A longer-term strategy is needed since students will have to live within this corrupt system
longer than the boomers joining with them and cheering them on. What are the possible goals? 1) Get students into poll-worker jobs and their importance; remind them that fewer than ten votes can put one candidate into office while the other loses; 2) Keeping in mind generations that will follow; 3) Educatin students on the voting system; 3) Reaching as many students as possible.
Attorney Steve Spaulding reminded listeners that Election Day is only four and a half months from now. Organizations that intimidate voters should be tracked; programs are needed to provide disadvantaged voters with as many photo i.d.s as possible; lawyers and allied organizations should litigate and legislate to address unfair voting laws--in Wisconsin and Texas an organization called True the Vote is tied to the King Street Patriots, who in turn are allied with the Koch brothers.
Caging practices should be combatted and illegal voter purging lists eliminated. In Florida, voters' chamber of horrors, defending voters bear the burden of proof in court settings; in Virginia, if they skip a hearing for any reason, they lose the right to vote.
In Texas and Wisconsin, laws forbidding voter intimidation are ignored, whether or not a voter can produce the requisite i.d. Poll workers and monitors are needed and should be well trained. In Ohio provisional ballots given out because a voter comes to the wrong precinct are not counted.
Poll monitors should also stand outside of the polls to fend off any attempts at intimidation while voters stand in line, Spaulding concluded.
During the audience question period, the first person called on stressed the importance of anger among voters being so duped in so many ways. He said that this aspect of the experience has not been recommended nor resorted to, but that it should be.
Mention was also made of the incrimination of Maryland's lieutenant governor for aidingand abetting robocalls and other devices used to prevent underprivileged voters from voting.
Another issue was the increasing population of voters without addresses because they have been foreclosed on. The response was that in most places these people had the right to use their former addresses when asked where they reside.
As always, at least in the preceding decade, voter-related legislation is pending in Congress but not close to being passed; two examples are the Deceptive Practices Act and the Voter Empowerment Act, neither of which is expected to come to the floor this year. The is also Representative Rush Holt's latest legislation toward Election Integrity, the 2009 Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 2894).
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