By Ryan Hiles–
“Voter ID which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the State of Pennsylvania…done!” This was Pennsylvania’s House majority leader, Mike Turzai, on July 23rd when speaking at a GOP rally in his home state. When I heard this quote, my first thought was “how about the stones on this guy?” But after the words really had time to marinate, I had another thought, which was, why are people shocked at this?
The national wave of voter suppression first caught my eye about a month ago, mainly because I heard the phrase “voter suppression” and immediately assumed it was in regards to some embattled Middle Eastern country, like Egypt or Syria or even our good friends in Saudi Arabia. But no, as it turns out, my assumptions were incorrect. The far off land that was attempting to disenfranchise its own people was actually a place that I had just driven through: Ohio.
I’d first like to take a trip down memory lane. Think back to the 2004 presidential election. If you’ll recall, and luckily you don’t have to because there’s hours upon hours of tape, it was an embarrassing year for Ohio election officials. Lines to get to polling places were stretching around city blocks, in some cases taking voters nine or more hours to exercise their first amendment right. In order to remedy this problem for future elections, Ohioans began using early voting, and as a result, lines in the 2008 presidential election were much more manageable. People, particularly in more populated areas, got to their polling places without much hassle and the democratic process worked as it should…unless you’re a Republican.
Ohio went to Democrat, Barack Obama, in 2008, and of course, so did the presidency. Beginning to connect a few dots, Republican lawmakers in Ohio decided that it was early voting that had cost their man the crucial swing state. The theory is not without its logic, considering that the largest liberal strongholds in the state (Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland) were the places where early voting alleviated the most voter overflow. The answer as to what to do about this problem was apparently exceedingly obvious for the GOP. Using a Republican-controlled state legislature, Republican officials, county by county, began attempting to expand voting hours to nights and weekends at early polling places in Conservative-leaning districts, while simultaneously voting to limit early voting to 8am to 5pm in liberal counties, a time when many voters work and can’t make it down to the polls to cast their vote.
This week, in response to the ever-increasing outcry over the states actions, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted begrudgingly announced a state mandate that will allow polling stations statewide to keep uniform hours. But while Ohio has, at least for now, weathered the storm of voter suppression, the national trend continues. In Pennsylvania, 758,000 citizens currently lack the proper form of ID required by new voter ID laws. That number represents roughly 9 percent of voters in the state. In Florida, eligible voters are being taken off voter roles. The defense of these actions is that the GOP is attempting to protect the integrity of the vote from plague of voter fraud. The problem with that argument is that voter fraud isn’t a problem at all. There have been only a handful of reported cases of voter fraud in the last decade. But I guess disenfranchising millions of legal voters is the price we have to pay to fix a problem that doesn’t really exist.
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Photo courtesy of Pennlive.com
