You may have seen this new Republican scheme to disenfranchise voters:
The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.
"We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses," party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.
The Democratic Party has in its platform a statement on voting rights. But I think it's more than just the right to vote that we need to address - we need to address the fact that voting is important:
Resolved: Every American who is qualified to vote should have the right to have his or her vote count and be counted; further, every American who is qualified to vote should do so.
It's my belief that everybody should vote, every last adult who is qualified. If we get 220 million votes, and McCain gets 115 million and wins, SO BE IT. It should be a stated - shouted out, really - goal of the Democratic party that all who wish to vote, and are allowed to vote, should be offered the unobstructed opportunity to cast their vote.
There are only 3 classes of people in the U.S. who are not qualified to vote:
- People under 18
- People who are not American citizens
- People who have had their voting privileges taken away, usually through conviction of a felony, and have not had those rights restored.
That's it. As long as you have established residence in a voting precinct for 30 days, any challenge based on something other than those is an attempt to disenfranchise. This scheme is an attempt to use the residency requirement as a loophole used by Republicans to prevent poor Democrats from voting.
But as much as this is an outrageous tactic, it's the underlying principle that is the true evil here: the idea that it is OK, even preferable, to attempt to stop people from voting because they are likely to vote against you.