Ken Blackwell is at it again. This time he has attempted to shut down voter registration drives by promulgating new rules that make it extremely burdensome to register new voters in thre State of Ohio:
[T]he new rules and guidelines require all compensated voter registration workers to return voter registration forms directly to the Secretary of State or a Board of Elections office, prohibiting them “under penalty of law” from returning the applications to any other person, group, organization, office or entity, including voter registration groups.
For more on Blackwell’s “new rules” and what you can do to fight back, follow me below the fold . . .
More from the website of the People for the American Way (PFAW) regarding Blackwell’s rules of voter suppression:
Secretary Blackwell’s office also requires each voter registration worker to complete an individualized online interactive training program. This will make it extremely difficult to train workers in poorer communities who have little or no access to a computer, the Internet (with sufficient bandwidth), and a printer. For instance, People For the American Way Foundation runs a voter registration program, Victory Through Voting, that mobilizes leaders in African American churches to organize voter registration drives in their communities. Many of these churches have no or only one or two computers, with dial-up internet access, making it extremely difficult for them to provide voter registration workers the mandatory training they need to be eligible to register voters under Blackwell’s rules.
The rules provide no alternative means of completing the online interactive training program, which may prevent individuals with certain disabilities from participating in voter registration entirely.
The rules and guidelines only apply to voter registration workers who legally receive “compensation.” The modified rules, however, do not define what “compensation” means. It is impossible to determine whether simply providing volunteers with food, transportation, postage to mail in completed registrations, or other non-monetary goods or services will require those volunteers to follow these complicated, burdensome procedures and make them susceptible to criminal penalties if they fail to do so.
In short, this is a coordinated attack on poor African Americans and on voter registration drives promoted by Democrats and other Progressive organizations, such as PFAW. Republicans will have no trouble funding the necessary training for their voter registration drives among, nor are wealthier suburban registrants signed up by conservative groups and fundamentalist churches likely to have their applications subjected to a challenge. Registration drives by African American churches and other groups who lack the necessary funding to match these efforts, however, will be hamstrung by all of these requirements, which will result in many more disqualifications of filed registrations, or simply the inability to field enough “trained” volunteers to mount an effective voter registration drive in the first place.
PFAW’s legal team is already taking steps to challenge Blackwell’s rules, and has had some success when Blackwell was forced to rescind the rule that prohibited sending completed registration forms through the US mail. But more needs to be done.
Here is how you can help.
GO TO THIS LINK at the PFAW website and complete the form to add your name to the petition demanding that Blackwell and the Ohio Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review rescind these discriminatory and burdensome rules which make it harder for people to exercise their right to vote.
I’ll let Sharon J. Lettman, Vice President for External Affairs and Director of Election Protection 365, People For the American Way Foundation explain why this is so important (excerpt from her email):
So far, over 13,000 people have signed our petition against Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell’s new regulations that severely restrict voter registration. We’re looking to get at least 25,000 by Monday when the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) will vote to accept or reject the regulations. Please help us reach our goal!
The voter suppression going on in Ohio will have an impact on traditionally disenfranchised communities that could last for several election cycles. And if these kinds of tactics are accepted as “fair game,” they are sure to be employed in other states soon. […]
Blackwell’s new rules threaten criminal penalties for individuals registering voters if they do not exactly conform to complicated, burdensome procedures. The resulting intimidation of registration workers has the potential to bring to a screeching halt efforts to register poor, young and African American voters. Help us send a message to the Ohio Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review that this is unacceptable.
Shutting people out of the democratic process is not the American Way. Weigh in against this attack on voting rights by signing and forwarding our petition today!
Let’s nip this attempt at voter suppression in the bud before it wreaks havoc on democracy in Ohio and spreads to other states.
Please note her most salient point. These onerous, obnoxious and unamerican tactics will spread to other states if they aren’t stopped now, in Ohio. If Democrats have any hope of winning future elections, starting this November, we need as many young people and minorities voting on Election Day as we can get to the polls. But that won’t happen if we can’t get them registered to vote in the first place.
Signing the petition won’t take much of your time. Please act today to help ensure that ALL VOTERS in Ohio can make their voice heard this November.