Arizona

Well, I guess some people sit around and think, hey this group of people just lost their homes, why don’t we take their vote too? Civil right groups nationwide are up in arms about a reported Michigan GOP scheme to challenge voters on Election Day using the list of foreclosed homes as the basis for the challenge.

In addition to being a mean-spirited attempt to deny persons in extremely vulnerable states access to the polls, it is also an insufficient ground to challenge a voter’s eligibility!

According to former voting rights litigator J. Gerald Hebert, foreclosure notices may not, in and of themselves, be grounds for election challenges because “people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

Thus, implementing such a policy would likely have the effect of disenfranchising large swaths of voters, who would be and are eligible to vote. Additionally, most foreclosures in Michigan were on sub-prime loans, which went at a disproportionally high rate to African Americans at a rate of over 60%. Hmm, let’s look at all the pieces: African American Voters + Suppresion Tactics = same plan, different year.

While it still astonishes me to hear about the wanton depths some people will go to keep “certain” people away from the polls, it’s definitely not the first time we’ve seen deceptive and suppressive tactics used on people of color.

Perhaps most astonishing is the Party’s insistence upon ensuring that election procedures are followed. It is difficult to imagine the challenging of poor people and minorities who are struggling to fight their foreclosures as being evidence that our electoral process is running smoothly!

Foreclosures across the country have reached an all time high, with nearly 1.25 million homes in foreclosure, and it would be not be unlikely to expect challenges of this sort in other states with high foreclosure rates, such as Ohio, Florida, Nevada and Arizona (surprise, surprise — competitive election states!) While deceptive practices and voter intimidation and suppression tactics such as this have been common in federal elections, it is long past time to put an end to this.