The war on voting drudges on. From teachers being fined for registering students to vote to the ACLU suing Wisconsin, here is a quick survey of some of the states currently on the front line:
Florida: A teacher in Florida could face thousands of dollars in fines for helping students register to vote. Jill Cicciarelli organized a drive at the start of the school year to get students registered to vote, but she did not meet the requirements for Florida’s new election laws which states that all third parties who sign up new voters must submit applications within 48 hours. “This isn’t someone who was going to commit fraud,” Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall said. “She was doing a good thing. New Smyrna Beach High School was doing a good thing.” http://bit.ly/nB6Oyl
South Carolina: South Carolina’s new voter ID laws appear to be hitting the minority populations the hardest. Nearly half of the students who attend Benedict College, the historically black college in Columbia, do not own a state-issued photo ID and could face problems voting in the upcoming 2012 presidential election. The United States Department of Justice has been reviewing the laws for months to determine whether or not they are discriminatory. Among the state’s 2,134 precincts, there are 10 where nearly all of the law’s effects fall on nonwhite voters who don’t have a state-issued driver’s license or ID card, a total of 1,977 voters. http://apne.ws/qZrWLX
Wisconsin: Following the mock election last Tuesday, the Madison, WI city clerk’s office put together statistics that show voters will have to wait at least one minute per person in line. The mock election was held to give voters and poll workers an idea of how the 2012 presidential election will run with Wisconsin’s new voting laws. Traditionally, Madison has two election officials stationed at each polling booth. In the mock election, there were more poll workers stationed. If Madison continues to use two election officials, voters could wait up to four minutes times the number of people in line. http://bit.ly/nGLm6Q
The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Network is filing a lawsuit over the state’s new voter identification law. The group is claiming that the law violates Wisconsin’s constitution in determining who can vote. Lester Pines, an attorney working on the case, stated: “The Wisconsin Constitution only allows the legislature to exclude the two named classes from voting — felons and people ruled incompetent,” he said in a statement. “The new law creates a third class of citizens who may not vote — people who do not have ID. This lawsuit challenges the legislature’s authority to enact such a law.” goo.gl/l5mLq





