Power Grid Blog
Strengthening Our Voices – Voting Rights
July 17, 2012 | Sarah Hillware
There is no more important and essential right in our society than the right to vote – it is the foundation of all of our other rights as American citizens. In recent years, there have been unprecedented, inconceivable efforts to undermine access for people with disabilities, as well as minorities, youth, elderly, military, and low-income voters.
While I knew that there had been recent efforts to restrict voting, I was frightened and deeply concerned when I learned of the magnitude of this issue. Today, while researching the Voter Empowerment Act, I came across some very disturbing trends in our voting system. Since the beginning of 2011, 176 bills restricting
voting rights have been introduced in 41 states. 74 of these bills are pending in 24 states and 22 laws restricting voting and 2 executive actions have been successfully passed in 17 states. Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia have reduced early voting, preventing some from voting at all. Additionally, in the states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, the combined number of registered voters has dropped by 500,000 since 2008. Florida, Texas and Illinois have even passed laws restricting voter registration drives. These are laws that could harm our progress and we cannot afford to be ambivalent.
The Department of Defense Inspector General has reported on more than one occasion a “persistent failure” of the Federal Voting Assistance Program to provide consistent and effective services to military voters, pinpointing a lack of voter awareness of the existence of resources available to voters. In 2009, a majority of polling places still had one or more hindrances that could prevent a voter with a disability from even getting to the required accessible voting system. In 50% of voting polls, the accessible voting system itself has shown to be problematic.
As of now, there is no immediate and effective way to deal with problems at the poll. However, the Voter Empowerment Act (VEA), introduced spring of this year, seeks to mitigate the aforementioned issues by improving access, increasing integrity, and ensuring accountability through modernization, access to online voting, and provides additional tools to those with disabilities. The VEA also seeks to eliminate deceptive practices, such as poll intimidation or swaying, by making sure that election officials do not participate in political campaigns, and implement a National Voter Hotline for voters to report problems at the polls.
Voting is not a privilege, it’s a RIGHT! Let us demand our right to vote.
Comments
Submitted by cdes at 04:20 AM on August 1, 2013