Winning Progressive

(By Joanne Boyer, cross-posted at Wisdom Voices)

One of the constant replies I receive when talking to people about the so-called Voter ID laws now running rampant in our country is, “I just don’t believe people can’t get ID.”  My instant response usually goes, “No, it is not as easy as you think and not all people’s lives are just like yours.”

So often today we get caught in our insular bubbles that keep us from interacting with people whose lives are different from ours.  I mean real interaction as in “walk a mile in my shoes.”

So I decided to check in with my youngest daughter, who spent her first year after college graduation with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps-Northwest working in a day drop-in shelter for people experiencing homelessness in Tacoma, Washington.  Here’s her account of just how hard it is for people to get ID.

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In Tacoma, we budgeted for ten checks per month to help people pay to get IDs on a first come, first serve basis. On the first day of every month, people would be lined up outside waiting for us to open the doors, and then once inside lined up waiting at our office window, where usually the first ten people in line were there to get an ID check. We would almost never have any checks left on the second day of the month. We also (when the budget permitted)gave out a bus ticket with each check, so that people would have a way to get to the appropriate office where they needed to go for their ID. People would often call us in the middle of the month after hearing that we helped people get IDs, and we would explain that we give out ten checks per month, and if you wanted a chance at getting one you needed to be here at exactly the time we open on the first day of the month.

Here’s why it’s not realistic to say, “I don’t believe people would have a hard time getting an ID.” I’ll use myself as a hypothetical situation. I’m sitting here (since you asked about this) and thought, what would I do if I needed to get an ID? (Which I actually do, still, since I don’t have state ID after moving to Illinois)

The first thing I did was look up on the Internet where the closest DMV to me is. (We can bracket the fact that I am already sitting at a computer with easy Internet access. In Tacoma, you needed a library card to use the computers at the public library. To get my library card in Illinois, I had to present utility bills as proof of address, since I didn’t have state-issued ID.  So, I possibly need an ID, and an address, to access a computer to look up on the Internet how to get an ID.)

I found out that there really aren’t any DMV offices close to where I live – the closest one is downtown, which is still almost 3 miles away from where I live. Now, I am going to be fine because I happen to work close to where the office is and I have the luxury of being able to step out of the office over the lunch hour and head over there. But for those “not just like” me, they would first need to be able to get the 3 miles to the office. I have a transportation card paid for by my work place (and a bike, and access to people with cars, and enough money to pay for a cab). Others would need to come up with $4.50 in cash to be able to take public transportation to and from the office (or else pay even more for a cab, or have a friend with a car, or own a bike, or, walk. It takes about an hour to walk from where I live to downtown).

But, when I was looking up the nearest location of the DMV, I was also checking to see when it was open. And the hours of the nearest location to me are: 8 am – 5 pm Monday – Friday, closed on Saturday and Sunday. Do you work a full-time job from 8 am – 5 pm? (Or multiple part time jobs? Or a night shift job, so that you’d rather be sleeping from 8-5?) One that might not allow you to travel to the closest office (which could be miles away) over a lunch break? (This is assuming that you have one, and your job isn’t in jeopardy if you are five minutes late to get back.) What exactly are you going to do about this? What if you have kids that you need to get home to, pick up from school, drop off at school, etc.?

I’m also living in a major city of almost 3 million people. This means there are multiple office locations where I could go to, a solid public transportation system, etc. Poverty and homelessness are realities in the suburbs and in rural areas as well, which opens up all sorts of other issues in terms of access, transportation, etc. when you aren’t talking about living in a big city. Minnesota voter ID laws would affect the whole state, not just Minneapolis and St. Paul and Rochester and Duluth.

Let’s also not forget that usually to get an ID, you need some other form of ID. A common situation is as follows: When someone tries to get an ID card, they will be asked to supply secondary proof of identity like a birth certificate. Don’t have your birth certificate? Off you get sent to go get it. What if you only had enough money for one bus ride? How are you going to get to this other office to track down your birth certificate? When are you going to do it, if you’re still working during regular business hours? If you do finally make it to the office where you can get your birth certificate, you can bet you’ll be asked to show some identification, which is the whole reason why you are there in the first place.

