Nearly a Century After Suffrage, Women’s Voting Rights Under Attack in the States
Posted August 26th, 2011 by Cristina Francisco-McGuireIt has been more than 90 years since women fought their way to suffrage. In that period of time, we’ve experienced the Year of the Woman – when a record number of women ran and/or won congressional races in 1992 – and voter turnout rates for women that have consistently exceeded voter turnout rates for men since 1980. The gender gap that often gives Democrats the edge among female voters (except in 2010) and proved to be Ronald Reagan’s “woman problem” has forced all candidates to acknowledge the power of the female vote. Despite this growing clout, 2011 saw a barrage of state legislation that effectively moves women’s suffrage back in time and impedes access to the polls for millions of us.
The passage of voter ID legislation made headlines this year for its anticipated horrific effects on the electoral participation of minority, low-income, and young voters. However, its specific detrimental impact on women was less publicized. According to a survey sponsored by the Brennan Center, only 66% of voting-age women with access to any proof of citizenship have documentation with their current legal name. Using numbers from 2000, this may leave as many as 32 million voting-age women vulnerable to the whims of conservatives trying to suppress the vote of traditionally progressive voting blocs through voter ID. Of the whopping 33 states that introduced bills this year to require photo identification at the polls, so far, eleven state legislatures have passed the measures. Voter ID has been signed into law in seven states to date.
Similarly, attempts to shorten the early voting period – in which voters can cast a ballot before Election Day at satellite locations – and eliminate weekend voting were successful in five states this year. These measures make it that much harder for busy women to have their voices heard by taking away the flexibility needed to accommodate work and familial obligations. Women in these states will once again be forced to choose between participating in democracy and, say, picking up a child from day care – a discomfiting situation of which Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott would surely disapprove.
It is time for women to not only take advantage of the right to vote for which so many fought, but to invoke the passionate dissent that marked the long march to suffrage. We can vote out those who seek to quiet our voices, but we can also send a clear warning that we will not stand by and watch as our rights are picked apart. As conservatives gear up for a second round of assaults on voting rights in 2012, it is crucial that women – with all of the power and potential that has been realized in the years since those pioneering heroes – act now by defending that which we fought for and won decades ago.
Cristina Francisco-McGuire is a Policy Specialist for Progressive States Network, specializing in election reform and wage theft issues. You can follow her on Twitter at @CristinaPSN.
8 Comments
August 30, 2011 at 5:01 pm by AngelaLast I checked, voting was not a Constitutional right. I guess that voter ID, and any other requirement, can be implemented as politicians (federal and state) see fit. We can choose to live with it or get the law changed to something else. I still see voting as a priviledge and will go through the hurdles to have my voice heard at the ballot box.
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Chris in NH Reply:
August 30th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
@Angela, Were your comments made with a healthy does of sarcasm? I hope so. Voting is most *certainly* a right we all enjoy via the US Constitution. Both the 19th and 26th Amendments address this “right”.
Some states, mine in particular (NH), have State constitutions that are even *more* clear about the right to vote. Any law that makes it easier for one group of individuals to vote and more likely to have their legal votes counted over another group’s equally legal votes should be vigorously opposed and challenged. “Voter ID” bills are about manipulating the vote, not securing it.
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Anonymous Reply:
September 2nd, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Hi Chris in NH,
Technically, Your argument using the 19th and 26th Amendments is not sufficient to Angela’s misguided arguement in that both the amendments you cited state the rights are to “citizens” who are female and/18 years of age or older. Requiring a photo ID to verify citizenship, does not deny or abridge the rights defined in those Amendments.
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Chris in NH Reply:
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:46 am
@Anonymous (and to everyone reading):
My statements to @Angela were meant primarily to establish that indeed, the Constitution refers to a “right” to vote. In each of the Amendments cited the language quite clearly refers to this “right”.
To the point Anonymous raises, that requiring Photo ID does not deny or abridge that right, we need to look to a different constitutional argument; the 24th.
