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Kevin Liles, NY Times
The Georgia Governor's election is a close contest involving Stacey Abrams against Brian Kemp. Abrams is the Democrat and she hopes to become the first black woman to be a Governor in the U.S. Brian Kemp is the Republican and has been Georgia Secretary of State for the past eight years. The theme of this race is voter registration as Abrams founded an organization that has registered thousands of new voters in the past five years meanwhile Kemp has overseen the cancellation of 1.4 million voter registrations since 2012. There are currently 53,000 new voter registrations that have been suspended and 70% of those are black people. Based on the 2010 census Georgia was approximately 60% white and 30% black. An average of five polls taken over the past four weeks gives Kemp a 1.6% lead, but all of the polls were within the margin of error, so voter turnout will play a huge role in the outcome of this election.
Discussion Questions
1. Should voters who are registered but don't present ID at a polling location be allowed to vote?
2. Is the evidence of voter suppression presented in this article compelling?
3. What campaigning strategies of either candidate do you like or dislike?
Voter suppression of minorities and in other states are appearing to be used to prevent and limit voting for certain underprivileged groups in order to sway the vote. Similar to this campaign, I recently saw news regarding Native American discrimination regarding voter ID laws in North Dakota. Many Native Americans do not have an official address and the state refuses to recognize many communal reservations as an official address. This prevents many Native Americans from obtaining a valid ID and therefore prevents them voting. Especially considering many state issues specifically affect Native American groups such as pipeline debates, it is devastating that they are not permitted to vote. Voter suppression similar to that of in Georgia must be addressed and prevented on a federal level.
ReplyDeleteTo begin, I think that voters who are registered and don’t have an ID present at a polling location should still be allowed to vote because the requirement of an ID leads to many minorities not being able to vote. They would be unable to vote because they are often not given the opportunity to obtain an ID. Moreover, voters should still be able to vote because the lack of registration means that the voter has no party affiliation; thus, this does not truly hurt or harm the voting process because even though a voter may not have their ID, they are still registered meaning the voting concern of fraud is mitigated. Next, I think that the evidence of voter suppression is compelling because it demonstrates that although Kemp has overseen the cancellation of voter registrations, he still has a lead in the recent polls. Ultimately, this hints that his overseen voter cancellations have been tailored towards non-white citizens who he suspects don’t have an ID. This means that Kemp supports the white voters while being very strict on the black voters since he may believe that black voters would against him. Finally, I dislike both campaigning strategies of registering more or cancelling more voters. On Abrams side, I think that her attempt to increase the amount of voters could be a decision to dilute the amount of votes that Kemp would get. On the other hand, I think that Kemp’s cancellation of voter registrations leads to a violation of some rights as well as the development of discrimination in the voting system. Ultimately, I think that both these methods should be carefully watched and monitored to ensure that there is no corruption in this election.
ReplyDeleteVoters who who don't show their IDs but are registered should definitely be allowed to vote. The laws that Kemp has implemented are, in my opinion, are completely ridiculous. Just because the names on forms are not exactly correct is not a justifiable reason for not letting people vote. It is also ridiculous the proportions of the people not allowed to vote are so off. It is definitely reasonable to believe that this is racial discrimination.
ReplyDeleteI admire Abrams' method and her campaign strategy. Getting people registered to vote is extremely important, seeing as the U.S. has one of the lowest voter turnout rates throughout the globe, especially in recent years. Especially in the younger generations, getting people to vote is becoming harder and harder and turnout rates continue to decrease or stay at the same low turnout rate; therefore Abrams focusing on getting people to vote is very important and in my opinion, a great way to boost her campaign. With Kemp cancelling voter registrations, it's clear he's trying to lessen the turnout of minorities and young voters to better help his campaign, which is disgraceful and hurts fair democracy.
ReplyDeleteVoters who are registered but don't present an ID should not be allowed to vote, however what constitutes as viable ID should be broadened. If individuals do not present an ID when they vote, there is a chance that some individuals will commit voter fraud and attempt to vote under several names, which not only skews the election, but could also take away other individual's chances to vote. However, what constitutes as an ID should be very lenient. It should not be required that citizens present a document with their address on it since, as mentioned earlier, many Native Americans do not have a formal address and have to rely on a PO box. Non-photo IDs should be accepted as well, which broadens the valid documents to include things such as birth certificates, utility bills, social security, tax returns, etc, which nearly all US citizens will have in one form or another.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Caitlin in that voters who do not have an ID despite being registered should not be allowed to vote and that what counts as a proof of ID should be broadened. While it is unacceptable to marginalize and diminish the votes of minorities, states must also ensure that those who are voting have a right to vote. Perhaps it might be better if they were to set up a database in which the IDs are already matched with the registration such that this would not be a problem. That being said, Abram's strategy to boost inclusiveness is definitely admirable in that it stimulates more democracy and perhaps even equality in elections, especially pertaining to that of minorities.
ReplyDeleteI think registered voters should be able to vote without a present ID because this comes back to whether or not those who reside in the US and are not citizens should be able to vote. As long as there is a way to track those who do vote, to prevent them from voting more than once I think the system is fair. When people are denied the option of voting I think this goes against democracy, since voting is the center of democracy as citizens are able to express their opinions through voting. I like the campaign strategy of Stacey Abrams because she is demonstrating her efforts to preserve democracy while Kemp on the other hand is helping with the deed of suppressing voters.
ReplyDeleteRacial and ethnic minorities generally have limited access to photo ID which results in the suppression of minority voting. With an overrepresentation of whites at elections, the Republican Party is given an unfair advantage over the Democratic Party. Although advocates argue that voter ID laws help reduce fraud, studies show that there is almost no proof of voter fraud which these laws aim to prevent. Thus, registered voters who don't present an ID should be able to vote so that the low minority turnout rate will substantially increase.
ReplyDeleteIt can be argued that both Kemp and Abrams are trying to promote democracy. Kemp wants to ensure that American citizens' votes are properly heard and not diluted by voter fraud or votes that do not belong to American citizens. Abrams, on the other hand, is making an effort to help register minority voters in order to increase the number of American voices in elections. Both appear to be reasonable causes but could be politically motivated. Ultimately, I side with Abrams because there has been no substantial proof that voter ID laws and other restrictions placed on voters have actually reduced voter fraud. Instead they have prevented many minorities from voting, a fundamental right.
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