at the office to help get out the vote in Indiana and Ohio.)
Eventually, with two attorneys in tow, she returned to her precinct a third time and again demanded a provisional ballot. Finally, she was allowed to cast her vote. Given that all the races were decided by a bigger margin than the number of provisional ballots, however, they will presumably be thrown out and her first votes will never be tallied.
Because of the decisive margin of Obama’s victory, little attention has been paid to the widespread voter suppression which took place across the country this election. Kalila told me about other Earlham students registered in Richmond who were also turned away at the polls and classmates registered in their home states whose absentee ballots arrived too late. A number of longtime city residents who also registered at the Townsend Center, which primarily serves Richmond’s African-American community, were turned away as well.
There have been countless stories across the country of missing registrations, malfunctioning voting machines, polls opening late, insufficient numbers of ballots or voting machines, voter harassment and other issues, almost all of which took place in predominantly Democratic precincts. And I can’t help but think about all the people who didn’t have Kalila’s knowledge, resources, persistence and spunk to successfully demand at least a provisional ballot.
Yes, Obama ended up winning in Indiana and the rest of the country. But there will be future presidential elections that will be a lot closer. And, as I am writing this, important Senate races in Minnesota, Georgia and Alaska are so tight that the winners have yet to be finalized.
As a native Southerner, I recognize more than most the importance of defending the right to vote. I remember people dying for that right. Had she been a college student in 1964, Kalila would have likely been among the hundreds of young idealists who took part in Mississippi Summer and other voter registration drives of that period.
Yet defending the right to vote is more than just principle. It is also smart politics. Indeed, it is one of the most important issues there is. For if voter turnout in the United States was as high and as representative of the overall population as it is in almost every other industrialized democracy, the politics of this country would be very different.
Not only would the presidency of George W. Bush and its ensuing disasters have never taken place, Congress and most state and local governments would be far more progressive than they are now. Americans not voting under the current system tend to be disproportionately young, minority or poor, the very constituencies which tend to vote towards the left.
It is time to question why people need to go through the cumbersome process of registering to vote ahead of time. Almost every other country with democratic elections allows for same-day registration. This would dramatically increase overall turnout and would make it impossible to prevent people like Kalila from voting because of supposed missing registration forms.
President-elect Obama is a former community organizer, who for a time directed Project Vote! in South Chicago. That experience taught him that the way the Democratic Party can win elections is not just through fighting for the small number of swing voters in the middle, but by expanding the party’s base through increased voter registration and turnout. It was this formula which helped provide him with his impressive victory on Tuesday.
As a result, we will soon have a president who is more sympathetic to overhauling the electoral system to make sure that it works and that it is more representative. Having a larger and more inclusive electorate will result in a substantially higher number of progressive office holders, thereby making our work on virtually every other policy issue easier. We must therefore take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity and make this a political priority in the coming months, for the sake of my daughter and for everyone who still has faith in this country and wishes to exercise their right to vote.
Little did I know that near fifty years later, in 2008, my daughter would similarly be prevented from voting.
Her entire adolescence has been under the shadow of the Iraq War, just as my youth had been under the shadow of the Vietnam War. (See my article: A Letter to my Daughter: We Tried to Stop This War.) Rather than becoming angry and cynical, however, Kalila threw her youthful idealism into the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, who opposed the invasion, called for change and promised hope for a better future. She spent countless hours making phone calls, volunteering at campaign offices, and even skipped a couple of days of classes at her California high school in January in order to travel to Nevada to campaign for Obama in the caucuses.
Though I had volunteered in the presidential campaign of George McGovern in 1972, I was too young to vote that year and subsequent Democratic nominees have failed to inspire me. As a result, I was quite pleased that my daughter would be able to cast her first vote for someone she actually believed in.
Moving to the Midwest to enter college in August, Kalila again became involved with the Obama campaign in the run-up to the general election. Now living in the swing state of Indiana, she decided to register to vote there.
It was not that easy, however.
