Monday, October 17, 2011

A War of Voting: Could Redistricting and Voting Law Changes Help Republicans Win in 2012?



I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention to what the GOP establishment in concert with corporate interests have been doing; that negatively affects minority voters. After watching a segment on The Rachel Maddow Show which dealt with what’s happening in Denver and how it negatively affects minority voters I figured it would be a good idea to share the following information about as 5 million Americans who may lose the ability to vote in 2012.

The following is the summary of a report conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice, on the impact of new voting laws passed across the country.

Over the past century, our nation expanded the franchise and knocked down myriad barriers to full electoral participation. In 2011, however, that momentum abruptly shifted.
State governments across the country enacted an array of new laws making it harder to register or to vote. Some states require voters to show government-issued photo identification, often of a type that as many as one in ten voters do not have. Other states have cut back on early voting, a hugely popular innovation used by millions of Americans. Two states reversed earlier reforms and once again disenfranchised millions who have past criminal convictions but who are now taxpaying members of the community. Still others made it much more difficult for citizens to register to vote, a prerequisite for voting.

These new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities. This wave of changes may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election. Based on the Brennan Center’s analysis of the 19 laws and two executive actions that passed in 14 states, it is clear that:
These new laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.

The states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012 – 63 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency.

Of the 12 likely battleground states, as assessed by an August Los Angeles Times analysis of Gallup polling, five have already cut back on voting rights (and may pass additional restrictive legislation), and two more are currently considering new restrictions.
We should understand how the rules in America change once a person of color becomes a threat to the existing plutocratic power structure.
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