Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

Disenfranchised voter Shirley Preiss, 97. (Photo by Stokely Baksh)

In an article for The Indypendent, former News 21 reporter Renee Feltz revisits Arizona, where thousands of potential voters have been unable to register due to new identification requirements. These voters, most of whom are poor, elderly and/or Latino, would have tended to vote Democratic. Thus it is in the GOP’s interest to continue stoking fears about illegal immigrants committing voter fraud.

Hans A. von Spakovsky, formerly a Bush appointee in the Department of Justice who now works at the Heritage foundation, is one Republican who would like to see strict ID requirements in every state.

von Spakovsky argues the “honor system” of signing a legally binding registration card fails to keep non-citizens from the polls, and suggests election officials should be allowed to access U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement databases “regarding voter eligibility based on citizenship.” He also wants all states to require anyone who registers to vote to provide proof of U.S. citizenship.

Citizenship is already a legal requirement to vote in the United States, but GOP scare tactics have led more than a dozen states to consider additional legislation to require documented proof of citizenship, and in many cases a Voter ID card, in order to vote.

Arizona is the only state with both of these requirements. Though there was—and still is—no evidence of voter fraud by illegal immigrants, Arizona voters passed Proposition 200 in 2004, requiring proof of citizenship in the form of a birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport in order to register to vote. This summer Feltz and fellow News 21 reporter Stokely Baksh found that the laws proved burdensome to many citizens who wish to register—the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund found 38,000 cases of rejected registrations.

Read the rest of the story here.