More Republican Voter Disenfranchisement Over The Weekend-- Why Are They So Scared Of Voters?

The history of democracy has always been a battle between conservatives trying desperately to restrict the right to vote and progressives battling to increase it. Conservatives predicted the world would end if anyone other than older, white, male, property owners voted. While they fought and threatened and fought some more, progressives won the franchise for working people, for women, for young people, for ex-slaves, for minorities, immigrants, renters… But conservatives and the wealthy elites they represent, never give up. Today the battle over the franchise is a rear guard action by the Republican Party to restrict voting rights by bits and pieces wherever and whenever they can, through voter ID laws aimed at minorities and by restricting early voting, weekend voting and night voting that make it easier for working people to vote.

The Republican-controlled legislature in Wisconsin-- backed by a right-wing, virulently racist Republican governor, Scott Walker-- passed a voter ID law with the specific intent of making it more difficult for poor people, African-Americans and students to vote, three classes of people conservatives have always fought to keep away from the polls. That law was invalidated by Wisconsin district court judge Lynn Adelman in May, who pointed out that most of the 300,000 registered voters without the government ID mandated by the GOP law are African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans hated by racist Republicans, while pointing out that the GOP was unable to present any evidence whatsoever indicating that their legislation was justified by voter fraud, which is virtually nonexistent. Friday, a panel of three right-wing Republican judges threw Judge Adelman's ruling out and told their pals in the Republican legislature to go right ahead and keep all the minorities they want from voting.

Rick Hansen at the Election Law Blog pointed out that not all the voting news on Friday was as bad as the disenfranchisement ruling that came out of Wisconsin, where Gov. Walker, trailing in the polls, hopes that keeping poor people from voting will guarantee him a victory in November over Mary Burke. There was a better judicial outcome in Ohio, where a Republican-controlled legislature and a racist right-wing governor, John Kasich, are also trying to disenfranchise working class voters by cutting back on early voting days.

The week before, in a preliminary injunction unheld Friday by the Sixth Circuit, a federal judge, Peter Economus, had blocked Ohio’s cuts to early voting and ordered the state to establish additional polling days before November’s elections, saying the reductions would disproportionately harm the poor and members of minority groups. He wrote that the state’s measures violated both the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act by creating unlawful barriers to the polls for minorities and the poor. The state’s arguments about reducing fraud, according to the judge, "did not withstand logical scrutiny." There has been virtually no in-person voter fraud documented in the country.

Judge Economus’s ruling directed Ohio to restore early voting during evenings and on at least two Sundays, and to reinstate Golden Week, the first week of early voting in which many African-American churches organize congregants to register and vote on the same day. Mr. Kasich and his supporters have said the measures were needed to reduce fraud, save money and create uniformity of practice across the state, and that the four-week early voting period allowed sufficient time for people to cast ballots.

A spokesman for the state attorney general, Mike DeWine, said the state would review the ruling before deciding whether to appeal.

The United States Justice Department filed a statement of interest in the case and has challenged similar measures elsewhere, including in North Carolina.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Ohio Conference of the N.A.A.C.P., several African-American churches and the League of Women Voters of Ohio.

“This ruling means that thousands of voters who have needed these particular early voting opportunities will continue to have that right,” said Dale Ho, director of the A.C.L.U.’s Voting Rights Project.

Ohio introduced early voting in 2008 after encountering significant problems during the 2004 election, including people waiting in lines at polling sites for as long as six hours. In 2012, of the 5.6 million votes cast, 1.9 million were cast early, including about 600,000 that were cast early in person, according to the Ohio secretary of state’s office.

But in February, Democrats and civil rights groups objected after Mr. Kasich signed a bill eliminating Golden Week, reducing to 28 days from 35 days the time given in which early voting could take place. And Jon A. Husted, Ohio’s secretary of state, issued a directive limiting evening and weekend hours. Like Mr. Kasich, Mr. Husted and Mr. DeWine are Republican. The poor and minorities tend to vote Democratic. Mr. Husted said Thursday that he believed the state should appeal the decision.

Funny how the same people working so diligently to prevent poor people from voting are the exact same folks who scream the loudest about how if try to restrict the wealthy from buying elections you are violating their rights. And then there's… Georgia. Friday, Chris Hayes showed how Georgia Republicans have been reacting to Democrats daring to register more African-American voters: