The Great Whitebread Hope is back in business
by digby
Good old Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker can always be counted upon to stick it to the most vulnerable. This week in a move ostensibly designed to make it easier for people to vote Walker signed a bill legalizing online registration. That’s very nice. But get a load of this:
The most harmful provision buried in the bill effectively stops groups from organizing community voter registration drives.
Lawmakers justified the provision by claiming that online voter registration would make community registration drives unnecessary because anyone will be able to promote voter registration by directing people to online registration. However, the online system will require a driver’s license or state-issued identification card number. Local and national groups, including Project Vote, joined together to show lawmakers that the proposed online registration system would not be available to all eligible electors, disproportionately impacting students, veterans, older individuals, low-income people and people of color. We explained that it is community registration drives that often register the very people unable to use online registration.
Presented with this information, lawmakers refused to amend the law to preserve community registration drives or to expand access to the online registration system. We then asked Governor Walker to veto this provision, as no other state has tied online voter registration to the dismantling of community registration drives. But this request was swiftly ignored.
So no more organizing drives to get people to register to vote. How convenient.
It’s hard to see how it can be legal to stop people from doing this. It seems to me this violates freedom of speech. How can the government tell citizens they’re not allowed to talk to fellow citizens about anything? How can you make it illegal for someone to help another person fill out forms? I assume we’ll find out. If this is legal, it could mean the government could outlaw all sorts of organizing activity. Even Tea Parties. Or Republican women’s clubs.
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