“Do you really want to live in a country where one party is so desperate to win the White House that they go around trying to make it harder for people to vote if they’re people of color, poor people or first generation immigrants?,” Bill Clinton asked rhetorically on Tuesday night during an event organized by the Arkansas Democratic Party.
In what The Nation’s Ari Berman highlighted as a possible “preview” of the former President’s remarks tonight in Charlotte, where he’ll be headlining at the DNC, Clinton savaged the Republican efforts, particularly in Pennsylvania and Ohio, to suppress the Democratic vote:
“In Pennsylvania, where they passed all these voter ID requirements, the House Republican leader who passed it said it was one of the most important achievements because it will enable Governor Romney to defeat the president in Pennsylvania.
“In Ohio, they passed the whole nine yards. The problem was in Ohio you can actually put this stuff on the ballot pretty easily to overturn it. So they went back in—you gotta give it to Republicans, they’re good. They vetoed it, then they snuck in an end to advance voting. Then they allowed the counties—and every county in Ohio has an election commission of three Democrats and three Republicans [Ed Note: actually it’s two and two]—to decide if they were going to go around advance voting. The Democrats, we were for it. So in every county that was Republican, Democrats said ‘OK, we’ll have advance voting.’ And in every single county that is overwhelming Democratic, the Republicans voted against allowing advance voting.
Berman goes on to note that Clinton offered similar sentiments during a speech he made last year, when he decried the “Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today”:
In last year’s speech, a clip of which we’ll post again below, Clinton said:
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Why is all this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate.
Will Clinton offer similar sentiments tonight during his speech in Charlotte?
UPDATE 9:10pm PT: In fact, Clinton did give a shout out against GOP voter suppression during his rousing convention speech tonight: “If you want ever American to vote and you think it is wrong to change voting procedures just to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority, and disabled voters, you should support Barack Obama!”
The short clip from President Bill Clinton’s 7/6/2011 speech to student voters, in which he slammed Republicans for their voter suppression efforts follows below.
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Now, if only the former President would refer to this disenfranchising roadblock to democracy — Photo ID.
We’ve always had “voter ID.”
Clinton referring to it as “chang[ing] voting procedures to reduce the turnout of minorities, the poor and disabled voters” works for me. Way past time for high-profile Democrats to acknowledge Republican voter-suppression tactics.
Do you really want to live in a country where one party is so desperate to win the White House that they go around trying to make it harder for people to vote if they’re people of color, poor people or first generation immigrants?
As much as I hate to point this out, it should be clear to the perceptive observer that the answer to this question is not “no” and not quite “yes” — but rather “I don’t know” or worse, “I don’t care.” The reason why this should be clear is the fact that even after Greg Palast broke the story regarding the voter purge which Katherine Harris conducted in Florida prior to the 2000 election — a purge which is thought to have been a decisive factor in the Bush victory — there was very little hue-and-cry, even among ordinary Americans. That operation took place in a very hush-hush, hole-and-corner fashion…but now the voter purges are taking place right before our eyes in broad daylight, so blatantly that even the mainstream media is paying attention, and yet there is still very little hue-and-cry among the ordinary people. The fact is that this should be the kind of thing which provokes people in these states to take to the streets en masse…but to all appearances, most of the people in those states simply can’t be bothered to care about (let alone fight for) the rights of their fellow citizens. And then we wonder why our country has so many problems?
Yeah I think the reason the issue doesn’t move mountains for most people is that, to the average person, it can be hard to conceive of how anyone could not have a valid state issued photo ID or why it would be so difficult to obtain one. I remember being baffled the first time I went to my precinct polling station and not being asked to show photo ID. Hell, I seem to have to produce it to do just about everything else to be a functioning adult in society. Most don’t see the barriers the poor or elderly face that makes it inconvenient to impossible for them to obtain photo ID in their current circumstances. Some, like the poor, are low information voters working multiple jobs that won’t even be aware of the requirement until they’re denied their right to vote. Being elderly or disabled and not having a vehicle can be restrictive enough all on its own.
While important, I find the continued use and proliferation of e-voting machines to be the much bigger threat and one that could and SHOULD have gotten more public traction after ’04. Must Ohio be lost again and prove crucial to losing an election before this issue is taken seriously? Or does someone just have to be caught red handed before the alarm is raised? I’m starting to think it’s only the latter that can wake the lamestream up. Maybe the issue can be brought to Sorkin’s attention.
I agree, Arias. Most people just don’t understand how anyone could not have a proper photo ID or why it is so hard to get one. I have a good 8-5pm job and it took me months to get to the DMV to get a new license when I moved to my current state. I could only imagine what it would be like for someone without a car or working many more hours to support themselves. And like you said, many won’t even know about it until they are at the poll.
Republicans have lost their mind. They have been the “anti-america” party since Obama took office. They have done everything to get him out and have even admitted this.