Forward Oregon

Last week, a group of Oregon’s reactionary Right, including former State Rep. and Lars Larson lackey Jeff Kropf and Jim Ludwick, President of the xenophobic group Oregonians for Immigration Reform, declared war on the voter rolls. The danger of this group can not be underestimated as part of a systematic attempt to suppress voting, especially by young people.

During their press conference, the group claimed that there were thousands of errors in the voter rolls, calling on Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and the US Attorney for Oregon to investigate these supposedly ineligible voters. According to Scott Moore, spokesmen for the Secretary of State office, those errors are easily explained (via the Oregonian):

But Bradbury spokesman Scott Moore responded that the examples did not appear to show anything out of compliance with election laws. He said the examples included many inactive voters, who are listed in the two-year-old statewide voter database but are not eligible to vote. Nearly 2 million Oregonians are eligible to vote.

Moore also noted that one of the most common examples given Thursday involved some of the more than 670,000 currently-active voters who registered prior to 1999, before voters were required to list their birthdate when registering. When the new statewide voter system started, those people were transferred into it with their birthdate listed as 11-11-1111. He said that county clerks around the state have inserted the correct birthdates for nearly all of those voters, leaving only 415 still with 11-11-1111 listed as their date of birth. Another 199 voters still have birthdates listed before 1900, and those are thought to be data-entry errors, he said. But, he added, “they’re all still legitimate voters.”

So if the discrepancies cited can easily be explained, why is this group of Oregon’s Right pushing it? The narrative this group is pushing is a highly successful one, protecting our sacred elections from fraudulent voters. Claiming that there are significant discrepancies allows for the seeds of doubt about the ability to authenticate voter’s eligibility. This plays directly into the campaign for the “Protect the Rule of Law” an anti-immigrant and anti-voter initiative scheduled to appear on the 2008 ballot. This measure requires “proof of citizenship” to register to vote, among other things.

That may sound practical and smart; make sure that people that are voting are citizens. And that is where the disaster starts. How are you going to prove that you are a citizen? According to the initiative:

i. The number of the applicant’s driver license or non-operating identification license issued after October 1, 1996, by the Department of Transportation or the equivalent governmental agency of another state within the United States, if the agency indicates on the applicant’s driver license or non-operating identification license that the person has provided satisfactory proof of United States citizenship.

ii. A legible photocopy of the applicant’s birth certificate that verifies citizenship. Supporting legal documentation shall be provided as to a name change if the name on the birth Certificate is not the same as the applicant’s current name. A Certificate of Birth Abroad for a United States citizen, reflecting registration with the Department of State, shall be considered a birth certificate.

iii. A legible photocopy of pertinent pages of the applicant’s United States passport identifying the applicant and the applicant’s passport number or presentation to an election official of the applicant’s United States passport

iv. A presentation to an election official of the applicant’s United States naturalization documents or the number of the certificate of naturalization. If only the number of the certificate of naturalization is provided, the applicant shall not be included in the registration rolls until the number of the certificate of naturalization is verified with the United States government by the election official.

v. Other documents or methods of proof of citizenship that are established pursuant to the federal immigration reform and control act of 1986.

vi. The applicant’s Bureau of Indian Affairs card number, tribal treaty card number or tribal enrollment number

Your Oregon drivers license does not meet this requirement as it does not “indicates on the applicant’s driver license… that the person has provided satisfactory proof of United States citizenship.” Think about it. Do you have photocopies of your birth certificate or passport application laying around? I don’t. And like most young people, I don’t even have a copy of my birth certificate, it is at home with my mom. Therefore, I would have to go to extraordinary means to be able to register to vote. Efforts like the Bus Projects’ Building Votes, who registered 16,578 voters under 30 during the 2006 election cycle, increasing the Oregon youth electorate by 6%, would no longer be able to function. Registering people at civic events would be impossible as no one brings copies of these documents out with them on a Saturday.

Young voters are key to the progressive movements success as we are much more progressive. Denying young voters the ballot will be crucial to keeping the reactionary right alive and well. As progressives we must stop this assault on our voter rolls, young voters, and our democracy.

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Tags: Voting, Rule of Law Act, Young People, Bus Project, Building Votes, Citizenship, OFIR, Jim Ludwick, Jeff Kropf, Voter Rolls