[EL] Up to 1 Million Voters Face Disenfranchisement
Larry Levine
larrylevine at earthlink.net
Sun Sep 16 11:18:10 PDT 2012
Semantics. It's all semantics. Erecting barriers to voting is
disenfranchisement. Even Rick says his points are not legal arguments. Poll
tax - get a job so you can pay the tax and vote; literacy tests - go back to
school so you can vote; voter ID - define what's really required and then go
through the steps needed to qualify and do it quickly. This has nothing to
do with MSNBC. Make an honest assessment of what this has sprung
spontaneously in so many places and who is promoting these laws and you have
the answer. I love it when people get caught acting badly and then cry "who,
me?"
Larry
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe La Rue [mailto:joseph.e.larue at gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2012 10:33 AM
To: larrylevine at earthlink.net
Cc: Rick Hasen; Lorraine Minnite; law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Up to 1 Million Voters Face Disenfranchisement
Wow, Larry. Just "wow." Somebody needs to stop listening to the conspiracy
theorists on MSNBC. And to everyone else who has been commenting, thank you
for avoiding wild accusations and having instead a really good discussion.
On Sep 15, 2012, at 11:31 PM, "Larry Levine" <larrylevine at earthlink.net>
wrote:
> Isn't that the state's purpose - to disenfranchise certain voters by
> any means possible, erect barriers to voting now and don't worry if
> they get tossed out by the court after Nov. 6. I understand the hair
> you are splitting, Rick, but it's just that. A voter who cannot vote
> because of an official action by the state that makes it more
> difficult to vote is disenfranchised. Those who are most likely to
> have trouble obtaining the required ID are the very same people who
> are most likely to not be made aware of the new rules put in place to
> keep them from becoming enfranchised, or in the case of those who have
> been voting for year, continuing to be enfranchised.
> Larry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of
> Rick Hasen
> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 9:39 PM
> To: Lorraine Minnite
> Cc: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> Subject: Re: [EL] Up to 1 Million Voters Face Disenfranchisement
>
> I would say they would be disenfranchised by the failure of the state
> to explain and implement the requirement.
>
> Rick Hasen
>
> Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse typos.
>
> On Sep 15, 2012, at 9:32 PM, "Lorraine Minnite" <lminnite at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>> One of the problems highlighted in the Pennsylvania case is that
>> there are people who think they have the ID, but in fact, what they
>> have would not comply with the state's new rules. According to the
>> Barreto/Sanchez survey results presented in court, 12.1 percent of
>> registered voters (or
>> 997,494 people) thought they had the proper ID, but actually do not.
>> If these people believe they are in compliance and they are not, when
>> they go to the polls, they risk disfranchisement. If they believe
>> they are in compliance, they are not going to do anything to obtain
>> the
> proper
>> ID. If nothing happens between now and the election and these people
>> go to the polls and are turned away or don't get provisional ballots
>> counted because they can't produce the requisite ID in time, aren't
>> they disfranchised - at least in this election?
>>
>> On 9/15/12 11:47 PM, Rick Hasen wrote:
>>> If someone cannot read and cannot pass a literacy test, that person
>>> is disenfranchised by a literacy test.
>>>
>>> If someone cannot afford to pay a poll tax, that person is
>>> disenfranchised by a poll tax.
>>>
>>> There are other reasons to object to the use of these tests applied
>>> to others aside from actual disenfranchisement. For example,
>>> literacy tests and poll taxes might be seen as not rationally
>>> related to the exercise of the franchise. This is the position I
>>> take. The Supreme Court split on that question, upholding literacy
>>> test (in Lassiter in
>>> 1950) and striking down poll taxes (in Harper in 1966).
>>>
>>> In addition, literacy tests also were administered in racially
>>> unfair ways, and were often administered in an arbitrary way.
>>>
>>> Under my view, a person who does not have an i.d. and has to go
>>> through the hassle of getting the i.d. is not disenfranchised, but a
>>> person who does not have an i.d. and cannot afford the underlying
>>> documents to the i.d. is disenfranchised. There are be line drawing
>>> problems in deciding whether someone is too poor to afford the
>>> underlying documents, but there will clearly be people on the side
>>> of the line who could afford the i.d. and those who cannot.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 9/15/12 8:33 PM, Michael McDonald wrote:
>>>> By this logic, literacy tests didn't disenfranchise anyone, only
>>>> those who were unduly burdened because they didn't learn how to
>>>> read. Nor did poll taxes, since a poor person who wanted to vote
>>>> could
> just skip a few meals.
>>>> And if you want to flip it around for contemporary Republican
>>>> constituencies, keeping in mind that literacy tests and poll taxes
>>>> were originally aimed at Southern African-American Republicans, our
>>>> military personnel in war zones were not unduly burdened by
>>>> registration laws that required applications to be notarized since
>>>> they could take extraordinary measures to get the notary.