(I remember in Tacoma a man came in who had just lost everything in a fire and was in this exact situation – all of his forms of ID had burned in the fire and he couldn’t get one without the other.) When I do go get my Illinois ID I’m going to need to bring with me pretty much everything short of the name of my first born child: I’ll need my passport, social security card, copy of my lease or some utility bills, pay stub, bank statement, etc. What if you don’t have a job? Or a bank account?What if you aren’t paying utility bills because you don’t have your own place to live?

And then you still have pay for the ID. In Tacoma, this could cost anywhere from $15 to $50, depending on what was needed.

The moral of this story is yes: Not everyone is like you. Not everyone has internet access, a car, a bus pass, disposal income for public transportation, flexible job hours, friends or family members to ask for help, an address, or a bank account. But don’t all these people still have the right to vote?

As our regular readers undoubtedly know, Republicans have been engaged in a concerted effort to reduce voting by college students, people of color, poor people, the elderly and other Democratic-leaning constituencies by enacting laws prohibiting people from voting unless they have certain government-issued photo IDs.  Supporters of such laws claim that they are trying to stop rampant in-person voter fraud – i.e., concerted efforts to have ineligible people vote in order to throw an election.  But the reality is that there is no evidence of any such fraud.  For example, a five-year long investigation by the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush found “virtually no evidence of any organized effort” to fraudulently impact federal elections, and other analyses have similarly found no evidence of fraud.

This past week in Pennsylvania, leading Republicans admitted in two separate circumstances that in-person voter fraud is virtually non-existent.  The first such admission came in the state of Pennsylvania’s response to the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging the restrictive voter ID law that was passed in March 2012 and is scheduled to go into effect for the November election.  The court hearing in that lawsuit – titled Applewhite v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania – is scheduled to begin on July 25, 2012, and in a pre-hearing filing, Pennsylvania (which has a Republican Governor and Attorney General) stipulated that;

- There have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania

- The state is not aware of any in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania

- The state will not offer any evidence that in-person voter fraud has occurred

- The state will not offer any evidence or argument that in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in the absence of the photo ID law

In short, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has admitted that the entire “justification” for the photo ID law does not exist.

The second Republican admission that in-person voter fraud is virtually non-existent was not as direct, but is just as damning for the merchants of the voter fraud myth.  Last week, Philadelphia’s Republican City Commissioner Al Schmidt (one of three City Commissioners – the other two are Democrats) issued a report titled Voting Irregularities in Philadelphia County, which documents an investigation into voting in the city of Philadelphia.  The report identifies:

- one case of a voter who voted twice in the 2012 primary election

- one case of a voter – named Joseph J. Cheeseborough – who apparently impersonated another voter named Joseph Cheeseboro in a handful of elections since 2007

- a total of 19 registered voters who are not citizens, seven of whom voted in one or more elections over the past decades

- other “irregularities, such as people being given the wrong party ballot in a primary, being allowed to vote a provisional ballot on the voting machine rather than on a paper ballot, or the voter’s name not being recorded in the poll book or clerk book, are similarly uncommon and plainly the result of poll worker error rather than any sort of fraud

In summary, Schmidt’s investigation found a total of 9 voters who apparently voted improperly in Philadelphia.  Given that there are more than one million registered voters in the city, those 9 voters amount to a total of 0.0009% of the total number of registered voters in Philadelphia.  In other words, the improper voters in Philadelphia do not amount to even a rounding error, much less provide any evidence of a concerted voter fraud effort.

Given that voter fraud is a myth, why have Republicans been pushing voter ID laws so heavily?  Because, as Pennsylvania House Republican leader Mike Turzai said a few weeks ago, the voter ID law is “going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” While we think President Obama will still win Pennsylvania, Rep. Turzai is correct that these voter ID laws are about helping to elect Republicans.

The voter ID laws seek to achieve this partisan goal by establishing hurdles that will disproportionately impact people of color, poor people, the elderly, and college students.  People who lack a photo ID (such as a drivers’ license) typically need to present either a birth certificate or a passport, plus two forms of proof of residency (such as a utility bill, lease, etc.), and then make at least one trip to the DMV, where they will likely have to wait in line for at least a few hours in order to get a photo ID.  The evidence that these requirements will disproportionately impact people of color, the elderly, poor people, and college students is strong.  For example:

- As a recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice details, while 10% of Americans lack the photo IDs needed to vote in states with voter ID laws, 25% of African Americans, 16% of Latinos, and 18% of people over the age of 65 lack such IDs.