Earlham College is located on the western edge of Richmond, a small rust-belt city near the Ohio border. The lack of adequate public transportation made it difficult for her to get downtown to the Wayne County Courthouse to register. She discovered that in order to register by mail, she needed to provide a utility bill for proof of residence, which was not available for those living in college dormitories. She had heard stories that at Earlham and a number of the other private liberal arts colleges located in Republican-dominated counties in Ohio and Indiana, registration cards collected on campuses had sometimes mysteriously disappeared. So, she decided to register at the nearby Townsend Community Center, where she volunteers once a week in the America Reads program.
Delighted with the fact that she was turning 18 less than a month prior to the election, Kalila had been anticipating her first vote with unbridled enthusiasm. You can imagine my shock when she called home in tears early Tuesday morning saying that she had gone down to her precinct and had not been allowed to vote, having been told there was no record of her registration.
I immediately got on the phone, making a series of calls to try to rectify the situation, with the kind of passion and determination which can only come from a father whose beloved daughter has been wronged. I was able to make little headway, however. The voter suppression hotlines were jammed and the Indiana Democratic Party headquarters was not particularly helpful either, as all the numbers they suggested I call either went unanswered or connected me to voice mailboxes that were full.
As I should have realized, however, Kalila was hard at work herself. Missing her classes that day, she went by the county clerk’s office, normally open from 9:00 to 5:00 on weekdays, only to find it inexplicably closed. At one point, she returned to her precinct requesting a provisional ballot, but she was refused. She sought help from the Obama campaign office and from lawyers they had on call. (During breaks in this arduous process, she worked the phones at the office to help get out the vote in Indiana and Ohio.)
Eventually, with two attorneys in tow, she returned to her precinct a third time and again demanded a provisional ballot. Finally, she was allowed to cast her vote. Given that all the races were decided by a bigger margin than the number of provisional ballots, however, they will presumably be thrown out and her first votes will never be tallied.
Because of the decisive margin of Obama’s victory, little attention has been paid to the widespread voter suppression which took place across the country this election. Kalila told me about other Earlham students registered in Richmond who were also turned away at the polls and classmates registered in their home states whose absentee ballots arrived too late. A number of longtime city residents who also registered at the Townsend Center, which primarily serves Richmond’s African-American community, were turned away as well.
There have been countless stories across the country of missing registrations, malfunctioning voting machines, polls opening late, insufficient numbers of ballots or voting machines, voter harassment and other issues, almost all of which took place in predominantly Democratic precincts. And I can’t help but think about all the people who didn’t have Kalila’s knowledge, resources, persistence and spunk to successfully demand at least a provisional ballot.
Yes, Obama ended up winning in Indiana and the rest of the country. But there will be future presidential elections that will be a lot closer. And, as I am writing this, important Senate races in Minnesota, Georgia and Alaska are so tight that the winners have yet to be finalized.
As a native Southerner, I recognize more than most the importance of defending the right to vote. I remember people dying for that right. Had she been a college student in 1964, Kalila would have likely been among the hundreds of young idealists who took part in Mississippi Summer and other voter registration drives of that period.
Yet defending the right to vote is more than just principle. It is also smart politics. Indeed, it is one of the most important issues there is. For if voter turnout in the United States was as high and as representative of the overall population as it is in almost every other industrialized democracy, the politics of this country would be very different.
Not only would the presidency of George W. Bush and its ensuing disasters have never taken place, Congress and most state and local governments would be far more progressive than they are now. Americans not voting under the current system tend to be disproportionately young, minority or poor, the very constituencies which tend to vote towards the left.
It is time to question why people need to go through the cumbersome process of registering to vote ahead of time. Almost every other country with democratic elections allows for same-day registration. This would dramatically increase overall turnout and would make it impossible to prevent people like Kalila from voting because of supposed missing registration forms.
President-elect Obama is a former community organizer, who for a time directed Project Vote! in South Chicago. That experience taught him that the way the Democratic Party can win elections is not just through fighting for the small number of swing voters in the middle, but by expanding the party’s base through increased voter registration and turnout. It was this formula which helped provide him with his impressive victory on Tuesday.
