June 6, 2012--My Florida

Virtually every state with a Republican governor and legislature has been actively involved in various forms of voter suppression. More specifically, they are attempting to limit voting among people who are more likely than not to vote Democratic--poor people, college students, people of color, legal immigrants, and ex-felons who have served their time.


They have been hard at work at it in advance of the 2012 presidential election. The theory is that if enough swing states make it hard or impossible for, say, legal immigrants to register and thus vote, they will enable the Republican nominee (Mitt Romney) to squeak into office come November.


Among the strategies that are being implemented, most common are new laws that require voters, on Election Day, to show state-issued photo IDs such as drivers licenses. Thirty-four states now have these laws. Poor people who are less likely to have these are required to make a special trip to a state office to get another form of acceptable ID. As is obvious, these new laws alone will significantly reduce the number of poor and minority voters.


Also effective in suppressing voting are laws in 12 states that require individuals, again on Election Day, to show proof of citizenship before being allowed to vote. Without a valid passport or birth certificate they will be turned away. (As a sidebar, I assume Donald Trump will be hovering in Barack Obama's Chicago polling place on November 6th to check his birth certificate.)


Thirteen states would end same-day registration; nine will be reducing early voting periods; two (Iowa and Florida) are planning to take voting privileges away from ex-offenders even if they have completed their sentences.


And in Virginia, the legislature and governor are attempting to change the way in which Electoral College votes are allocated. Unlike in the past, with the exception of two states (including my Maine), the candidate who wins the popular vote receives all the state's Electoral votes, if they have their way, in the Commonwealth these votes will be distributed proportionally, congressional district by congressional district. This means that if, as expected, Obama wins the popular vote he will get only slightly more than half the Electoral votes.


Having mentioned my state of summer residence, my snowbird state, Florida, is ground zero among the battleground swing states. Recall that successful voter suppression efforts back in 2000 gave the presidency to George W. Bush.


To assure the same result this year, the GOP governor and legislature have been hard at work on even more draconian voter suppression efforts.


Until a federal court in Tallahassee last week blocked part of the new voter suppression law, third party organizations such as the nonpartisan League of Women Voters was able to turn in new-voter registration forms weeks after they were filled out. But under the new law, they have to do so within 48 hours or would be cited for "voter fraud" and receive a hefty fine. As a result, until the court ruling, there were 81,471 fewer new registrants this year than at the same time four years ago.


People who have been convicted of most crimes, after they complete their sentences, are routinely allowed to register and vote. This has also been true in ultra-conservative Florida. But now, even ex-felons who have voted in the past are required to, in effect, register again. One-by-one, they have to seek permission to vote via a torturous state bureaucratic process that could suppress tens of thousands of votes come November.


College students are among Florida's favorite voter suppression targets as they are very much more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. To limit their votes, there is a new law that changes residency requirements for out-of-state students. Until recently, it had been relatively easy for out-of-staters to register and vote on the college campuses. No longer. And so the state has been sending students letters telling them they had better arrange to register in their home states or risk being disenfranchised.


And then, as in many other Republican-dominated states, Florida is limiting the time prior to Election Day when those registered can vote early. When Jeb Bush was governor the period was extended to a full two weeks; but with Rick Scott as governor, it is now just eight days. This of course primarily affects low-income people who cannot easily take time off from work to vote.


As one measure of how effective Florida's efforts are in restricting voting, one of the 2,700 voters targeted in the initial list the state has determined are not citizens and are ineligible to vote was 91-year-old World War II veteran, and Bronze Star recipient, Bill Internicola.


With a last name like Internicola, Bronze Star aside, he must be a foreigner.