Regardless of how much people want to believe that *everyone* has a STATE ISSUED (more on this in a moment) Photo ID and that everyone always carries with with them, this is not true. There are many American Citizens who do not have a state issued photo ID or, who do not carry it with them, and most importantly – have no legal obligation to do so.
Arguments about how everyone has one because you need one to have a checking account or travel by air, or (etc, etc) are specious to say the least. Personally I define them as outright lies crafted by supporters to make the rest of us comfortable with thinking of anyone without photo ID as somehow a person to be treated with suspicion.
There is no law, no legal requirement anywhere in the US that a citizen a) have a valid, state issued photo ID and b) if they do have one, to carry one at all times.
Now, given that there is no law that requires possession of a state issued photo ID, being forced to produce one in order to exercise your *right* to vote means quite logically that anyone intending to vote is required to obtain a valid ID. Doing so typically involves a cost and as such requiring payment would easily be found unconstitutional under the 24th amendment, which forbids a poll tax or tax of any kind in order to allow one to vote.
States that have been passing Photo ID bills attempt to get around this by allowing for the IDs to be given for free if they are being issued for purposes of voting. This is problematic anyway. Even if there is no fee associated with getting an ID, not everyone can easily get to a DMV (or other) office to get it due to problems with mobility, no access to public transportation, costs of same, etc.
People will argue “oh come on, if they want to vote they can find a way to get an ID or travel to the offices to do so easily enough”. But that’s not the point. Encumbering a constitutional right is not something the State should be so easily able to do on the basis of assumptions about costs being minimal, or who has what ability to get where, and most of all, without ANY evidence of actual, statistically significant voter impersonation (the ONLY kind of potential fraud that could be mitigated by Voter ID bills).
To me, I find it very disconcerting that so many Americans are so comfortable with the idea of State Laws being passed to encumber a RIGHT we all have under the US (and in my case, State) Constitution on the basis of hearsay (the actual “my friend saw a white van full of illegal aliens voting at our local school!” arguments), and no evidence WHATSOEVER of actual voter impersonation crimes of a statistically significant nature being committed.
In NH, where we currently have a GOP majority in both legislative chambers, but a Democratic governor, we have a pending Photo ID bill vetoed but likely to not withstand an override vote. But we have only 1 (ONE!) documented instance of voter impersonation EVER. Arguments of there being all sorts of additional examples are unsupported by evidence of ANY KIND.
And yet so many are willing to see their rights compromised based on little more than fear of “illegal aliens” and “non-residents” stealing the vote.
The reality is that these bills are designed to make it more difficult for certain constituencies to vote. Namely, single mothers, minorities, the elderly, older teens and younger 20s – all of which are groups that typically support Democrats.
It’s a disgrace that we have these bills at all in what is supposedly a “free America”. Voter ID bills, combined with “war or terror” and Homeland Security is rapidly turning us into a police state (“Papers Please!”); that, most certainly, was never what the founding fathers intended for us as a free people.
@Chris, we are ultimately going to have to agree to disagree, because I do believe that voter ID requirements shut people out of the democratic process. But I’ll make a few clarifying points:
1) This post is about legislation to enact photo ID requirements, not proof of citizenship bills. Perhaps you thought I was talking about the latter because of the Brennan Center study that talks about the proof of citizenship generally needed to obtain the photo ID required under these new regulations – which presents more obstacles for women because of the simple fact that most women change their names when they marry, while most men do not.
Photo ID only prevents in-person voter fraud, i.e., someone impersonating another voter at the polls. Proof of citizenship is an entirely different issue that we would likely disagree on as well, but which I will not address here.
2) I’m going to disregard the ‘Do you see MEN making this point’ comment because that seems to have been made under the assumption that I was talking about proof of citizenship.
