The cacophony coming at me from all media this week – traditional and digital – has trumpeted tonight’s made-for-TV presidential debate. There are enough Republicans to field three basketball teams, with a substitute or two thrown in for good measure.
But today is a somber one in the nation’s history.
Seventy years ago, on 6 August 1945, the Paul Tibbets, the commander of the Enola Gray, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima.
Fifty years ago, on 6 August 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, needed because the 15th Amendment (1870) had failed to prevent widespread discrimination.
Fast forward to 6 August 1991, 24 years ago. That’s when Sir Tim Berners-Lee launched the digital information age with the first website, info.cern.ch.
And now today:
FOX News orchestrated media events. A primetime “debate” (in name only) between a gaggle of guys who want to wear the Republican crown in the 2016 presidential race. A consolation prize event an hour earlier.
And the last taping of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show.
So forgive me if I continue to squeeze my eyes tightly shut in response to insanely early campaigning, a process that strengthens the coffers of political consultants, advertising executives, and TV ad departments.
Instead of echoing sound bites designed to elicit knee-jerk emotional responses (especially from headline writers), here’s what the governors who are running for this nomination have said or done in the context of voting rights.
Gov. Bobby Jindal, Louisiana
Last fall, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (Luther Scott, et al v. Schedler) found that Louisiana had violated the National Voter Registration Act. The state failed to provide voter registration services at public service agencies, agencies under the leadership of the executive branch.
Gov. Chris Christie, New Jersey
Federal law requires states to allow people to register to vote while getting a driver’s license (motor voter). Earlier this year, Oregon became the first state to make this automatic. New Jersey legislators want their state to be number two.
In addition, the New Jersey legislature wants early voting starting two weeks before a general election; Christie has vetoed such measures in the past. Christie has threatened a veto.
“Is it really too much to ask to ask somebody to fill out a form to execute their right to vote? Is it really so much to ask people that if they’re in the state that they show up on Election Day and vote? The polls are open from 6 in the morning til 8 in the evening.”
Gov. John Kasich, Ohio
In Ohio, college students cannot use their state-issued university IDs to vote. Last year, the state curtailed early voting. All bills were signed by Gov. Kasich.
Gov. Scott Walker, Wisconsin
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin’s voter ID law. But this year, the Court decided not to hear the complaint.
PolitiFact reports that Walker “has signed two measures that restrict early voting.” In addition, universities have had to create a new voter ID-compliant ID card for registered students.
See the saga of Gladys Butterfield, who “had voted in every local, state, and presidential election since 1932. She had stopped driving decades ago, so she had no license. Her birth certificate was also missing.”
Former Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida
His administration erroneously (and with malice) purged the voting rolls of 12,000 eligible voters in 2000. From Rolling Stone:
Back in 2000, 12,000 eligible voters – a number twenty-two times larger than George W. Bush’s 537 vote triumph over Al Gore – were wrongly identified as convicted felons and purged from the voting rolls in Florida, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. African Americans, who favored Gore over Bush by 86 points, accounted for 11 percent of the state’s electorate but 41 percent of those purged. Jeb Bush attempted a repeat performance in 2004 to help his brother win reelection but was forced to back off in the face of a public outcry. Yet with another close election looming, Florida Republicans have returned to their voter-scrubbing ways.
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, Arkansas
“When I go to the airport, I have to get in the surrender position. People put hands all over me. And I have to provide photo ID in a couple of different forms and prove that I really am not going to terrorize the airplane. But if I want to go vote, I don’t need a thing.” (WaPost)
Former Gov. Rick Perry, Texas
On Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Texas voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act. The decision was unanimous.
Perry signed the act into law in 2011.
“This simple action, no more complicated then cashing a check down at the HEB or applying for a library card down the street, will appropriately help maintain the integrity and fairness of our electoral system here in the Lone Star State.” Perry, 2011
Much ado about nothing
The voter ID movement has been orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
“I very rarely see a single issue taken up by as many states in such a short period of time as with voter ID,” said Jennie Bowser, senior election policy analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization that compiles information about state laws. “It’s been a pretty remarkable spread.”
Some of the laws are ludicrous on their face. For example, in Tennessee, a handgun carry permit can be used as ID when voting but a student ID card is ineligible.
A reminder that voter fraud — someone who impersonates someone else or otherwise casts a vote although ineligible — is a problem of overactive imaginations.
A major probe by the Justice Department between 2002 and 2007 failed to prosecute a single person for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter, which the anti-fraud laws are supposedly designed to stop… A much-hyped investigation in Wisconsin, meanwhile, led to the prosecution of only .0007 percent of the local electorate for alleged voter fraud. “Our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere,” joked Stephen Colbert. A 2007 report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a leading advocate for voting rights at the New York University School of Law, quantified the problem in stark terms. “It is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning,” the report calculated, “than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.” (emphasis added)
But it’s red meat to the Republican party faithful.
Postscript
A few examples of tech-assisted journalism (thank you Sir Tim Berners-Lee):
- Annotated transcript of tonight’s debate (Washington Post)
- Data-mining the GOP debate (Google)
- Grammerly rates the grammar of candidate Facebook fans (Wall Street Journal)
- President Obama writes about the voting rights act (Medium)
Updates
Added Gladys Butterfield story to Gov. Scott Walker section.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com