- In order to obtain a photo ID, you typically need a birth certificate.  But, as is the case with some of the plaintiffs in the Applewhite lawsuit pending in Pennsylvania, many African Americans who were born in the South during Jim Crow were often never even issued a birth certificate.

- While states with voter ID laws typically provide an option for obtaining a free ID, states with photo ID laws charge between $8 and $25 for a copy of the birth certificate needed to obtain the ID.

- Obtaining a photo ID means at least one trip to the DMV, which can be burdensome if you are one of the 3.6 million people in voter ID states who do not have access to a car and/or  if you cannot afford to take time off from work. The difficulty of making a trip to the DMV without a car or with limited ability to take time off from work is heightened by the fact that many DMV offices have limited hours.  For example, Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Texas, and Wisconsin have no DMV offices that are open on weekends. In addition, poor people and people of color are more likely to live 10 or miles away from their nearest DMV office, making the hurdle of getting a photo ID even higher.

- If you are living with family or friends because your house was recently foreclosed upon, or because you lost your job, etc. you are unlikely to have utility bills or other documents needed to prove your address for purposes of obtaining a photo ID.

- College students attending school from out-of-state are unlikely to have the documents needed to get a photo ID by the deadline, which is only a month or two after the college school year starts.

In short, voter ID laws are little more than a blatant partisan power grab by the GOP instituted under the false pretense of “voter fraud” that, when push comes to shove, even the GOP admits does not occur.

The good news is that these voter ID laws can be overcome, and there are organizations working to do so by helping people get the IDs they need to vote.  For example, the non-partisan Pennsylvania Voter ID Coalition consists of a large number of organizations from throughout the state that are working to educate and assist people in getting the ID they need to vote.   The Coalition has put together a guide on how to get the ID you need to vote in Pennsylvania, has a voter protection hotline – 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683) – and operates a Twitter feed and Facebook page with all of the latest news on voter ID issues in the state.  The non-partisan organization Election Protection also has state-by-state guides about how to vote despite the voter ID laws in Indiana, Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.

In our democracy, voting rights should not be a partisan issue.  Unfortunately, today’s GOP has made it into one.  It is up to all of us to make sure conservatives do not succeed in their voter suppression efforts so that we protect the right to vote that so many before us fought so hard to obtain.

If you want to help protect the right to vote, support one of the groups listed above, write a letter to your local newspaper editor, and commit to registering to vote at least five people for the November 2012 elections.

For this weekend’s reading list we have articles on climate change, the shady business dealings of a Republican sugar daddy, the hurdles erected by GOP-backed voter suppression laws, the first same-sex civil union to occur on military grounds, and the $1.5 billion fleecing of American taxpayers by Mitt Romney’s 2002 Winter Olympics.

Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math – Bill McKibben’s latest essay on the numbers behind the rapidly growing problem of climate change, and how the fossil fuel industry is stopping us from taking action to address the problem

Inside the Investigation of Leading Republican Money Man Sheldon Adelson – an investigation documenting apparent shady business dealings by Sheldon Adelson, the multi-billionaire who bankrolled Newt Gingrich’s Presidential campaign and is now trying to help Mitt Romney buy his way into the White House

The Challenge of Obtaining Voter Identification – a report documenting the hurdles that people face in getting the photo IDs that Republican-backed voter suppression laws require people have to vote

The Wedding – the story of the first same sex civil union to occur at a chapel on a US military base, between Tech Sgt. Erwynn Umali and Will Behrens in June 2012

Snow Job – the story of how the 2002 Winter Olympics that Mitt Romney led turned into a $1.5 billion fleecing of American taxpayers

Explaining Extreme Events of 2011 From a Climate Perspective - climate scientists explain how six extreme weather events from last year can be explained from a climate change perspective

For this weekend’s somewhat late reading list, we have articles about the role of the Koch Brothers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in stopping Congress from addressing climate change, an anti-regulatory power grab and a proposed 50% cut in state funding to public universities by Pennsylvania’s Republican Governor,  how conservatives lied and schemed to launch their attack on public employees and their unions in Wisconsin, and a letter from a Wisconsin teacher to Gov. Walker about that attack.