>>>>
>>>> But, perhaps you have another word for "disenfranchised" that
>>>> describes people in these situations?
>>>>
>>>> ============
>>>> Dr. Michael P. McDonald
>>>> Associate Professor
>>>> George Mason University
>>>> 4400 University Drive - 3F4
>>>> Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
>>>>
>>>> 703-993-4191 (office)
>>>> e-mail: mmcdon at gmu.edu
>>>> web: http://elections.gmu.edu
>>>> twitter: @ElectProject
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Rick Hasen [mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu]
>>>> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 11:12 PM
>>>> To: mmcdon at gmu.edu
>>>> Cc: law-election at UCI.edu
>>>> Subject: Re: [EL] Up to 1 Million Voters Face Disenfranchisement
>>>>
>>>> Based on a conversation with a voting rights activist last week, I
>>>> think part of the issue here is definitional. I define a person as
>>>> "disenfranchised" by a voter id law if that person literally cannot
>>>> vote because of the law but who wishes to cast a valid vote. The
>>>> most important cases would be: (1) a person who cannot get the
>>>> underlying documentation needed to get a state issued i.d. (such as
>>>> there are no birth records); (2) a person who cannot afford to get
>>>> the underlying documentation or get to the location to get the
>>>> i.d.; and (3) a person who has a physical impairment or religious
>>>> objection which prevents getting the i.d.
>>>> I would not include within this definition people (many, many
>>>> people in Pa., apparently), for whom getting the i.d. would be a
>>>> big hassle, and who may be deterred by this hassle.
>>>>
>>>> While the numbers show that there are many people who currently
>>>> lack the i.d., it is actually very hard to find many actual people
>>>> who
>>>> (1) lack the i.d., (2) cannot get the i.d. because of the reasons
>>>> listed above;
>>>> (3) cannot vote some other way without i.d. (such as an absentee
>>>> ballot for need in PA); but (4) want to vote in the election. If
>>>> this is our universe of "disenfranchised" voters, it is clearly
>>>> much smaller than 1 million voters in PA.
>>>>
>>>> If you count as disenfranchised those other voters for whom getting
>>>> the i.d. would be a big hassle, and who may deterred from voting by
>>>> this hassle, then the numbers are undoubtedly higher (and my sense
>>>> is that Democrats are much more concerned about this group than the
>>>> much smaller group of the people i would consider disenfranchised
>>>> by a voter id law). But I don't count these voters are actually
> disenfranchised.
>>>>
>>>> To be clear, I don't support the idea of putting voters through
>>>> this hassle on the state level given the paltry evidence of the
>>>> law's supposed anti-fraud benefits. But that's a different
>>>> question from the number of "disenfranchised" voters.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 9/15/12 7:35 PM, Michael McDonald wrote:
>>>>> Not sure who the "we" is. The 1 million number is consistent with
>>>>> what was presented by plaintiff's expert witness, Matt Barreto.
>>>>> With approximately
>>>>> 9.5 million eligible voters in Pennsylvania, and if the survey
>>>>> evidence is correct that 10% do not have the forms of id required
>>>>> by the state, you
>>>> get
>>>>> a number of up to 1 million disenfranchised.
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps what Rick means is that, well, the turnout rate among
>>>>> those individuals is exceedingly low, so they have already
>>>>> disenfranchised themselves by not registering and voting. This is
>>>>> what I find to be most pernicious about the district court's logic
>>>>> and weighing of the evidence, that it is acceptable to erect high
>>>>> barriers to voting among those with
>>>> low
>>>>> turnout rates because they already do not vote. The judge, for
>>>>> example, dismissed Barreto's survey because the sample frame was
>>>>> of eligible
>>>> voters,
>>>>> not registered voters.
>>>>>
>>>>> ============
>>>>> Dr. Michael P. McDonald
>>>>> Associate Professor
>>>>> George Mason University
>>>>> 4400 University Drive - 3F4
>>>>> Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
>>>>>
>>>>> 703-993-4191 (office)
>>>>> e-mail: mmcdon at gmu.edu
>>>>> web: http://elections.gmu.edu
>>>>> twitter: @ElectProject
>>>>> "Could Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Help Romney Win Race? Up to 1
>>>>> Million Voters Face Disenfranchisement"
>>>>> Posted on September 15, 2012 5:37 pm by Rick Hasen Here is a link
>>>>> to a Democracy Now! program. I haven't had a chance to listen to
>>>>> the program but the 1 million disenfranchised voters seems quite
>>>>> high and not supported at all by what we know.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Law-election mailing list
>>>>> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>>>>> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>>
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