September, 16 2008, 12:06pm EDT
VA's Voter Registration Policy Could Block Thousands of Veterans from Voting in 2008
Advocates Call for Passage of Feinstein and Kerry’s “Veterans Voting Support Act”
NEW YORK
In response to
the Department of Veterans Affairs' decision to modify its policy
barring voter registration activity in VA facilities, today the American
Association of People with Disabilities, the Brennan Center for Justice,
Common Cause, Demos and the League of Women Voters submitted
a letter to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein calling the
VA's directive an important but still inadequate step towards
protecting the voting rights of veterans.
The two-page letter declares
that the VA's policy will still greatly hinder veterans attempting
to register and vote in the 2008 election and that swift passage of the
Veterans Voting Support Act (S. 3308) is necessary ensure that the
nation's 25 million veterans are able to vote this
November.
"The Department of
Veterans Affairs' latest directive, which modifies its misguided
policy barring voter registration activities in VA facilities, still
does not solve the fundamental problem," said Wendy Weiser,
Director of Voting Rights and Elections at the
Brennan Center for
Justice.
"Only the prompt passage
of the Veterans Voting Support Act will make sure that the millions of
men and women served by the VA have a fair opportunity to register and
vote this fall," stated Mary G. Wilson, president of the League of
Women Voters.
The letter lists four reasons
why the VA's recent directive will not be sufficient to protect
the voting rights of veterans served by the VA:
- First, the directive
imposes no affirmative obligation on VA facilities and agencies to
register veterans. The directive requires only that each VA facility
must adopt "a written published policy on voter assistance"
and that information on registering and voting must be posted throughoutVA facilities; it does not obligate VA facilities to actively register
voters. S. 3308 would remedy this deficiencyby authorizing VA facilities to be designated as voter registration
agencies under the National Voter Registration Act, or "motor
voter" law. - Second, the VA's
directive makes voter registration services available only to patients
residing in VA facilities, and not to veterans availing themselves of VAservices on an out-patient basis or otherwise obtaining services from
the VA. All veterans served by VA facilitiesshould be permitted to avail themselves of voter registration services
on the same basis as in-patients. - Third, under the
VA's directive it is unclear whether and to what extent outside
groups - which are responsible for millions of voter registrationsevery election - will actually be permitted to conduct voter
registration activities. The directive
provides that "[a]ny request by an outside organization to
facilitate voter registration on VA property is [to be] forwarded to
local Regional Counsel for review." And, although the directive calls on facility directors to
establish "[c]riteria for evaluating the time, place, and manner
of voter registration and voter assistance activities," the
absence of any substantive guidelines creates a risk that voter
registration by state and local election officials and non-partisan
voter registration groups may be severely undermined by the requirement
that registration efforts must be "coordinated with the
facility." - Finally, the VA's
directive will not guarantee prompt services so veterans are able to
register and vote this November. The
directive imposes no proactive duties on the VA; it only suggests the VAwill not unduly interfere with others' efforts to register
veterans. And because the directive
evidently vests each facility director with discretion (a) to determine
whether groups attempting to register veterans are appropriately
"non-partisan"; and (b) to dictate the time, place and
manner of voter registration activities, the directive does not go
sufficiently far to ensure that veterans will receive any meaningful
assistance in this election cycle.
In addition to passing S.
3308, the authors of the letter emphasized the need for immediate
hearings so that VA officials might respond to the concerns
above. "We look forward to the Senate
conducting immediate hearings on the VA's new policy, so that
representatives of the VA may give on-the-record testimony regarding the
concerns we have raised," said Lisa Danetz, Senior Counsel at
Demos.
"We thank Senators
Feinstein and Kerry for their great leadership and commitment to
protecting veterans' voting rights, and we credit them in
significant part for the VA's retraction of a policy that makes it
unnecessarily difficult for veterans to vote. However, the VA's modified policy will not provide
adequate voter registration services at VA facilities that thousands of
men and women rely on," according to Jim Dickson, public affairs
director for the American Association of Persons with
Disabilities.
full copy of the letter is available here.
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, has fought since 1920 to improve our systems of government and impact public policies through citizen education and advocacy. The League's enduring vitality and resonance comes from its unique decentralized structure. The League is a grassroots organization, working at the national, state and local levels.
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