North Carolina ranks high on anyone’s short list of today’s too-close-to-call battleground states. But the relative strengths of the two parties’ campaigns may, in the end, prove less important in determining November’s outcome than could the state’s new voter suppression laws — or, alternatively, the growing movement to defeat those laws with one simple piece of paper.
North Carolina’s electorate is balanced on a razor’s edge, as the results of the last two presidential election cycles demonstrate. Thanks to strong African American turnout, the Obama/Biden ticket took the state by 14,000 votes (one-third of a percentage point) in 2008. But that same ticket lost in 2012, by two points, when blacks, college-age voters, and Democrats in general posted modestly lower turnout numbers.
NC Republicans’ new voter suppression laws — widely regarded as the worst in the nation — now aim to insure against defeats like that which the new ruling party last suffered in 2008, by making voting more difficult, or even impossible, for demographic groups which do not traditionally vote their way.
But we can stop that.
2012 was also the year in which Pat McCrory (R) succeeded Bev Perdue (D) as governor of North Carolina, joining forces with a General Assembly already under Republican control to unleash a flood of initiatives aimed at securing Republicans’ ongoing dominance. Not surprisingly, those voter suppression efforts targeted the two groups (blacks and youth) which were most responsible for the party’s 2008 loss. Districts were racially gerrymandered; voter registration at state public assistance offices was brought to a halt; the nation’s most onerous voter ID requirement was imposed; polling places were removed from college campuses and moved farther away from communities of color; the early voting period was cut in half; and pre-registration of 16 and 17 year-olds was put to an end. Finally, election-day voter registration and registration updating — the safety net which previously protected would-be voters against bureaucratic snafus that are discovered only at the last moment — was halted.
Legal challenges to this systematic program of voter suppression, led by voting rights organizations and the U.S. Department of Justice, are today moving slowly through federal courts, having just lost at the District Court level and headed now to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (and from there, undoubtedly, to the Supreme Court). But it’s anyone’s guess whether justice can be achieved in time for the November election.
Amid the ongoing sturm und drang of court battles and street protests, too little discussion has been devoted to how at-risk voters can, individually, today, opt-out of voter suppression — simply by completing a request for an absentee ballot and emailing or snail-mailing it to their county Board of Elections.
“Opting out” of voter suppression sounds to good to be true...but it isn’t. In North Carolina, as in some other states, absentee voting by mail overcomes all of these voter suppression hurdles:
Long lines at polling places that are inconveniently far away:vote on your own schedule, in the comfort of your own home. Just make sure your county Board of Elections receives your completed ballot by return mail no later than 5:00 p.m. on November 1, 2016.
Registration problems: Perhaps you, like many others, have forgotten to update your voter registration after moving to a new address. If you first discover this at your polling place on Election Day, you’re out of luck: you’re disenfranchised for this election. But, in North Carolina, a request for an absentee ballot is also (by law) a voter registration update. If the new address you provide on your absentee ballot request form doesn’t match your currently registered address, the Board of Elections will automatically update your registration.
Ban on out-of-precinct voting: You can’t accidentally show up at the wrong polling place if you’re voting at home, now can you?
Voter ID: This one is critically important. Despite North Carolina’s draconian new voter ID law, no voter ID is required to vote absentee by mail. No photo ID? No problem: you need only provide the last four digits of your Social Security number on your ballot request form.
That last, important point — that voting absentee by mail eliminates the requirement to present a government-issued photo ID — might seem like an astonishing oversight on NC Republicans’ part...but it’s a feature, not a bug; an exclusion intentionally built into the state’s voter suppression laws. The two graphs below illustrate why that is:because absentee voting by mail is, today, the nearly exclusive prerogative of elderly white voters (a reliably Republican demographic). Whites are nearly three times more likely than blacks and Latinos to vote absentee by mail in presidential election years, and the elderly are up to ten times more likely to do so than are young and middle-aged voters.
If you’re not already familiar with the process, voting absentee when you’re not really ‘absent’ may feel a bit dodgy...but it shouldn’t. North Carolina, like twenty-six others, is a ‘no excuse’ state: a voter is not required to offer any reason for voting an absentee ballot. You can vote absentee by mailat home because you find it more convenient, or because you lack an acceptable photo ID, or to avoid the glares of hostile partisan ‘poll monitors,’ or simply to dramatically minimize your many other chances of being disenfranchised. The same is true for certain other states with otherwise draconian voter suppression laws, including Georgia, Wisconsin, and Kansas.
And if you’re involved in voter registration canvassing, shouldn’t you take along with you a stack of absentee ballot request forms, and explain the many advantages of ‘voting at home’ to new registrants? Shouldn’t every voter registration drive do this? Because the job’s not done until you actually get a ballot into that new voter’s hands, and provide him or her with a safe place to cast it.
