Well, it wouldn’t be a liberal conference without liberals discussing voting rights and voter ID laws, which they believe are being used to suppress the vote. Jess McIntoshdirector of communications for EMILY’s List, moderated a panel that included Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, Maggie Toulouse OliverAND Jocelyn Benson. All three women are running or have run for Secretary of State. Nina Turner is the current Democratic candidate in Ohio; Oliver runs in New Mexico; and Benson ran for office in 2010 in Michigan.
McIntosh noted that there have been previous efforts to restrict the right to vote, but since the 2012 election we have seen a full-scale attack on the right to vote by the Liberals.
Benson noted that this ongoing struggle in our democracy (we are a constitutional republic) has always been ongoing in American society since our founding; it just takes different forms. The power of the office was on display during the 2000 presidential election under then-Florida Secretary of State Katharine Harris, prompting disgust and even hisses from the audience when Benson mentioned her name.
It shows “how important this one office is for democracy to work as it should,” she said.
“If we leave you with anything today, I hope we leave you with the knowledge that each of you has a responsibility to ensure that these offices are not just another office on the ballot in this year’s or future elections, but ones that are taken seriously and that we’re talking about are very, very powerful positions to ensure that every other issue that we’re working on can actually come to fruition through the democratic process.”
Oliver said when she became Bernalillo County Clerk in 2007, her first goal was to ensure the proper functioning of the office. After all, Bernalillo is the most populous county in the state; The county seat is the city of Albuquerque.
After cleaning up her office, Oliver said her residents needed to be given more opportunities to vote in elections.
Referring to the alleged attack on voters’ rights, Oliver called it “an insidious thing because it takes the form of trying to win at the expense of individual civil rights.” That’s why she decided to run for Secretary of State, saying, “I’m running against an incumbent who sort of repeats the mantra or carries the mantle [John] I hurried and [Scott] Gessler and a few other bad guys who really replicate the same things, except they look a little different in my state, but basically the idea is the same: Let’s stop people from casting votes.”
For Nina Turner, protecting the “greatest equalizer” in our society is paramount. She described how voting no longer involves any barriers related to race, gender and socioeconomic status. But she’s running to be Ohio’s next secretary of state to stem the wave of voter suppression across the country, which she has called “immoral.” She said Republicans “sign up to the mantra that if we can’t beat them, let’s beat them.”
On the issue of access to election materials, such as the ability to register to vote, Oliver noted that the New Mexico Department of Motor Vehicles has kiosks where people can register to vote after waiting millennia for a driver’s license. Not many people took part.
In Ohio, Turner cited incidents of suppression of voting rights. The state legislature took away “golden week” where you could register and vote at the same time. Ohio residents are not eligible to participate in the program at this time Sunday votewhere African Americans went to early voting locations after services to cast their ballots. Why? Since African Americans tend to vote for Democrats, Turner said, remember: “If you can’t beat them, cheat them.”
Another example she cited of voter suppression was the Cincinnati Board of Elections’ decision to move the early voting site out of the city. It was a ninety-minute bus ride each way, but it was getting worse; you had to walk half a mile from the bus stop to the polling place. Turner pointed out the obvious: This would be devastating for people who depend on public transportation.
She said the video was somewhere in the MSNBC archives; Ed Show and New York Times documented this development. I’ll let you look into it on your own.
What about those horrible, racist voter photo ID laws?
Oliver noted that incumbent New Mexico Secretary of State – and her Republican opponent – Dianna Duran, has stated that she is pushing for such a policy to protect election integrity. There is currently no such law in New Mexico and Oliver hopes it stays that way, especially if elected, but commented on how supporters of this legislation are talking about the issue. According to Oliver they say:
“We cannot trust the electoral process. That all of us who go to vote, our neighbors and our friends, that we cannot trust that it is really them; who they say they are, go to the polls and that’s why we need to implement – and let’s be completely honest – these kinds of new Jim Crow lawssuch as voter photo ID, early voting rollbacks, etc. etc. and that’s what it’s all about.”
As for voter fraud, Oliver insisted that “things like this almost don’t happen” and that attempts at in-person voter fraud in her county are mythical.
My colleague Katie Pavlich wrote two years ago that U.N. poll watchers were “amazed” that our elections do not require voters to verify their identity. As for concerns about people not having the proper documents, a non-driver’s license only costs $10 New York (4 years) or New Hampshire. It used to be $13.50 in Pennsylvania, but fees have gone up astronomically to $27.50 due to the recent state transportation law. This is a topic for another time.
