New Mexico dodged a bullet in the recent election. We elected a Secretary of State who encourages voting instead of a candidate whose publicly stated goal is to suppress it.<\/p>\n
Congratulations to us!<\/p>\n
At a candidate debate in October, Republican nominee Nora Espinoza talked about only one issue: requiring voter ID. Her opponent, Democrat Maggie Toulouse Oliver, won by almost 100,000 votes.<\/p>\n
Voter ID has been shown to be a code word for voter suppression \u2013 purposeful organized techniques to prevent legally qualified Americans from voting.<\/p>\n
Some forms of voter suppression are now legal in America.\u00a0 Both legal and illegal forms of voter suppression were employed this year in several states. Pundits and scholars will argue whether voter suppression caused the election results or merely contributed, but there\u2019s little doubt that many votes were never cast or never counted \u2013 as to how many, the pundits will argue about the numbers also.<\/p>\n
The 1965 Voting Rights Act recognized that voting practices in some states actively discriminated against ethnic minorities and other target groups. The law required that voting procedures be conducted so as not to discriminate against those groups. In states with records of discriminatory practices, federal oversight was imposed.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, over the objection of civil rights groups, the US Supreme Court ruled the oversight was no longer required. Several states with Republican legislative majorities have enacted laws creating obstacles to voting for targeted groups of citizens\u2013 14 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. They were listed as Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n
In North Carolina, courts determined the state\u2019s new law was so overtly discriminatory that it was overturned, but other states\u2019 laws are still standing.<\/p>\n
That is reprehensible but legal. What may not have been legal were such practices as closing polling places in minority neighborhoods, \u201cpurges\u201d that removed registered voters\u2019 names from the rolls based on phony criteria and poll workers who demanded forms of identification that their own state law did not require.<\/p>\n
This is clearly one-sided.\u00a0 In every case, these actions have been done by Republicans to limit ballot access to voters who are likely to vote Democrat.<\/p>\n
But, with a few exceptions, it didn\u2019t happen in New Mexico.<\/p>\n
When I wrote in a recent column that you can\u2019t rig a national election, I made a mistake. It was the same mistake journalists were making all over the country.\u00a0 Journalists as well as politicians took Donald Trump\u2019s bait and rushed to defend our system against what we foresaw would be a post-election attack by him after losing.\u00a0 But we failed to raise the alarm about the purges and other activities going on quietly in state after state.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve had some voter suppression attempts in New Mexico, including a flier mailed to voters this October threatening that \u201cyour neighbors will know\u201d if you vote Democratic. It made national news.<\/p>\n
In 2012, a video was made public, showing New Mexico Republican poll challengers being trained to give false or misleading information to voters about what ID was required.<\/p>\n
Secretary Clinton won the popular vote and only lost the election because of the way votes are counted for the Electoral College. We don\u2019t know whether the votes never cast or never counted would have made the difference.<\/p>\n
We are now living in a country in which the majority does not rule, and some people seem to like it that way.\u00a0 So I will ask you, readers: is that what you want?\u00a0\u00a0 Is that the kind of country you want to live in?\u00a0 If you believe in the traditional values of your party but you don\u2019t support large-scale voter suppression as a value of your party, maybe you should send a letter to your party leadership.<\/p>\n
Triple Spaced Again, \u00a9 New Mexico News Services 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Mexico dodged a bullet in the recent election. We elected a Secretary of State who encourages voting instead of a candidate whose publicly stated goal is to suppress it. Congratulations to us! At a candidate debate in October, Republican … Continue reading