Opt out of voter suppression, North Carolina. Vote at Home.
POSTSCRIPT: One of the goals behind the publication of this diary was to test the public reception for the ‘Vote At Home’ message before a politically engaged audience of folks who understand the importance of GOTV efforts (i.e, Kossacks). The many positive comments, below, as well as the numerous Facebook shares this article is earning, are encouraging indeed. But a minority of comments express concern that absentee voting by mail is (as one Facebook commenter suggested) “a trap” — more vulnerable to manipulation than are other forms of ballots. Such comments provide a valuable insight for us, indicating that this is a concern which the Vote At Home message must address.
The reality is that there is no form of ballot which cannot be manipulated by hypothetical election officials who are willing to face long prison terms...but some forms of voting are more susceptible to this than others. Electronic voting machines are perhaps the best example; there are no witnesses inside a computer chip. This includes the scantron machines which are commonly used in North Carolina polling places to read ballots filled out by pen. If anything, paper ballots delivered by the U.S. Postal Service, and counted on election day under the watchful eyes of poll monitors, are more secure than are other ballots, because there are witnesses.
One commenter expressed concern that a voter’s zip code, revealed on his mail-in ballot, might be used by rogue officials to mark that ballot for deletion based on the voter’s likely race. In North Carolina, such concerns are unfounded, as our voter registration database already lists every voter’s race, age, sex, zip code, and much more. Here again, absentee voting by mail poses no special vulnerability.
We thank all who have shared their concerns; you are helping us refine the Vote At Home message.
Tens of thousands of Georgia voters have had their registrations thrown out because of typos in the state’s databases or because their name in the databases may not exactly match the information on their registration form.
A federal appeals court has blocked a proof-of-citizenship requirement on a federal mail voter registration form in Kansas, Alabama and Georgia.
The case pits Brian Newby, U.S. Election Assistance Commission executive director who argues that the requirement prevents voter fraud, against the League of Women Voters, which argues the documentation requirement disenfranchises voters.
Jennifer McDaniel got a letter on August 4 that broke her heart. Signed by Edgardo Cortés, the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections, it read, "This letter is to inform you that your voter registration has been canceled in compliance with a court order issued by the Supreme Court of Virginia on July 22, 2016."
The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it would not reinstate North Carolina’s comprehensive voter suppression law, and the big headlines out of this announcement rightly touted this decision as good news for voting rights. Just below the surface, however, this order has ominous news for many Americans.
Donald Trump’s claims that if he loses in November it will be due to a “rigged” election have sparked strong bipartisan criticism from election lawyers, donors and a former member of Congress who warn that the Republican candidate’s words are dangerous, fueling doubts about the election’s legitimacy and potentially leading to voter intimidation.
If there is anything positive to say about the 2016 elections, it's that they have finally forced an end to the official denial of computerized election rigging.
This Labor Day, we salute the hard working people that make up our diverse country and the inspiring labor movement fighting tirelessly for our rights, creating a society that is moving towards the economic and political democracy we deserve.
It's been another big week for voting laws — especially when it comes to the courts. More twists and turns are likely before the election. But for now, here's an update:
SAN DIEGO — With the November presidential election approaching, it looked like David Rector would once again be unable to vote. Five years ago, a judge ruled that a traumatic brain injury disqualified him.
In a victory for voting rights and reprieve for democracy ahead of November's election, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to reinstate controversial voting restrictions approved by Republican lawmakers in North Carolina.
Does it matter to you whether you are allowed to vote, and to have your vote, and other people’s votes, counted?
Liberty Tree’s No More Stolen Elections! (NMSE!) campaign is in full motion, with many voters from across the country signing the Pledge of Action and organizing Voter Assemblies in their states. We’ve already exceeded our goal of over 500 new Pledge signers before our official launch!
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is weighing new steps to bolster the security of the United States’ voting process against cyberthreats, including whether to designate the electronic ballot-casting system for November’s elections as “critical infrastructure
WE REMEMBER Florida 2000, Ohio 2004, Wisconsin 2011, and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court in 2014, and we are willing to act this year if the right to free and fair elections is denied again.
The voting rights of American Indians and Alaska Natives have been eroded or ignored since the United States Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, according to charges in numerous lawsuits brought by tribes throughout Indian country in the battle to protect Native suffrage.
Please join us for the first round of No More Stolen Elections! Calls happening through August 11, 2016! These calls will be the first step in coalition building and will connect individuals and organizations who will be on the ground in Philadelphia during the Democratic National Convention July 25 - 28. 2016.
