Two Parties — Two Views — Two Paths to Voting Rights

The DEM Approach: Get Young Americans Engaged

The GOP Approach: Suppress as Many Voters (who vote Dem) as Possible 

The proof as they say, is in the pudding: Rubber, meet Road:

Since 2008, people of color become a growing share of the voting population while the GOP has, if anything, moved further to the right. It has further alienated voters of color with racist attacks and laws.  

But as the modern GOP says: “If you can’t beat ‘em, make sure they don’t vote.” 

Over the last four years, the Republicans have gone through elaborate attempts to make sure populations that don’t support them don’t get a chance to vote.  

Since 2006, Republicans have pushed through voter ID laws in 34 states. Such laws did not exist before 2006, when Indiana passed the first voter ID law. The laws were ostensibly aimed at preventing voter fraud, but a News 21 investigation finds only 2,068 instance of alleged fraud since 2000 (that is out of over 146 million voters). They estimate that there is one accusation of voter fraud for every 15 million voters.   

As Mother Jones notes, instances of voter fraud are more rare than UFO sightings. There have been only 13 instances of in-person voter fraud (the sorts that a voter ID law would reduce), while 47,000 people claim to have seen a UFO.  

On the other hand, research by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU finds that, “as many as 11 percent of eligible voters do not have government-issued photo ID.” Those who do not have ID are most likely to be “seniors, people of color, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students” — i.e., people who vote Democratic (chart source). 

As Rick Perry might say: Oops ...