In their quest to defeat President Obama and hold a White House Tea Party, Republicans and their corporate allies have a new youth outreach message: Don't Vote. While our troops fight and die for the rights of young Afghanis and Iraqis to vote and our leaders call for a freedom agenda across the Middle East, our Republican opponents seek to deny those rights to young Americans here at home.
The contrast is quite striking: in the Middle East, from Tunisia to Egypt to Lybia to Yemen, millennials are fighting for the right to have a stake in their own future. And while Republicans cheer them over there, they suppress millennial Americans here at home. From New Hampshire (where the GOP House Speaker says says you should not register to vote in your college community unless you or your parents lived there before matriculation) to Colorado, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (where there are photo ID bills to ban students from using in-state university- or college-issued IDs for proof-of-residency when voting and/or end same-day voter registration at the polls) to the Koch-funded corporate entity American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) (which set up "model" legislation to disenfranchise young voters disenfranchise the radical right is organized, methodical, and determined to keep young people home.
The motives for tea party Republicans are obvious: young people propelled President Barack Obama to victory in 2008 with a 22% margin and supported Congressional Democrats in 2010 by a solid 17% http://www.civicyouth.org/youth-voters-in-the-2010-elections/ margin. Young people want investments in innovation, education, infrastructure, and renewable energy, support healthcare and union workers rights, and respect civil rights - while tea party Republicans don't. But rather than a fair debate on the merits, tea party Republicans and their corporate allies are going for a disqualification on the technicalities: ballot touching, government not university issued IDs, and taking the residence out of college residence halls. This power grab to keep college students and other young voters off the rolls would boost tea party Republican chances of winning the White House and of enacting draconian budget cuts and civil rights restrictions across the country.
Democrats take heart and Republicans take heed: these GOP voter suppression efforts will backfire. Even if some bills end up passing, young people will grow into older voters who forever remember which party wanted them to vote and which one didn't. Don't believe me? Look to the Rocky Mountain West, where GOP voter suppression ads like the despicable Latinos for Reform "Don't Vote" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/latinos-for-reform-vote-nevada_n_767991.html backfired among Latino voters, who gave their votes -- and thus the Senate Majority -- to Democrats Harry Reid in Nevada, Barbara Boxer in California and Michael Bennet in Colorado.
GOP voter suppressors are counting on apathy -- but they have misjudged America's young people. Today, via keyboards, cell phones, office visits, and rallies, my colleagues in Young Democrats of America http://www.yda.org are working with our members across America to contact state legislators and urge them to protect the voting rights of young people. We need your help regardless of party. Democrats, join YDA in making sure that the voting rights for which our Founders sacrificed and our troops fight and die abroad extend to Americans here at home. Republicans, ask your 2012 Republican presidential candidates if they want college students voting for them in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary. Independents, check out Rock the Vote's Voter Suppression is Un-American public information campaign http://www.rockthevote.com/campaigns/suppression/ which is leading efforts to educate and mobilize voting rights groups.
Everyone can do their part to reject the GOP's Don't Vote message, stop the power grab, and force a debate on the merits. If millennials can risk their lives to fight for voting rights in the Middle East, we Americans can spare the time and energy to support them here at home.
Follow Christine Pelosi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sfpelosi
Delia Lloyd: Five New Facts About Generation Y
Shawne Merriman: Any Given Election Day
Proof of residency is central to local, state, and national elections and required by federal law. There is no instance, even on the colleges where they are issued, that school ID’s substitute for proper ID. The truth is that student ID’s will not provide the same level of residency information that a drivers license or state license or passport would. Why wouldn’t you want more integrity in the voting system? Unless of course, having improper identification helps your specific party by amping up your support with non-qualified voters.
Federal laws already require that proper proof be required when registering. Making sure that proper ID is defined in a way that adds integrity to the process should be a good thing, whether you are Republican or Democrat.
Kai
I d not feel too strongly on thsi subject becuase I see this as a non-issue as far as all teh issues facing our nation. I woudl argue that if the rational opposing the legislation is one of cost, an indirect poll tax, etc., then I would argue that there are ways and agencies that can fund proper ID's if a person in need actually cannot afford one. I woudl approach it from that angle rather than trying to stop a good bill.
Kai
Do you think that it might not take much of a campaign to create apathy of among voters just after they heard the leader of the House of Representatives say that the American people would have to wait until Congress passed the Health Care Legislation before anyone could read what was being voted upon....
Warm regards,
Michael Winters
No, hearing someone say repeatedly first we legislate then we campaign did not deter young voters from giving Democrats a 17% advantage over Republicans in the elections. (please see CIRCLE citation above) Once young voters learned they could stay on parents' plans til age 26, get their own plans without medical discrimination, and get prevention visits free of charge, they were among the healthcare reform law's staunchest supporters. Methinks Afghanistan a tougher sell among young voters of all parties but I don't see Republicans opposing that war. We shall see,
Thank you for your warm regards,
Christine
I'm not trying to sound like a Liberalist, but what is really so bad about trying to give EVERYONE health care? Are people that insensitive their neighbors plights?
HOW DARE THEY TRY IT.
NOT THIS TIME YOU OLD CODGERS.
They can keep all of us in trench warfare while they grab in the chaos, but their biggest future threat is our youth.
If the kids are smart, they absentee their vote
Those youngsters who worked so tirelessly for this guy- remember THE AUDACITY OF THE CHANGE CANDIDATE?- are now cynical beyond their years.
Barack Obama has turned out to be utterly full of it.
And everyday we only discuss deficits instead of ways to create income, those kids will be acutely affected......and will go right over the top of us elders.
He's Cuban acutally, but doubt speaking spanish translates into an hispanic vote.
Young voters are yet another scapegoat in a long litany of conservative scapegoats. If you are an immigrant, a woman, a union member, a teacher, a firefighter, a young person, a minority, a gay man or lesbian, etc. you are not welcome. Further, it is your fault we are in the crisis we are in.
The whole time we point fingers at one another, we perpetuate the continued pillaging of our nation's culture and coffers. The war on the Middle Class includes attacks on a multitude of fronts: the right to collectively bargain, the right to public services and now the right to vote.
Elected officials cannot do this alone. We need your help. Arise and be counted, lest your voice permanently be deleted from his or her story.
Nice!