By Stephen Willis
With the country currently broadly divided, politically and socially with the rise of the Black Lives Matter highlighting the divide, attention is being focused on the upcoming presidential election. For many, concern is growing over the impact of voter suppression on the election outcome. Every eligible citizen has the right to vote.
Voter identification required at the polls is one method for suppressing voting rights. Several states require government-issued photo IDs to vote. The ACLU estimates that more than 21 million Americans do not have such an ID. In many cases, it is difficult to obtain the necessary supporting documents, not to mention the additional cost, needed to be issued a state-issued ID. At one time, North Carolina did not allow Public Assistance IDs and state employee IDs which are disproportionally held by black voters. Fortunately, this law has been struck down.
Purging the voter rolls is a frequently-used technique to shape the electorate. Obviously some purging of the rolls is necessary such as in the case of death, imprisonment, moving to another state or being declared incompetent. But some states purge voters simply because they have not voted in several prior elections or failed to respond to a request to confirm where they live. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of voters are purged each year. Voting is not a requirement and a voter has the right to not vote if he or she so chooses but should not be denied the right to do so.
Recently a federal court in Georgia denied a preliminary injunction to restore the registration status of 98,000 Georgians who were purged from the rolls solely because of a period of nonvoting and non-return of confirmation notices. Of those who were purged, 70 percent were black.
Here in Vermont, voter suppression is not an issue, but elsewhere in this country untold numbers of eligible citizens are being denied their constitutional right to vote when they show up at the polls only to be told that they are not listed on the voter registry. There are things that Vermonters can do to support and promote universal voting rights. Working with Indivisible Mad River Valley, many people here are volunteering in a personal postcard-writing campaign that targets minority voters in several states with a history of voter suppression that may have been dropped from the voter rolls. Addressees are given, the telephone number and a website to check on their status and reregister if necessary. Other volunteers are doing similar work through telephoning and texting. To learn more about the activities of Indivisible Mad River Valley, visit their website at https://indivisible>mrv.org.
On Wednesday, July 22, from 6 to 7:45 p.m., Indivisible Mad River Valley is sponsoring the film, “Suppressed: The Fight to Vote” via Zoom focusing on the personal stories of Georgians trying to overcome major obstacles to exercise their right to vote. The 38-minute film will be followed with small group discussions. The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required. Go to https://bit.ly/IMRV-suppressed to sign up. We hope you will join us.
Stephen Willis lives in Warren.
