pinion Editorial: Voter Suppression Laws are a Disgrace to Democracy

Of all the deplorable aspects of Florida government, none are quite as repulsive as our lawmakers' obvious disdain for ordinary taxpayers. There is a clear preference toward the corporations, lobbyists and special interests that sponsor their seat at the trough, and nowhere is that more apparent than in recent efforts to take giant steps backward in terms of voters' rights. Rarely mentioned when analyzing the 2012 presidential election, is that 70 percent of the electoral votes needed to win can come from states (including Florida) that have new voting laws based on model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council that are unnecessarily restrictive at best, and conspiratorially-biased at worst (click here for pdf of model legislation).

Over the past two years, the Florida legislature has waged a vicious campaign against the average Florida taxpayer, with a seemingly endless effort to reduce their influence and voice when it comes to setting policy. In a telling tribute to their delusions, they fought tooth and nail to prevent themselves from losing the ability to gerrymander their districts. Legislators were so repelled by the idea that voters would pick their lawmakers, rather than vice versa, that they actually used taxpayers' own money to sue them in court after voters overwhelmingly decided to amend the state constitution in order to provide the fair districts they should have already had.

On issues like prison privatization, the legislature tried end-around tactics to subvert the legislative process, ultimately sneaking the measures into a budget provision to avoid debate and public comment on the issue. It is clear that many Florida lawmakers see the people as little more than an inconvenient obstacle that sometimes stands in the way of them and the moneyed interests that support their incumbency until they can pass through the revolving door and profit for the decisions they've made on those same interests’ behalf.

Laughable campaign finance laws allow special interests to donate unlimited money to the political parties. In 2010, GEO, the second-largest privatized-corrections company in the world, was the number one contributor to the Republican Party of Florida. The result was a strong-armed effort to pass privatization legislation at all costs – no matter the benefit, or lack thereof, to the citizen. It was perhaps the most flagrant example of purely bought and paid for legislation this state has seen – and it has seen its share. The measure only failed because 8 sensible Republicans bucked party bosses and joined the Senate’s 12 Democrats to cause a 20-20 tie that stalled the bill, which undoubtedly will be back, so that the party can see if it can ram it through with a new team after the 2012 elections.

You see, it’s the party that paves the way for the long-term career of a legislator. It can dole out money and influence to make sure a candidate wins a seat or an incumbent keeps theirs. It can be influential in assignments and ascents to positions of leadership. Being in the party’s good graces is often the first step toward amassing a private fortune or an eventual seat in Washington – or both.

This is a big part of how the party makes sure that it has the votes, but it’s not always enough. Only so many legislators can get to the top and only so many can be bought off. As prison privatization and the parent trigger bill demonstrated, some members of the party will push back. So it’s always important that the majority’s lead in votes remains massive. There are two ways this is accomplished.

First, they make sure the districts are gerrymandered. Even though the Florida constitution now forbids such practices outright, one look at the maps will show that making every effort to use natural boundaries without splitting communities is not how they were drawn. The second is to make sure that those who are least likely to vote in your favor, are least likely to vote at all. If you’re a wealthy, special-interest aligned oligarch, poor people are least likely to vote for you, and new voters drawn to the fray by their frustrations are less likely to be registering in order to vote for the status quo.

So by making it harder for the young and poor to vote, you are helping to hedge your bets even further. This approach is not new, but it is brazen beyond compare. For the last decade, an overt campaign to influence turnout and participation has been waged against the American citizen, and nowhere is this cancer on freedom better observed than right here in Florida. But our state is not alone. In a fit of amazing coincidences, several other states throughout the country that happen to have GOP-dominated state legislatures are simultaneously becoming concerned enough with bouts of phantom voter fraud to propose legislation that also just happens to help their election demographics.

While the other aforementioned efforts to rig the casino are an offense to democracy, this one is in a league of its own. These laws are so clearly designed to produce an outcome, rather than combat a problem, that every taxpayer should be spilling with outrage as a result. Under the laughable guise of ”fraud prevention,“ the state has made it much harder for groups to register new voters (even the LWV ended their voter registration drives), rolled back an immensely successful early voting program and stopped allowing voters to update their address info at the polls. All of this has made it less likely that many young and low-income voters will be able to make it to the polls or have their vote counted.

When repeatedly asked to demonstrate the supposed voter fraud that was occurring that they said prompted this legislation, proponents acted as if they hadn’t heard the question. And with good reason, a host of Supervisors of Elections in the state answered that there was scant evidence that fraud was occurring to more than a negligible degree. In truth, the greatest source of election fraud actually comes at the hands of the governments themselves with the help of the politically-connected companies they contract with to ensure that even those who do manage to get to the polls are unlikely to impact an election in any way that deviates from the script.

Investigative reporter Greg Palast detailed Florida’s practices in election rigging in his excellent book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and these new voter suppression laws do nothing to address such malfeasances. Meanwhile, in one of the most ironic campaigns I’ve seen, Florida Senator Mike Bennett, who was a strong advocate of the voter suppression measures and actually said that he felt we should make it harder for people to vote, is now running for Supervisor of Elections in Manatee County. Perhaps the party is addressing dissent on the issues from those ranks as well.

The right to vote is such a sacred and seminal pillar of American democracy that any effort to limit a liberty that men, women and children alike have died for over centuries of battles to extend it to every citizen is nothing less than repulsive. But like so many issues in American politics today, this isn’t about what is right. It’s about keeping the machine grinding in the manner which best benefits the plutocrats who run things. So groups like ALEC aggressively push this sort of legislation behind the mask of faux need and intent, while party bosses twist arms until legislators shove it down the throats of their citizens. I say, shame on us for opening our mouths while they do.

Dennis Maley is a featured columnist and editor for The Bradenton Times. His column appears every Thursday and Sunday on our site and in our free Weekly Recap and Sunday Edition (click here to subscribe). An archive of Dennis' columns is available here. He can be reached at dennis.maley@thebradentontimes.com. You can also follow Dennis on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the badges below.

Dennis Maley