Changes to Voting Laws

Several recent commentors seemed to think that some people wanted voting made too easy, as though it was only of value if you have to work for it. What many of us object to is a rolling back of voter rights in the state of Florida.

For  instance, the League of Women Voters is a non-partisan organization, which has been doing voter registration for some 70 years, but changes to the Florida voting laws are forcing them to stop doing so. Why did the law on voter registration change? Because many of the people who have been registered in voter drives over the past few years have been younger, poorer people who are more likely to vote Democratic, and the Republican power structure in Tallahassee wants to curtail that to try to hold onto power longer.

Similarly, Democratic candidates seemed to fare better during early voting, so that has been shortened. Other provisions of the new law have made it impossible for a voter to change address or name at the polling station, as they have been able to do in the past. Again, the people who have needed to do so have been younger and poorer, and the Republican government wants to limit their ability to vote.

The new law, on the whole has been an attempt at voter suppression among voting groups who the government in Tallahassee feels is less likely to support its candidates. The reason given for all this is preventing voter fraud, which is largely a non-existent problem. The ACLU said there were only about 35 cases of suspected voter fraud in the last election in Florida, and only in about 10% of those was there enough evidence to prosecute. So out of roughly 5,344,000 votes for the US Senate in the 2010 election, perhaps four votes were tainted. So how many thousands of people will be unable to vote in order to stop perhaps four fraudulent votes?