If you have any feedback on these articles, or suggestions for next weekend’s reading list, please let us know at Winning Progressive’s Facebook page.

Why Doesn’t Congress Give a Damn About Climate?  Hint It’s Not the Messaging - Bill McKibben’s essay at Grist.org arguing that Congress is failing to act on climate change not because of a problem with environmentalists’ messaging, but instead because the environmentalist message is being overwhelmed by money from the Koch Brothers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

PA Governor Gives Energy Executive Supreme Authority Over Environmental Permitting - a ProPublica report on how Pennsylvania’s Republican Governor Tom Corbett has given C. Alan Walker, the new head of the Department of Community and Economic Development, carte blanche authority to expedite the issuance of any permit application pending in any agency in the state.  Mr. Walker is the owner of a coal mining company, has ownership interests in trucking and oil and gas companies, and donated $184,000 to Gov. Corbett’s campaign.

In Pennsylvania, Campus Leaders Prepare to Trim Budgets as They Fight Governor’s Proposed Cuts – an article from Jeffrey Selingo at the Chronicle of Higher Education about how Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett has proposed a 50% cut in state funding to public colleges and universities.  At the same time, Gov. Corbett is refusing to tax the rapidly growing Marcellus Shale natural gas industry in the state.

A Blueprint for a Takeover: Wisconsin Republicans Lied While the Kochs Schemed – A report by Abe Sauer at The Awl about how Republican candidates in Wisconsin lied to voters about their support for collective bargaining even while conservatives were scheming with the Koch Brothers to launch an attack on collective bargaining.

The Letter That Started It All – a letter from Wisconsin teacher Eric Brehm to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker about Walker’s attack on public employees and their unions.  Public response to the letter helped lead Mr. Brehm to start the new blog Bang the Buckets, which is aimed at helping make sure that we keep “banging on buckets” so that our elected officials respond to the will of the people, not the will of rich donors.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is in the middle of a fascinating eight-day series called Mapping Mortality that focuses on the public health impacts of air pollution from coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources in southwestern Pennsylvania.  As reported in the first three days of the series, southwestern Pennsylvania has elevated levels of respiratory disease, lung cancer, and heart disease that appears to be connected to heightened levels of air pollution in the region caused by coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources.

These air pollution problems are not limited to southwestern Pennsylvania.  Instead, throughout the country there are more than 400 coal-fired power plants that were built 30 to 60 years ago, well over half of which continue to operate today without modern pollution controls needed to protect public health.  The impacts of pollution from these plants, many of which are located in dense urban areas such as Cleveland and Chicago, is staggering, including:

* 13,200 Premature Deaths: In a report entitled the Toll From Coal, the Clean Air Task Force and researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health estimated that there are 13,200 premature deaths caused every year from particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.   

* Mercury Contamination: Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions, which is a toxic pollutant that causes neurological development problems in fetuses and infants.   These mercury emissions deposit in rivers, lakes, and streams, cause fish to have elevated mercury levels, and have led to fish consumption advisories on virtually every river, lake, and stream in the Midwest.

* 10,800 Cancers: As of 2002, hazardous air pollutants caused an average elevated lifetime cancer risk of 36 per million people, which works out to approximately 10,800 extra cancers natiowide.

* Exacerbating Climate Change: Coal-fired power plants are the largest source in the U.S. of greenhouse gas emissions, which are the primary contributor to climate change.

The good news it that the U.S. EPA is embarking on an effort to drastically reduce such air pollution by promulgating regulations that will finally require these aging coal-fired power plants to clean up or shut down.  Unfortunately, the Agency is facing a major backlash from industry, Republicans, and some Democrats, who are seeking to restrict or remove U.S. EPA’s authority to require stricter emissions controls and cleaner air. 

Check back tomorrow when we will discuss what steps U.S. EPA is taking to require coal plants to clean up, and what you can do to fight back against the conservative backlash.

Below are links to the letter to the editor email addresses of major Pennsylvania papers. Keep your letter to under 150 words. Make sure to include your name, address, and telephone number as they will want to contact you to verify that you wrote the letter.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Altoona Mirror

Leigh High Valley Live

Wilkes-Barre Times Leader

Scranton Times-Tribune

Reading Eagle

Allentown The Morning Call

York Dispatch