As a result, we will soon have a president who is more sympathetic to overhauling the electoral system to make sure that it works and that it is more representative. Having a larger and more inclusive electorate will result in a substantially higher number of progressive office holders, thereby making our work on virtually every other policy issue easier. We must therefore take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity and make this a political priority in the coming months, for the sake of my daughter and for everyone who still has faith in this country and wishes to exercise their right to vote.
- Posted in
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28 Comments so far
Show AllFirst I commend Kalila for her perseverance !
In 2004, 121.8 million people went to vote, but only 113.9 votes were cast for President. (Election Data Service Analysis of 2004 Election)
Howard Dean knew of the problem and had promised paper ballot receipts for electronic machines and the paper ballots would be counted to verify the electronic vote. If there were a different count for each, the paper ballot would be the official count. He had no solution for the "Suppresion of the vote".
It is easy to solve, Universal Registration of all voters by Social Security Number. When you go to vote: you submit your number, the clerk types it in, the Social Security System sends back your name, age, and last known residence and you show your state id or driver´s license.
There were millions of votes not cast and millions of people who never got to vote this year.
If true, Who would have voted for a woman who did not know that Africa was a continent and did not know what the role of the Vice President was.
Send your Article to: Howard Dean, Your Senators, Representative, and Kalila`s.
>>Universal Registration of all voters by Social Security Number<<
Goose
Not going to work because SSNs are given out to citizens and non citizens alike. However the idea in principle has merit. There should be some auto registration for citizens or multiple ways to register that use the SSN once you provide proof of citizenship. Maybe everyone needs to get a passport? This crap that Kalila ran into has to end.
There's something to be said for all residents being allowed to vote, whether they have been declared citizens or not. This would give ultimate authority to the people here, as opposed to the government which might deny the citizenship of a minority to throw an election, while declaring to be citizens those who would support such a government. Who is the government to say whether your get to vote or not?
Brian
.While there are certainly noncitizens holding false Social Security cards, it is wrong to say that they are given out to non-citizens. What those folks get is something else indeed. A D1B if memory serves.....
I simply cannot believe that a nation as advanced as ours cannot make a universal voting method available. If they wanted us all to vote they might make it a bit easier, they could actually have voting on weekends or holidays, or make election day a holiday as some nations do. A part of the problem is that each state is in charge of its own methodologies and thus its own partisanship holds sway.
While I am not unaware of the furor about state rights, this seems more about partisan politics subverting federal laws. We have laws against denying rights yet allow denying one the right to vote because they may belong to one party or the other?
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
The vital thing now is to build on the momentum & the new enthusiasm people feel for their country -- we are no longer internal exiles, as a co-worker said -- and prosecute vote suppression criminals & make it easy both to register & to vote.
I was sure that Obama was nearer the upper end of the polls than the narrower end -- and those missing millions would have provided a 10%-11% margin rather than the 6%-7% popular vote.
So, as the disenfranchised daughter in the story, I feel like I should add a few more details. First of all, unlike a lot of college students in Indiana who were turned away at the polls, I knew the strict IN rules about having an Indiana- or federal-issued ID, and had brought my passport from home. So I was definitely prepared.
Also, besides calling friends in the Obama campaign, lawyers, hotlines, and media outlets, I also called Townsend itself to check about what happened. The person there told me something about how she'd "assumed" the stack of papers had gone to the courthouse. I will see her tomorrow for work and hopefully figure out more what happened, but I can't believe a person in charge would "assume" anything when it comes to making sure eligible voters are registered.
And finally, my provisional ballot won't just be counted because there was a wide enough margin that it's not necessary, but because the lawyer explicitly said that I must somehow manage to find my registration in the system in order for my vote to count (he suggested that perhaps my name was misspelled or something.. but they looked up my birth date too and found nothing. They searched the entire state of Indiana. My registration form was not processed). The oh so lovely inspector at the polling place was even more certain it wouldn't be counted, going on about how there was no point and it was just going to be thrown out (after three trips to the polling place, trying to get him to let me vote, he was quite irritated with me). I filled out my provisional ballot alongside another Earlham student, who apparently had registered online but was nowhere in the system either.
