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This afternoon Jack Turner and Jill Tubman over at Jack & Jill Politics have launched the Voter Suppression Wiki, a non-partisan forum where bloggers can track any instances of voter suppression during the upcoming 2008 Election. Baratunde Thurston (a.k.a Jack) says that visitors and commenter’s can:
1. Learn what voter suppression is
2. Report incidents of voter suppression
3. Act to combat and prevent it
Here is an example of what you can find on the Wiki. What is Voter Suppression, you might ask? Beats me, I’m Canadian…….. Actually when I was an undergrad I took several courses in American political theory and I remember reading about Gerrymandering and Re-Districting as a way to either keep certain constituents from voting for a specific candidate, or to let specifics candidate vote for a particular candidate. Oh yeah, and the debacle in Florida during the 2000 Election. Anyway, let’s hear from someone who knows way more than I do. From Common Cause:
As hundreds of thousands of new voters have been added to the registration rolls just in the last few months, one troubling finding is that problems with voter registration issues in many instances have gone unaddressed, or even worsened in the surveyed states. Many states have flawed procedures for matching the information voters give them when they register with other state databases, and some have no established protocols for doing so at all. Uniquely, Florida will continue to require that prospective voters prove eligibility by providing the exact information that appears on existing state databases. This policy often results in rejections of valid registered voters if the voter provides a variant of his or her name instead of a full name, a clerical error is made on the election administration side, or a voter makes another minor mistake.
Baratunde, who also writes at Daily Kos and The Huffington Post has cross posted more information. Here is a snipped of the post on Daily Kos:
The Present & Future Of Voter Suppression
So how does voter suppression work today, and what's emerging as the new way to undermine our democracy? Some helpful definitions from The Progressive States Network.
- Voter intimidation "takes many forms from videotaping or asking inappropriate questions of voters in a polling place, to placing heavily armed police outside poll sites, and distributing threatening flyers announcing the penalties for voting fraud"
- Deceptive practices "involves using disinformation campaigns to prevent targeted populations from voting"
- Caging "is the practice of sending non-forwardable mail to voters and challenging the eligibility of every person for whom the mail is returned as undeliverable"
- Voter ID laws "are not intended to prevent in-person voter fraud, of which there is almost no evidence, but are truly designed for the simple purpose of suppressing the vote of groups less likely to have or be able to obtain the required ID – the poor, the disabled, the elderly, and racial and ethnic minorities"
- Proof of citizenship laws "are requirements to provide proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, and in some instances every time you vote"
