Disenfranchising voters

We often hear about how one party or the other will attempt to keep one group of people from voting in some way or another. A couple of years back, while working on my ph.d. in political science, I worked on the research of this nature for a professor who was studying this phenomenon. At the time, it was easy to spot, but at the same time easy to understand how easy it was for those doing the practice to pretend they weren't doing the practice. Example: "Requiring ID is just avoiding voter fraud, not making it more difficult for those who don't normally have ID to vote." Or "A test on current affairs just makes sure that they know what they're talking about so we don't have people coming in voting blindly." That kind of thing.

Well, I moved to Stockton, California, and I dutifully sent in my voter registration information.

It was rejected.

The reason it was rejected was because someone wrote a note stating: "Could not read your last name in the signature properly. Resign and try again."

Now, there are a couple of points to this that are quite interesting.

1. My handwriting is impeccable. There's NO WAY to confuse how I spell my last name in my signature with anything else. I don't abbreviate it, or use any other little short cut while signing. Every letter is handwritten properly and correctly. The only way it could be more clear is to type it.

2. The note scribbled, indicating my signature was unreadable, was almost unreadable. The rejector's signature was a gazillion percent WORSE than mine on my worst day.

3. I moved to a city that is a Republican stronghold in surroundings that are extremely Democrat. There is a HUGE fight for the congress member in this area by a very hostile anti-Republican crowd that has grown here since the last election. When I chose my political party, I checked "I choose not to state a preference at this time." My address is obviously a university address, so to someone receiving this, it's pretty obvious I'm a student at a university who has chosen not to state he is a Republican. I'll let you fill in the blanks from there.

So, I found myself thinking about all of those studies I read about the ambiguity that comes up during charges of disenfranchisement. This is exactly how it works. What the goal is for these people is for me to send in the form AGAIN, not being able to make it any better, and they reject it either on same grounds or for a new manufactured reason. Or they hope for what is the statistical norm: They hope I don't bother to send in the form again at all because like most people, when voting becomes a chore, we opt out.

Anyway, just thought I'd give you all something to think about because it would not surprise me to see the whole issue turn into partisan bickering. Yet in 2006, we still have methods in place for keeping people from voting.

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