Oh, and on the subject of disenfranchisement based on race (Townsend serving the African-American community), my first name does happen to be Arabic. While I highly doubt that fact is relevant, it is something to consider.
kalila820 November 10th, 2008 2:00 pm
Sorry to hear what happened to you and congratulations on your determination to stand up for your rights. To me it is unconscionable that we are still having voting problems 8 years after the fiasco in Florida in 2000.
Lobo Gris
The whole range of electoral reform issues needs to come front and center now that there is the good will and good faith (maybe?) to work on it. Let's start with the electoral college mechanism that allowed the last 8 years of hell to take place.
My country has not landed anybody on the moon. Nor has any other European country.
But quite apart from this absurd spectacle of having to register to vote - we are registered automatically once we've reached the age in Europe and receive a letter to tell us where to vote:
Are you aware of the fact that it is HIGHLY UNUSUAL in a western democracy to even have lines in front of a polling station? And the average turnout in Europe is still 10-20% higher than it was last Tuesday in the US, mind you!!
Why? Because there are enough polling stations!! And every polling station has several rooms, and every room only deals with a few hundred voters. THAT's the difference!
If the US election had been as tight as in 2000 and 2004, also those who couldn't wait for all these hours would have been lost votes and would have been disenfrachized by attrition.
CNN reported 5-7 hours of waiting in some precincts in Virginia!! And they showed on a map where irregularities or long waits had been reported, funnily enough mostly in swing states. And irregularities ALWAYS benefit the GOP.
If it were Italy, nobody would believe in bad organization. I don't either in the case of America.
Since Americans never watch other countries' elections on TV unless it is some Third World place which finally has elections because of US efforts and then they show the long lines: Please notice that IT IS NOT NORMAL TO HAVE TO WAIT FOR MORE THAN FIVE OR TEN MINUTES TO CAST A VOTE IN COMPARABLE COUNTRIES!! ONLY IN THE THIRD WORLD do they even have to wait.
Everything else is obstruction and needs to be addressed urgently.
Because the GOP might have succeeded a third time with their tactics, and had there not been the financial meltdown, they would have.
spinwing
So much for American 'exceptionalism' Pure "BS". Could not organise a bun fight in a bakery.
I am with you on this one, Araquin.
Few, as in probably nil, Americans would have noticed that their largest neighbour and largest energy supplier, Canada, called and held a Federal General Election in October. Takes all of thirty-five days.
Last year, November 2007, my wife and I moved into a newly built home. This year, in September in the mail, we each got, a 'You Vote' card telling us exactly where to vote and what our poll number was. Mid-morning, about 10:00 on Election Day we walked a little over two blocks to the local elementary (primary) school. It was a good thing that there were signs up because there cetainly was not a line. Went into the school auditorium where we were greeted by a poll worker. She directed us to our poll, one of three in the auditorium. When we arrived at the desk, there was nobody in front of us; nada, zilch, nil. We showed our drivers' licences, to confirm our addresses, match to the voters list and were handed PAPER ballots. We each went behind a screen, marked our ballots and returned them to the poll clerk. She checked that the ballots returned was the one that we were given and we then put our ballots in the box. Nice walk; home in about twenty-five minutes.
Our voting record was updated from our tax returns. This is not difficult. Had we not been on the list there were several options none of which were particularly difficult to fulfill.
Now can an American explain to a simple Canadian what is so *&%^#$%*( difficult.
US citizens, please look away! Close your eyes!
spinwing: In Europe, I've always described Canadians as "Americans with brains"..
Thanks for posting this - its really important that USers get some perspective on this.
araquin,
Thanks for your observations.
