Holder speaks Tuesday at LBJ Library in Austin
By Fredreka Schouten
WASHINGTON
More than half a dozen states have passed new laws to reduce early voting setting up a clash with civil rights groups and Democrats who claim the rules could disenfranchise minority voters in the 2012 election for the White House and Congress. Among states with new restrictions: Wisconsin and Florida presidential swing states that also are key battlegrounds in the fight for control of the U.S. Senate where Democrats hold a narrow advantage.
In Florida nearly 3.3 million Democrats cast in-person ballots before Election Day in the 2008 contest that swept President Obama into power. By contrast 810666 Florida Republicans participated in the in-person early voting that year according to the Florida secretary of States office. Obama won the state by 3 percentage points.
Five other states Ohio Georgia Maine Tennessee and West Virginia this year approved laws shortening early voting according to the non-partisan
National Conference of State Legislatures. With the exception of West Virginia Republicans control the governors offices and legislatures in those states.
The Republican-controlled Legislature in another key presidential battleground state North Carolina plans to revisit a proposal next year to reduce early voting from 16 days to 10.
Proponents say their efforts will hold down election costs. Opponents say early voting restrictions along with new laws in six states requiring photo identification at the polls will thwart traditionally Democratic voters including college students African Americans and Latinos.
Republicans think their path to victory is through limiting eligible voters access to the polls said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt. Our goal is to maximize participation.
The campaign scored a key victory Friday when Ohio officials certified that the laws opponents had collected enough signatures to get a repeal petition on the November ballot. That delays implementation of the law.
Obamas political operation Organizing for America helped run the petition drive which collected nearly half a million signatures. Efforts are underway in other states to combat new voting restrictions campaign officials said.
Over the weekend the
NAACP and other civil rights groups took their case to the streets staging a march in New York City to protest the new laws. They also are urging Attorney General Eric Holder to find the laws unconstitutional.
Holder is scheduled to deliver a speech Tuesday on voting rights at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
The law gives the federal government the power to review any voting changes in all or parts of 16 states with a history of racial discrimination at the polls including Texas and Florida.
Lawmakers backing the new rules say the changes are not politically motivated. North Carolina state Rep. Bert Jones said he sponsored the bill to cut the states early voting by six days to reduce the influence of political money in state and local elections.
The longer voting period gives that much more of an advantage to candidates who have more money to spend said Jones a Republican. Ten voting days is still a generous amount of time.
Early voting has surged in recent years. More than a dozen states launched or expanded early voting programs from 2001 though 2010 according to data compiled by Jennie Bowser a senior fellow at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Overall 34 of voters in the 2008 general election cast ballots before Election Day up from 22.2 four years earlier according to data from the Associated Press and Edison Research.
In Florida 54 of African-American voters cast their ballots early in the 2008 general election and blacks made up nearly a third of statewide turnout the Sunday before Election Day when some black churches organized a Get Your Souls to the Polls voter drive said Ryan Haygood of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Under the new law Florida early voting will shrink from 14 days to eight. Voting on the last Sunday before the election also has been abolished to give officials time to set up for the general election said state Rep. Dennis Baxley a Republican who co-sponsored the measure.
He said the new law which also tightens rules on voter registration by third-party groups seeks to preserve the credibility of elections not gain partisan advantage. We have people on a conspiracy hunt Baxley said. In my case it doesnt exist.
Bowser said the reductions in early voting also come as budget-crunched states look for ways to cut costs. Government is trying to do more with less at every level and every function and elections are no exception she said.
Michael McDonald an elections expert at Virginias George Mason University said its too soon to tell whether the new laws will lower turnout. The changes may lead to longer lines on Election Day he said. But in a high-profile presidential election people are enthusiastic about voting and will often overcome the barriers put in their way.