3) The idea of non-citizens impersonating you at the polls is ludicrous. Seriously. They would have to somehow know who had and hadn’t voted yet and once they’d chosen their victim, they’d have to produce a passable signature on the first try. All so that they can cast one vote per person and risk fines, jail time, and/or deportation in the process. Not sure how much you have read about undocumented immigrants, but they’re generally not willing to risk any of the above for one vote.
On a related note, why on earth would they risk outing themselves to vote for candidates who probably aren’t going to advocate for tuition equity, community policing, etc. for them anyway? You seem to be pretty disappointed in Obama – well, I’m sure undocumented immigrants are too, considering his push for S-Comm and the fact that deportations skyrocketed under his administration.
4) Clearly, men will be disadvantaged by photo ID requirements and restrictions to early voting laws, particularly men of color, low-income men, and young men. Highlighting the effects on one demographic doesn’t make this untrue. But as I said above, these bills generally present more obstacles for women because many change their names with marriage and don’t necessarily have recent ID’s. I know it took me ages to find time to stand in line at the social security office in order to change the name on my SS card in order to proceed with updating my name on my driver’s license, and I still haven’t gotten around to changing the name on my passport simply because it is valid for another 8 years and to change it would be expensive. I certainly don’t consider myself “a pathetic woman and citizen.”
Most people don’t think of women as being disenfranchised anymore, but in this case, it is happening – hence, my focus on what this legislation means for us.
5) “If I am so helpless as to be hindered by a requirement to prove my citizenship, then I am a pathetic woman and citizen.” Sure, tell that to elderly black people born in the South to midwives at home, who never got birth certificates in the first place because hospitals wouldn’t admit them. Or try that on victims of Hurricane Katrina or any other natural disaster where you lose all of your documentation. Or perhaps some native americans born on reservations will be able to change your mind.
6) Lastly, I’m not schilling for any party. Dems are hardly synonymous with ‘progressive,’ as evidenced by the Democratic legislature in Rhode Island that recently passed a voter ID bill that was signed into law. And as you can probably guess, I’m not exactly thrilled either by Obama’s decisions on deportations or S-Comm.
You and I obviously diverge on these points, but I hope you consider these clarifications.
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August 27, 2011 at 9:17 am by AmberI feel distraught when I think that our voices are not being heard in the government, that we are often seen as “whiners” and not taken seriously. It is also unfortunate that many women are the biggest anti-feminists out there. If we could have more moderate female politicians, we would reach a wider audience.
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August 26, 2011 at 9:34 pm by ChrisI am very pro-woman on most issues, but to leap to the assumption that voter ID challenges our right to vote is a reach I cannot even comprehend on this earth. As a woman, I want my vote to count among all citizens of this country. If I am so helpless as to be hindered by a requirement to prove my citizenship, then I am a pathetic woman and citizen. Do you see MEN making this point. Are we so fragile that we need to be treated differently than men, especially when we have been given the same rights as men to vote. The requirements of voter ID do not discriminate, but call us to protect our rights so as not to allow non-citizens to DILUTE MY VOTE.
Cristina, you have insulted all women by insinuating that we need to be treated differently than men at the risk of women’s right to vote. I will not have it. Women have worked hard in getting rights not by being treated as delicate children, but as being equals to men.
I suspect that your post is more about promoting Democratic candidates than about a woman’s right to vote. So you are also disingenuous in your appeal. When I voted for this President, I had no idea the degree of self-serving interest would arise from people like Nancy Pelosi who has become significantly richer amidst our economic crisis. A the man I voted for appears to be the suave gun- slinger without bullets, casting blame on everyone and everything except his administration and ideas. If this keeps up we will awaken to a government that is controlled by an opposing party. But we have failed with our ideas and insistence to stay loyal to a party that allows our elected officials access to enormous wealth while faling to remain loyal to us and our nation.
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August 26, 2011 at 8:37 pm by Kathy Morelli, LPC (@KathyAMorelli)Ohh this makes me so pissed off! And you know, it IS a PLANNED attack on voting rights! It truly is! And there will be denial all around!
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