A lot of aspects of the US electoral system - from it's arcane registration requirements to the selection of a Tuesday in chilly November as election day, seem to be deliberately calculated to suppress working class voter turnout.
Then there are those ridiculous voting machines - both mechanical and electronic. The "Sequoia voting systems" machines which were mandated by the incredibly corrupt poor-voter suppression bill called the "Help America Vote Act" have a ridiculous and completely illogical two-step process where even after pressing a red flashing "vote" button accompanied by audible beeping, you are stil not finished - you then have to touch a small "verify vote" square that appears on the touch-screen. I'm sure countless voters don't notice this step and walk away without the votes registering.
And most states have rigorous and byzantine and unfair rules imposed on all candidates EXCEPT Democrats and Republicans getting on the ballot.
Like I wrote, it is all calculated to keep the riff-raff out of voting - as the "founding fathers" desired.
The mandate on this election was too large for voter suppression to change. One of the things we need in the next 2 years before 2010 is some national guidelines on voter registration and a process limiting the ability of the states to disenfranchise you without notice.
Kalila, Thank you for your brave and determined efforts to have your vote count. For you, and for all of the others who have faced this disgraceful effort to suppress your votes, surely, a class action lawsuit would be an avenue to follow. Can we get the ACLU involved in EVERY state? They are working on similar issues in other states. Why not Indiana?
Stephen, thank you for sharing her story.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy," James Madison
Interesting comments.
But this election is a good reminder for all of us here in the USA and our friends all around the world.Our votes really count.
The American peoples resolve should never be underestimated , whether it is on the battlefield or marking a ballot.
We stood in lines for hours , we wanted to show the GOP and the world that America is not center right, we are center left.
That in elections of the past the GOP was able to steal elections,but not this year, not this time, and not any time soon in the near future.
We the People will not let the GOP keep the country they hijacked. Its our country, and we are going to take it back using intelligence and real facts.
Separation of church and state have never been more important, for the crusading militant right will have us at each other throats and war for the next hundred years if we the people allow it.
Save the Constitution. Repeal the Patriot Acts, and fire all the warrant less spies.
BornFreeMen
It is not always fortunate that people can get to vote or even have their votes counted for. What's missing in this article is what about the governments on the local and state levels? Why aren't they doing their part in getting the voting straight? You cannot count on just the president to fix these voting problems just like that. People need to pay more attention to their local elections and for a change increase participation and try turning out progressive and liberal pols regardless of what party they're in. In most local elections across the country, voter turnout is at abysmal levels as low as even 5% ! That alone speaks volumes about voter apathy and why big corporations are able to rig the system for their own benefits. The more people pay attention to their local elections in more precincts across the board nationwide, the less likely voters will run into voter disenfranchisement and the less powerful and the less money the current monied elites will have against us.
With the histories of 2000 and 2004 fresh in our minds, it's time for Congress to pass a new Voting Rights Act with stiff penalties for individuals and organizations who attempt to subvert the democratic process. Low-rent thugs like Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris should no longer have the opportunity to disenfranchise law-abiding Americans with their new, more subtle Jim Crow maneuvers.
Alex
I wouldn't count on Congress to even try. We need to take this up on the local and state levels. Like other states, the turnout for local and state elections is abysmally low. Had that not been the case, FL would not be stuck with Jeb and Kathy to begin with.
P.S.: Back in my state of NE, after Obama won one of the electoral votes from the 2nd district that includes Omaha, the state GOP are hell bent on switching it back to winner take all. Don't expect Washington to intervene here either. I'm going back to getting non-partisan pols in my area to wipe out the Rethuglicans on the state level. That's how we're going to fight for better elections.
Perhaps the distribution of federal funds to states should depend not on population or other factors, but on the number of registered voters.
Brilliant. We could also save a lot of federal money by abolishing the Senate, and having the House alone as the legislative branch.
maybe at election time, each state would have, say $1 million, set aside for them and they would then receive the percentage of that equal to voter turnout.
