I’m thrilled to see that the states are ready to stand up for our voting rights at this crossroads of history.
If you are a person of color, an indigenous American, a woman, a naturalized citizen, a person with a felony record, or even someone who doesn’t own land, chances are that your right to vote was not endowed upon you by the Founding Fathers. As inspired as they were, they didn’t have a particularly expansive view of voting rights.
They basically gave themselves the right to vote and the rest of us had to play catch up for the next 240 years.
Moreover, we all know that the right to vote isn’t a settled question, and we are hyper-aware of how easy it would be for the powers that be to yank our right to vote from us.
That’s why so very many Americans gasped for air when they read about Trump’s so-called voter fraud commission asking all the states to turn over their voter rolls. They wanted information that includes names, social security numbers, party affiliation, and voting history.
Did I mention that the commission is headed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a man who’s been behind many anti-immigrant laws and may actually believe that 3-5 million illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton in 2016?
Yeah.
So Kobach issued this memo and voting rights advocates FREAKED OUT. With good reason, I might add. The commission has the White House imprimatur, and they do some real damage with that voter information and make it much harder for all of us to cast ballots in the next election. I don’t even want to speculate what Kobach might have in his mind.
Turns out, I don’t have to. As of this writing, 44 states have responded to Kobach’s request with a resounding: “Nah, bro.”
One by one, states have issued responses that range from very polite citations of the state laws preventing them from releasing the data to Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh clapping the hell back. In his response, he said, “I find this request for the personal information of millions of Marylanders repugnant; it appears designed only to intimidate voters and to indulge President Trump’s fantasy that he won the popular vote.”
Even the Republican Secretary of State in Mississippi, Delbert Hosemann, told Kobach to “Go jump in the Gulf.”
The heroes we need are showing up.
Free and fair elections are a hallmark of the American process and activists have struggled for centuries to make them more free and more fair than they were when Thomas Jefferson declared us free from monarchy. This is not the moment to try and turn back the clock on any of the suffrage movements of the past 200 years. If anything, the right to vote is more precious than ever before.
I’m thrilled to see that the states are ready to stand up for our rights at this crossroads of history.
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