One of the underreported stories this cycle is the unprecedented success of voting rights groups in defending the right to vote and preventing states from implementing illegal purges based on flawed databases. Preserving voter access is the mandate of the Justice Department, but the Bush administration's politicization of the Justice Department in general, and the civil rights division in particular, left a void that has been largely filled by voting rights groups with no where near the same resources. The Brennan Center has compiled a list, which I will reproduce in part here: In Michigan, Colorado, and Wisconsin, efforts to disenfranchise voters who didn't match flawed databases failed. In Montana, voting rights advocates prevented the local GOP from disenfranchising 6,000 voters who had filed change of address forms. In Michigan and Indiana, plans to challenge voters based on foreclosure lists were foiled before they began.
Voting rights groups haven't won every battle they've fought outright: In Georgia, for example, they managed to get a judge to rule that voters who were flagged by a state database would be able to cast what's called a "challenged ballot." Laughlin McDonald of the ACLU Voting Rights Project called the ruling a "split baby decision" because challenged ballots won't be counted until voters verify their information with the county registrar, which may not happen until we already know who the next president will be. It is up to the poll workers whether flagged voters who show up to their polling places with the necessary documentation will be able to cast a regular rather than a challenged ballot, which is a process that is as arbitrary as it sounds. In a state like Georgia, where there is a history of disenfranchising black voters, and during an election in which black folks are likely to vote for the Democrat in even larger numbers than usual, a "split baby decision" is hardly comforting.
Still, the proactive approach of voting rights groups this election cycle has helped thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands cast ballots this year who otherwise wouldn't have been able to. Many problems remain -- I think it says a great deal about this country that at 18, we get a draft registration card but we're expected to register to vote on our own -- an end to these problems will likely only come with reform along the lines Rick Hasen proposes.
--A. Serwer
