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Protect Registration Drives

As a response to successful efforts by non-partisan and progressive organizations to register hundreds of thousands of new voters in recent years, many states are enacting restrictions on voter registration drives.These laws have a discriminatory effect as African Americans and members of Spanish-speaking households are twice as likely to be registered through a voter registration drive than whites or members of English-speaking households.

  • In Florida, strict deadlines have been established, mandating that completed registration forms must be delivered to election officials within days of being filled out.  Failure to comply with the deadlines makes a person liable for heavy fines.  This recently led the League of Women Voters of Florida to briefly suspend voter registration activities.  The law is currently not being enforced while a lawsuit between the League and the state is resolved.
  • In Ohio, voting rights groups won a lawsuit that struck down voter registration provisions that required “registration drive workers to register and to undergo training, to list detailed information on each registration form they help with and for every gatherer to turn in forms in person, not through an organizer”¦" 

Project Vote — Policy Brief on Restricting Voter Registration Drives

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From the Dispatch

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    Voting Rights 2008: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

    Oct 17, 2008

    Fallout from Montana Voter Challenge Plan Continues:  Last week we highlighted the tremendous job that Forward Montana and other local advocates did in bringing a massive attempt to challenge voters in Montana to a stop.  In just a few days the plan was abandoned amid serious public backlash.  This week there has been additional fallout as the executive director of the state GOP has stepped down.  Clearly trying to keep people like deployed soldiers from voting wasn't a popular activity in the big sky state.
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    Reports Find Election Administration in Swing States Not Significantly Improved

    Sep 25, 2008

    Common Cause and The Century Foundation have released the new version of their joint biennial report on election administration in 10 swing states and the findings are not very encouraging: while voters' desire to participate is growing, states have only made fitful progress improving the voting process, and in many instances things have moved backward since the last federal election in 2006.  Examining the most recent election experiences of Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia the report details serious problems in every major aspect of the voting process, along with a handful of bright spots where individual states are moving important reforms.
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    States Apply Pressure to Allow Voter Registration Drives in Veterans' Facilities

    Jul 17, 2008

    The federal Department of Veterans Affairs for months has been embroiled in a controversy over its prohibition on voter registration drives in veterans' facilities.  Now 10 Secretaries of State and the Attorney General of Connecticut have stepped into the maelstrom, demanding that the VA reverse its policy.  Late last month, Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal attempted to register voters at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven.  They were prevented by staff from registering voters inside the facility, but they were able to register a dozen veterans as they were leaving.  One newly registered voter is 92-year-old WWII veteran Martin Onieal.
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    The New Voter Suppression and the Progressive Response

    Jun 02, 2008

    Voter suppression is growing rapidly in America today.  Over half of states now have voter ID requirements more stringent than that required for first time voters in federal elections.  Several states are clamping down on voter registration drives or are considering proof of citizenship requirements.
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Protect Registration Drives

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