Thursday, October 30, 2008
Voter Suppression
As the volunteer fromt the Obama campaign talked about in the last class, voter suppression is a real issue facing many people in the country. I have a good example to share that refers to my brother from Nashville, TN. He moved to Nashville about 4 years ago and has tried to register to vote more than twice and everytime the county or state says they haven't received his registration. He is registering Democrat by the way in a huge Republican state. This year he tried it again so he could vote in the general election. The deadline in Tennessee was October 6th so he went to the DMV and told them he wanted to register and the lady took all the proper information. My brother leaves thinking that he is going to be registered to vote on Nov. 4th. He checks today as to where he is going to have to go and vote and realizes that he is not even registered still. He calls the state to complain about this because he really wants to be a part of history. They tell him that they once again did not receive any information about him registering to vote even though the DMV told him he was. What is wrong with this picture? Do you think he should file a lawsuit? Yes or No?
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3 comments:
Does he have any proof that he went to the DMV? If it is just his word against the state/DMV, it would be a futile attempt, especially given the environment you described. It is very sad to me that this would occur. I don't consider myself a republican (even though I have only voted for one democrate in any position in the last two elections) but this sort of bipartisan descrimination disgusts me.
It is definitely unfortunate that this has happened to your brother, however to decide whether he should file a lawsuit will require more information. It is important to note that the DMV isn't a partisan political organization and the fact that he thought he registered there, but that the info was lost cannot be pegged on the fact that he is registering as a democrat in a republican state. Also as the speaker noted, receiving voter registration information and not turning it in is illegal and perhaps there was some other kind of glitch, perhaps technological. To claim that the whole state is suppressing democratic voters seems ludicrous. It seems we would need to know other statistics/information before judging whether he should follow a lawsuit. I would like to know if there are any other lawsuits of this nature that are pending or that have gone to trial and also their verdicts. It seems that if this were some huge conspiracy by the state to suppress all democratic voters, thousands of people would be experiencing the same problem. However, I am sure that Obama will receive votes in the state, even if it end up giving its electoral votes to McCain.
This voter suppression sounds similar to our guest speaker the other day. I was not aware that republicans enforced such strict voting laws. It is sad to see voter suppression acts perfomed like in this situation.
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