{"id":916,"date":"2018-06-12T09:26:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T13:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=916"},"modified":"2018-06-12T09:26:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T13:26:42","slug":"who-votes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2018\/06\/12\/who-votes\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Votes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who Votes<\/p>\n

While our attention was turned to the events in Singapore, the US Supreme Court released a decision that upheld Ohio\u2019s law to remove and update the state\u2019s voter registration list.\u00a0The Supreme Court split five to four for the decision, with the conservative five lining up against the more progressive four.<\/p>\n

The Ohio Law is one of several state election laws brought into question in the courts.\u00a0 Each of these laws has a process for automatically removing voters from the registration lists if over a period of time those voters either don\u2019t vote, or don\u2019t respond to communications from the elections department.\u00a0 The avowed claim is that this is simply a \u201chousekeeping\u201d chore, removing those from the voting rolls who have moved, or died. \u00a0Ohio\u2019s law is one of the more reasonable versions.<\/p>\n

If a voter fails to vote for two years, the Board of Elections sends a card in the mail asking them to respond.\u00a0 If the voter fails to respond, it triggers a series of mailings over the next four years.\u00a0If the voter neither responds nor votes during that time, the voter\u2019s name is stricken from the voting list.<\/p>\n

It seems reasonable.\u00a0Voting is tied to residency; if a voter is no longer living at the residence given on the election registration, then the voter is no longer eligible to vote in that precinct.\u00a0 Election officials point to voting lists filled with the moved and the dead; and warned that such lists are inviting voting fraud.\u00a0They claim that in order to prevent fraud, the lists need to be purged.<\/p>\n

So if the law seems reasonable, then why was it brought to court, and why was the Supreme Court so split on its response?<\/p>\n

The Ohio law was passed by the Republican dominated legislature, as part of a nationwide effort by Republicans to maintain power by limiting voting.\u00a0 This has three principal strategies:\u00a0 gerrymander districts to maximize Republican representation; restrict voting access by limiting days, times and places to vote; and restricting voter registration by requiring voter identification and constant registration monitoring.\u00a0 All of this is legal, and much of it has been done in the name of \u201csafe and secure\u201d elections.<\/p>\n

But the reality is that our elections are more than safe and secure.\u00a0 Every non-partisan study of voting shows that are incredibly few incidents of illegal voting in the United States (Time: The Actual True and Provable Facts about Non-Citizen Voting<\/a>.) \u00a0And while the President has claimed that as many as five million votes cast (all for Hillary Clinton, of course) in the 2016 election were illegal, the organization of Secretaries of State (the state officials in charge of elections) completely disagrees.<\/p>\n

So the Ohio law and others like it are fixing a problem that doesn\u2019t exist.\u00a0 So how does a registration list law like Ohio\u2019s influence elections?<\/p>\n

Statistically (and sadly) Democratic voters are less likely to vote than Republican voters. \u00a0This is why partisan results are often so different in Presidential election years, when there are a lot more votes, than in off-years.\u00a0 \u00a0For example, while Ohio is consistently a \u201cpurple\u201d state, closely balanced between Republican and Democrat during Presidential elections, all but one statewide office is held by Republicans, most elected in off-years.\u00a0 A law that removes folks for not voting is more likely to remove Democrats than Republicans.<\/p>\n

Lower income voters are more likely to change addresses, and are more likely to have difficulty getting \u201cland mail.\u201d\u00a0 This is common sense, as lower income voters are more likely to live in rental situations.\u00a0While voting registration is tied to residency at an address, changing address does not necessarily disqualify a voter.\u00a0 In Ohio, an address change should trigger a \u201cprovisional ballot.\u201d And, as lower income voters are more likely to be Democrats, the law is going to effect them.<\/p>\n

Finally, when this is combined with a strict voter identification law (requiring state issued ID) and with restricted voting days, locations and times; the overall effect is to reduce the number of Democrats that can vote.<\/p>\n

The Ohio law is one of the more \u201cmoderate\u201d versions.\u00a0 Other states go so far as to scour the lists, looking for duplicate registrations.\u00a0Somehow, thousands of \u201cJohn Smiths\u201d remain, will multiple \u201cJuan Gonzales\u201d get removed.\u00a0 It is all part of a legal scheme to retain Republican control.<\/p>\n

Ohio\u2019s law has been upheld by the Supreme Court, but even their decision represents a partisan act.\u00a0The refusal of the Republican US Senate to consider President Obama\u2019s appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, then filling the vacancy with Neil Gorsuch after the Trump election, in all likelihood determined the outcome of yesterday\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

And unfortunately, the battle over the \u201clegal\u201d restrictions ignores the real threat to our voting system:\u00a0outside \u201chacking\u201d into registration to prevent legal voting.\u00a0 The facts are that Russian intelligence attacked at least twenty-one state voter registration databases before the 2016 election:\u00a0 we still haven\u2019t determined what damage was done.\u00a0 Last week in the California primary, over 100,000 voters disappeared from the Los Angeles County voting rolls.\u00a0 While those effected were allowed to cast \u201cprovisional\u201d ballots, there still has been no clear explanation of what happened.\u00a0 (For more information on possible voting \u201chacks\u201d check out unhackthevote.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The United States is a Republic and the foundation of our nation is free elections, not only free from outside interference, but also free from partisan lawmaking that restricts voter access.\u00a0Our goal should be for every citizen to vote: Ohio and the Supreme Court have raised one more barrier prevent that.\u00a0But it can all be overcome by citizens, Democrat and Republicans, voting; even if it\u2019s hard, even if means checking to make sure you\u2019re still registered, even if it requires waiting in line at the polls.\u00a0 Because in a Republic based on the will of the majority, when the majority shows up, they will prevail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who Votes While our attention was turned to the events in Singapore, the US Supreme Court released a decision that upheld Ohio\u2019s law to remove and update the state\u2019s voter registration list.\u00a0The Supreme Court split five to four for the decision, with the conservative five lining up against the more progressive four. The Ohio Law … Continue reading “Who Votes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWho Votes : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2018\/06\/12\/who-votes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who Votes : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who Votes While our attention was turned to the events in Singapore, the US Supreme Court released a decision that upheld Ohio\u2019s law to remove and update the state\u2019s voter registration list.\u00a0The Supreme Court split five to four for the decision, with the conservative five lining up against the more progressive four. 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