A friend of mine has a daughter who is "mildly retarded", and one of the sweetest most loving and caring individuals I have ever known. She has had an independent mind and always wanted to "do it herself". Her mother (my friend) supported her every move to independence and I helped her as did many others who know her.
She worked two jobs at "chain restaurants" to save money to buy her own car. She did not notify me or anyone else but made the arrangements to buy a car from one of the customers at one of her jobs.
After the purchase, and the "transfer of title" she called me first (her "favorite Uncle"-- although we are not related) and I immediately saw a potential problem. We worked through the process going backwards and found out that her "car" was a stolen vehicle that had been "lost" for over ten years. She was forced to surrender the car and lost all of her money--including the 'taxes' and registration. Since then we have made other arrangements for her to have her own car, but the story is "pointed".
The "point"----if a mentally challenged person is forced to return a stolen car----one she did not steal, but purchased, what should be expected of those who have stolen an entire continent-----in particular the USA.
Perhaps the reason why the USA has had so many problems in its history----even though they claim to be the pinnacle of success, and everyone wants to get here---some even bad enough to break laws---or swim shark infested waters ----to do so; is that the USA has a cloudy title to their land, and need to make things "good"----or they are doomed to failure..............
The USA can put human being into space---but can't seem to clean up their society, or even their election process.
I lost respect for the USA long ago----now it seems the rest of the world is finally reaching that point.
Hey, that means I could be considered a "world leader"--------
Hey America, clean up your act----soon----or the world will do it for you, after they lock many of you up in very large prisons, and then execute the other international criminals you harbor, nurture, and elect to high office.
The world is laughing at you even as this is being written.
For Mr. Zunes daughter---she is one of a very large number of people who are 'disenfranchised'-------------but wait she's a college student so her "disenfranchisement" is most likely "short term"------the real question might be----what is SHE going to do to change things for others, once she (her generation )is in power?
Nebraska Nathan has earlier pointed out the need to get back to the local and even state elections. If more people would take their elections closer to home more seriously and push hard and harder for local/regional/statewide reform, disenfranchisement would be far less frequent. The problem in our country is that too many delude themselves into believing that everything's disposable and can be purchased again thereby dragged good people into the mess. This dog-eat-dog mentality has to stop and there too, this needs to be tackled on local levels on up.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
I want to break the legs of the guy who sold the girl the car and made off with the money. The injustice hangs in the air. And you are right, that we learned to tolerate land theft, genocide and slavery has tainted our responses.
Joe
We all know that the Republican party is the primary beneficiary of voter suppression. One of the first things the Democratic Congress and President Obama should do is demand uniform registration and voting standards across all 50 states. People should be able to register to vote with any state or federal ID and a thumbprint. The idea the we can't organize voter registration when we can give every 13-year-old that wants one a unique cell phone is ludicrous.
It's time to empty the prisons of petty drug criminals and fill them with GOP'ers who take away people's voting rights and the financial criminals of Wall Street.
Fighting the forces of rather dim lighting wherever they may be found!!
Canada is not as good as elections now as it was. About 10 years ago, every house was called on and voters were registered. Now I believe it is done by information from income tax returns, although I don’t know how they know who is a citizen or not. Yes we received a voter card with our address and name on it. If you didn’t get one in the mail you were told where to register. Lots of ads in the papers. However the voter card was not to be your ID. Instead as the previous poster said you needed some picture ID. Some people took their passports, but although your address is on the passport, you (the passport holder) has written it in – so that doesn’t work. A bill addressed to your house is also needed. As the student said, some people don’t have bills sent to their address, and some don’t have driver’s licence. So poor people, and senior citizens living in care homes were unable to vote. Seniors who had voted in many elections were turned away.
All this because somebody thought there was voter fraud and parliament voted for a change, even though in many years there had only been four cases of voter fraud.
So Canada is taking a lesson from the United States- making it harder to vote.
Almost 90 Million US citizens of voting age didn't vote in this election. Imagine how wiped-out already over-worked voting sites would be if most who could vote did.