How To Fight Voter Suppression, A Guest Post By Alice Marshall

On Wednesday Alice Marshall did a guest post about grassroots electoral organizing, riffing on the book she authored, The Precinct Captain's Guide To Political Victory, and the response was so overwhelming that we asked her to do a follow-up, which she did (below). When Harry Reid happened to mention the other day that under the chairmanship of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC was a worthless organization (his word, not ours), this is precisely the kind of thing he probably had in mind. Apparently Wasserman Schultz was too busy doing something else to attend to her job.

The 2016 election was stolen via voter suppression. Greg Palast has documented that thousands of citizens across the Great Lakes were turned away from the polls because they lacked proper identification. Republicans have admitted that the expanded voter identification requirements are precisely for the purpose of suppressing the votes of African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities.

Now the Democrats have known, at least since 2014 that the Republicans were going to do this, so why didn't they devise plans to assist their voters to acquire the necessary identification to vote? If I wanted to run to Governor of Michigan, I would film myself driving people to the Division of Motor Vehicles to assist them to apply for identification. If they lacked funds, I would create an organization to pay their fees. If they lacked a copy of their birth certificate, my organization would help them get certification. Not only are voter registration drives in the interest of the Democratic Party, it is good politics. Unlike partisan politics, voter registration is regarded as a noble cause. People rightly regard voter suppression as dirty politics. Promoting voter registration drives up Democrats positive ratings as well as driving up Republican negatives. I do not understand why voter registration is not a high priority with Democratic committees.

It is only a question of time before some Green Party candidate works out that voter registration is a great visibility tactic. Michigan Democrats will look very foolish if Green candidates start putting videos on YouTube of their voter registration efforts.

In my book, The Precinct Captain's Guide To Political Victory, I devote a great deal of space to the question of voter registration, why people don't vote, how voter registration drives up the vote, and how to push back against voter suppression. The link above is to the Kindle version.