Paul Carroll, an 86-year-old World War II veteran who has lived in the same Ohio town for four decades, was denied a chance to vote in the state’s primary contests today after a poll worker denied his form of identification, a recently-acquired photo ID from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The poll worker rejected the ID because it did not contain an address, as required by Ohio law.
Carroll told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he got the ID from the VA after his driver’s license expired because he doesn’t drive anymore:
“My beef is that I had to pay a driver to take me up there because I don’t walk so well and have to use this cane and now I can’t even vote,” said Paul Carroll, 86, who has lived in Aurora nearly 40 years, running his own business, Carroll Tire, until 1975.
“I had to stop driving, but I got the photo ID from the Veterans Affairs instead, just a month or so ago. You would think that would count for something. I went to war for this country, but now I can’t vote in this country.”
A local Veterans Affairs employee told the Plain Dealer that the decision not to include the address was likely made at the federal level, and because VA IDs are accepted at any location, “the actual address of a veteran isn’t as critical to us.” Carroll was offered a provisional ballot, but the type was too small for him to read and “I was kind of perturbed by then,” he said.
http://thinkprogress.org/...
Former U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis said he and his wife Lynda were denied the right to vote Tuesday in his Fentress County hometown.
“We walked in and they told me I was not a registered voter. I had been taken off the list,” said Davis, who served two terms representing the fourth congressional district of Tennessee, leaving office in 2011.
“These are people who I grew up with. I told them I live here. I went to school about 20 yards away.”
http://bluetn.com/...
NASHVILLE — State election officials have apologized to former Democratic Congressman Lincoln Davis, blaming a “clerical error” for his being turned away from a voting station in his home county of Fentress during Tuesday’s primary.
“We apologized to Lincoln,” State Election Coordinator Mark Goins, a Republican, told reporters today. “The fact is he treats Fentress County as his main residence. I’ve instructed the Fentress County [election] administrator to go ahead and reinstate him as a voter. Pickett County admitted we had an error.”
Davis, who lost his 4th Congressional District seat in 2010, complained to the Knoxville News Sentinel on Tuesday that he was denied the right to vote in his native Fentress County. He said he has been casting ballots in the Pall Mall community since 1964.
“If I had moved here from somewhere else recently, maybe I could understand it,” Davis told the newspaper. “But a former congressman, a former state senator and civic leader ... and nobody even notified me I’d been taken off the rolls.”
He added: “Now I know how the black man must have felt a hundred years ago.”
http://www.timesfreepress.com/...
Lincoln Davis was offered a provisional ballot but he too, like Paul Carrol were so fed up they declined to vote. I heard these stories on Thom Hartmanns' radio broadcast yesterday, he's actually been railing about the voter suppression laws that the GOP have passed for some time now. The number of people he estimates will be affected this November is approximately 5 million.
Talking Points Memo echoes that estimate;
Restrictive voting laws in states across the country could affect up to five million voters from traditionally Democratic demographics in 2012, according to a new report by the Brennan Center. That’s a number larger than the margin of victory in two of the last three presidential elections.
The new restrictions, the study found, “fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities. This wave of changes may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election.”
The study found that:
•These new laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.
•The states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes in 2012 - 63 percent of the 270 needed to win the presidency.
•Of the 12 likely battleground states, as assessed by an August Los Angeles Times analysis of Gallup polling, five have already cut back on voting rights (and may pass additional restrictive legislation), and two more are currently considering new restrictions.
The total number, according to the Brennan Center, is the sum of the 3.2 million voters they estimate will be affected by new photo ID laws, “the 240,000 citizens and potential voters who could be affected by new proof of citizenship laws, 202,000 voters registered in 2008 through voter registration drives that have now been made extremely difficult or impossible under new laws, 60,000 voters registered in 2008 through Election Day voter registration where it has now been repealed, one to two million voters who voted in 2008 on days eliminated under new laws rolling back early voting and at least 100,000 disenfranchised citizens who might have regained voting rights by 2012.”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
I've been feeling a little 'chippy' lately regarding the prospects for President Obama to be reelected in November. I'm not one to believe it's going to be easy by any stretch but as of now, with the Republicans in disarray and bleeding support daily the chances have looked brighter.
I have to be honest and say that this 'ace in the hole' voter suppression issue scares the crap out of me and my optimism fades as soon as I read stories like these two. Did I miss the 'action plan' because I'm not aware of one?
So can you help out a brother kossack feel a little better, if you can?
The floor is yours.
Thank you.