Democratic party activists are flooding into battleground where voter ID laws and other ballot suppression efforts may dampen turnout for President Barack Obama and other Democrats running for election in November. The effort is focused on making voters qualify, get the necessary ID and turnout at the polls.
The National Journal reports
Democratic anger is fueled less by the legal maneuvering than by an overarching sense that voting rights are under attack. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil-rights hero who marched with Martin Luther King Jr., connected the new GOP-backed laws to the Jim Crow era in an emotional speech at the recent Democratic convention.
“It is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting,” Lewis said. “The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state’s new voter-ID law is ‘gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state.’ That’s not right.”
“I’ve lived this before. Too many people struggled, suffered, and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote,” Lewis said.
His speech brought the delegates to their feet.
Civil-rights groups have also raised the alarm over anti-voter-fraud organizations like True the Vote, a group that’s expected to dispatch election monitors to polling places this fall. The specter of poll watchers challenging African-American and Latino voters likewise brings back painful memories.
New Voting Laws Get Democratic Organizers Fired Up – NationalJournal.com.
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