Month: September 2011

Tighter voting rules expected to help G.O.P.

-By: Brendan McLaughlin

May 20, 2011- TAMPA – Governor Rick Scott signed a sweeping election reform law this week that will cut early voting days nearly in half and make other dramatic changes.

Supporters say the law will prevent fraud, but voter rights groups, including the non-partisan League of Women Voters, say it's a blatant attempt to suppress voting.

Under the new law that takes effect immediately, early voting will be reduced from 15 days to eight, but because counties have the option of keeping their early voting locations open longer, the number of early voting hours could remain the same at 96.

But it's the new restrictions on voter registration groups that has caused the most uproar.

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-By David Edwards

September 9, 2011- A Wisconsin state employee has been fired after he revealed that a Department of Transportation official had instructed workers to not notify citizens that IDs necessary for voting could be obtained for free.

State employee Chris Larsen told radio host John "Sly" Sylvester that his bosses at the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) had become upset because he sent an email to other employees Thursday to remind them that photo IDs were supposed to be available without charge.

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-by NPR Staff

September 17, 2011- While campaigning to become Kansas' secretary of state, Kris Kobach held a press conference to make the case for a photo ID requirement at the polls. In his argument, he noted that a man named Alfred K. Brewer, who died in 1996, had voted in the 2010 primary.

There was just one problem with that: Brewer wasn't dead.

Shortly after the press conference, Brewer's wife received a call regarding her husband's "passing."

"And she says, 'Well, why do you want to talk to me? He's out raking leaves,'" Brewer says.

New Crackdowns

It turned out the voter rolls Kobach referenced had the birth date for Brewer's father, who had the same name.

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-by Ryan J. Reilly

September 13, 2011- A photo voter ID law signed by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is unnecessary, unfair, restrictive and intentionally discriminates against African-American and Latino voters, a coalition of civil rights groups will argue in a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday.

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-by Ryan J. Reilly

September 8, 2011- Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) squared off with voting rights restrictions enthusiast Hans von Spakovsky at at Senate hearing on Thursday, accusing the Heritage Foundation fellow of leaving out a crucial piece of data that undermined his argument that voter ID laws don't suppress minority turnout.

In his written testimony, von Spakovsky said that the fact that Georgia had the highest voter turnout in its history in 2008 when there was a photo ID law on the books was proof that the measure didn't suppress turnout. He compared Georgia's statistics to neighboring Mississippi, a state which also has a significant African-American population.

"For example, Mississippi, a state with a large African-American population just like Georgia, there was only a third of what it was in Georgia," von Spakovsky said during his testimony.

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