Americans for Redistricting Reform

Here's a heads-up about a new initiative and Web site. A number of organizations have come together to work toward changing the highly partisan nature of redistricting. From the Americans for Redistricting Reform site:

Americans for Redistricting Reform (ARR) is a national nonpartisan umbrella organization comprised of groups from across the political spectrum that recognize the critical need to reform our nation’s redistricting process. Americans for Redistricting Reform is committed to raising public awareness of redistricting abuses and promoting solutions that benefit voters and strengthen our democracy. The organizing principle of ARR is that voters should choose elected representatives, not the other way around.

Advisory Committee member organizations in ARR include: Brennan Center for Justice, Campaign Legal Center, Committee for Economic Development, Common Cause, Council for Excellence in Government, Fair Vote, League of Women Voters, Reform Institute, Republican Main Street Partnership, and U.S. PIRG. A number of civil rights groups are also involved in this project and have offered helpful advice and information on redistricting reform.

One of the problems with redistricting, aside from the obvious, is getting people behind the need for reform. Until I became politically aware, the very word redistricting sent me straight to a deep and dreamless sleep. It's a tough sell to an audience already overloaded on political news.

That's why I'm grateful to ARR for working so diligently to get this much-needed reform. The site doesn't have an RSS feed yet, but it does have a link to The Redistricting Game, which I thought was a hoot when I wrote about it in We the Purple. And no, I haven't played it yet. You're on your own with that one.

Political Reform, Lesson 12: Relaxing Voter ID Laws

In an effort to quash widespread, nefarious, bring-down-the-republic voter fraud, a number of states have decided to crack down on the massive numbers of people who are attempting to register to vote illegally. Only problem is, there isn't a shred of evidence that there's any significant voter fraud going on in the U.S. of A. But really, who needs evidence anyway? With all the evidence we have of election fraud on the part of partisan officials, who has time to investigate the voters? Just assume the fraud is there, okay?

Here's how officials are combating this epidemic (if there actually was any fraud going on it would seem reasonable enough on the surface): simply require voters to produce identification, or better yet, photo identification, when they arrive at the polling places to vote. For most of us, that's no problem. Our driver's licenses have our image right there in living color. Or maybe, even if we don't drive—and plenty of people don't—we work at a place or go to a college that requires us to wear photo ID badges. We're good to go.

So what about those people who don't have photo IDs? That would include the poor, the elderly, and the disabled, among others. How can they produce a photo ID when they may not drive or even work?

Well, the great state of Georgia, among others, proposed that they fork over $35 for an official state photo ID. That’s a lot of money to people on a fixed income; believe me, I know. But that’s not all. The poor, the elderly, and the disabled would have been required to travel—in some cases, hundreds of miles—to a limited number of state offices to get that ID. Who are the people who think up these things? How incredibly out of touch with the realities of everyday life do you have to be in order to be in charge of elections?

Unless, of course, the whole idea is vote suppression, but we know that can’t be the case. Oh, wait. What did Paul Weyrich say? That a high voter turnout could be counterproductive? Right.

In 2006, and in some of today’s Super Tuesday primaries, voters were asked to show photo IDs even though there was no legal requirement that they do so. Also in 2006, minorities in New York City were asked for photo IDs while whites were not asked for any form of ID. Some states are trying to require proof of citizenship, which also seems like a no-brainer, but some people—again, most often the very poor—have no birth certificate and no way to obtain one.

One of the best sources for information on unnecessarily restrictive voter ID measures is NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, as well as myriad other organizations that are trying to—of all things!—increase voter participation rather than suppress it.