The war on voter registration
Attacks by the rightwing against nonpartisan voter registration groups are escalating to an alarming degree.
It should be the government's responsibility to maintain a list of eligible voters. The movement to achieve this is called "universal registration." Until we have universal registration, nonprofits have to do the work of government and make sure citizens get on the rolls and stay there.
Community organizations that register a lot of minority, low income and youth voters come under attack by right wingers who want to suppress the vote and maintain our current system of disenfranchisement.
Today's Progress Report has an important round up on recent attacks to suppress the vote by attacking nonpartisan voter registration groups.
In recent weeks, conservatives have escalated their attacks on ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Conservative lawmakers were able to remove a provision aimed at aiding low-income housing programs from the Bush administration’s $700 billion economic bailout bill by calling it a "slush fund" for ACORN. Before that, conservatives blamed ACORN for "precipitating the subprime crisis." And last week, they alleged that the "purpose" of ACORN is to engage in voter fraud. However, as columnist Joel McNally correctly noted, the "underlying motive for attacking ACORN" seems to be that it is the "nation's largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people." "It is an organization that engages in that dreaded community organizing," McNally wrote. "It actually tries to give a voice to the poor and most vulnerable among us." Indeed, after years of enacting policies catering to the wealthy, the right-wing seems to be fearful of millions of new low-income voters registered by ACORN casting their ballots in favor of progressive policies.
Read the entire post here.
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