Beating John Lewis to a pulp on the Edmund Pettis Bridge and using fire hoses and police dogs on voting rights protestors is so 20th century. While racists like George Wallace and Bull Conner used brute force, 21st century Republican white nationalists use computers and the courts, but the goal is the same: stop non-white people from voting through any means necessary.
Three weeks before Americans vote in the November 6 midterms, elections are being stolen in slow motion across the United States. The GOP candidate for governor in Georgia, Brian Kemp, is also Georgia’s secretary of state, and he has purged a half-million names from Georgia’s voter rolls and refuses to recognize over 50,000 newly registered voters. His opponent, state Rep. Stacey Abrams, happens to be a black woman. The NAACP has sued in federal court, claiming he is illegally rigging the election in his favor.
Just outside of Atlanta, Gwinett County, Georgia is 60 percent non-white. Officials there are rejecting almost 10 percent of all absentee ballots, claiming the signatures on the ballots “don’t match” the voter’s signature. Thirty-seven percent of all absentee ballot rejections in Georgia come from that one county, and voters there have also sued in federal court.
In North Dakota, thanks to a white GOP legislature and a favorable U.S. Supreme Court ruling on October 9, Native Americans will probably be prevented from voting in a blatant attempt to defeat incumbent U.S. Senator Heidi Heidkamp, a Democrat who narrowly won her 2012 Senate election thanks to strong support from residents of the state’s four Sioux and Chippewa reservations.
The North Dakota law, upheld by the Supreme Court a week ago, says valid photo voter IDs must contain a street address and that IDs with a Post Office Box are invalid. The vast majority of reservations in North Dakota don’t have street addresses, so each home is listed as a P.O. Box. So now, North Dakota won’t accept a driver’s license or even a U.S. passport as a valid ID if it has a P.O. Box. Think about that. If you’re a Native American in North Dakota, even a United States passport isn’t a valid ID.
Here in Missouri, there is confusion over the state’s voter photo ID law. The law requires a government-issued photo ID. A voter who doesn’t have one is required to bring some other proof of ID and residence, like a utility bill, and then sign a statement confirming their identity under penalty of perjury.
The Missouri voter photo ID has already been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. But a Cole County judge tossed out the signed statement part, ruling that signing an affidavit under penalty of perjury infringes on the right to vote. Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate and a fan of voter photo ID, has filed a lawsuit to overturn that ruling.
Then there is the issue of allegedly new voters – over 80,000 statewide, most African-American – registered by the group MO Black Votes. Those registrations are still being processed by local election officials. Many of those registrations have been put on a “pending” list because of supposed irregularities.
So what does all this mean if you’re a Missouri voter? I asked Eric Fey, the Democratic director of elections for the St. Louis County elections board. What about the voter photo ID requirement? Fey says you can still vote without one.
“The voter ID is in a bit of a flux following the court ruling,” he said. “But no matter what, all voters will be able to vote a regular ballot whether or not they bring a photo ID to the polls. If a voter brings any form of ID they will get to vote a regular ballot.”
According to the Missouri secretary of state’s office, there are four kinds of valid non-government IDs that will allow you to vote without a government-issued photo ID: the voter registration card you were mailed; an ID from any Missouri university, college, vocational, or technical school; an electric bill, a gas bill, a phone bill, or any other utility bill with your name and address; or a bank statement with your name and address.
If you don’t have any of those and don’t have a photo ID, you will still be able to vote, but only using a provisional ballot. The provisional ballot is the same as a regular ballot, but has to be placed in an envelope with a form filled out by the voter certifying that they are an actual registered voter. If the information doesn’t check out, the ballot won’t be counted. If it does, the ballot will be counted, but not until a week or two after the election.
What happens if you’re one of those newly registered voters, but you show up at the polling place and you’re name’s not on the list? That is when you have to be insistent and demand that the election judges call the election board.
“If a voter is not on the precinct register, the judges should call the election board office,” said Fey. “If the election board can verify the voter’s information, the election judges will be instructed to allow the voter to vote.”
So if your name isn’t on the list, raise hell. But if the election judges can’t get through to the election board on the phone or the election board can’t verify your information, you will end up casting one of those provisional ballots which, if it does count, won’t be counted until weeks later.
If you run into voter intimidation, the election judges refuse to co-operate or you’re being prevented from voting, you can call the toll-free Election Protection Hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683).
The heroes of the Selma March and the Civil Rights Movement didn’t risk everything just so a white nationalist with as computer could stop you from voting.
When you go to the polls on November 6, stand your ground.
Charles Jaco is a journalist, author, and activist. Follow him on Twitter at @charlesjaco1.
