RICK SNYDER IS MAN OF THE HOUR

First Republican Governor to

Strike Down Voter Suppression Bills

By Victor M Adamus

Governor Rick Snyder

Once in a while a man of honor arrives on the political scene, but not often.  This time it’s the Republican Governor of Michigan who knew in his heart the package to suppress voters in his state was the wrong thing to do.  He rejected House Bill 5061; Senate Bills 754 and 803 which stunned his party but required over a million voters in his state to re-affirm their U.S. citizenship by showing a photo ID before voting.  The Veto was the right thing to do. 

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law said Rick Snyder is the first Republican governor to veto any of the “180 restrictive voting measures” that have been introduced across the country since the beginning of 2011.  It basically is a legal way to cheat the system so it favors registered Republicans which may give way to electing a president that didn’t have the full support of the voting population.  It also may be the only way Republican Candidate Mitt Romney could win the White House.

In Florida, a significant battleground state, Governor Rick Scott issued an order to his secretary of state to purge the voting records of approximately 200,000 legally registered voters who just happen to be Black and Hispanic registered Democrats.  We must remember that George W Bush won the state when a deadline expired by 537 votes and a complaint to the Supreme Court was turned down basically appointing Bush as the next U.S. President.  Purging a percentage of 200,000 eligible voters would strengthen the margin for Mitt Romney in the state.  The U.S. Justice Department has filed a charge against Florida under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to make sure it doesn’t discriminate against minority voters.  The purge is also illegal under the National Voter Registration Act.

Governor Rick Scott plans to duke it out in court with only four months left until the national election.

Florida legislators have already passed a bill disenfranchising 100,000 previously ex-felons who had been granted the right to vote under former Republican Governor Charlie Crist.  They also cut back early voting hoping that Seniors and other elderly Democrats would not be able physically to wait in long lines on election day.  They are doing everything they can to increase the odds in favor of their Party’s Nominee.

The progressive blog Think Progress reported, "an excess of 20 percent of the voters flagged as 'non-citizens' in Miami-Dade are, in fact, citizens. And the actual number may be much higher." If this ratio holds for the rest of the names on the non-citizens list, more than 35,000 eligible voters could be disenfranchised. Those alleged non-citizens have already included a 91-year-old World War II veteran who’s voted since he was 18 and a 60-year-old kennel owner who has voted in the state for four decades. It’s impossible to quantify how many eligible voters will be scrubbed from the rolls if they’ve moved, aren’t home, don’t have ready access to citizenship documents, or won’t bother to reply to the menacing purge letter.

Why isn’t denying U.S. citizens the right to vote criminal?  Because there is no right to vote in the U.S. Constitution, individual states set their own electoral policies and procedures. This leads to confusing and sometimes contradictory policies regarding ballot design, polling hours, voting equipment, voter registration requirements, and ex-felon voting rights. As a result, our electoral system is divided into 50 states, more than 3,000 counties and approximately 13,000 voting districts, all separate and unequal.

My congratulations goes out to Governor Rick Snyder who put his state back on a level playing field.  Michigan could be a battle ground state depending upon what Ohio and Virginia do.  You can bet that this time around in this important national election every vote will count.  It will be a thin victory for someone.