The privilege of voting is so fundamental an American right that any attempt to strip an individual of that prerogative undermines the nation's core values. Highly partisan legislative initiatives to make it difficult or impossible for certain voters -- especially the poor and minorities -- are currently underway. Fortunately, there are determined individuals and agencies working diligently to halt those heinous actions.
The latest voter suppression initiatives include state laws requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification at their polling station. Legislative sponsors and supporters of voter ID laws say that such a requirement would insure the integrity of elections and reduce the possibility of fraud. Nonsense. There's no need for such laws. Voter fraud is so rare that election officials are hard-pressed to recount a successful incidence of it.
Voter ID bills, invariably sponsored by Republicans, are designed solely to enhance the GOP vote. They do so because they disproportionately affect minority and poor voters -- those most likely to vote for Democrats and those most likely to have difficulty obtaining the required IDs in rural counties without drivers' license centers. With Republicans in control of state legislative bodies, though, it's hard for truth and justice in this matter to carry the day.
Another tried-and-true way to manipulate voter turnout is to excessively purge voter lists. Though there is justification for periodic purge programs, the lists often are trimmed arbitrarily and without notification to those whose names are removed. Just ask former Rep. Lincoln Davis, who ably represented Tennessee's 4th Congressional district from 2003 to 2011.
Davis, a Democrat, was turned away from his long-time polling station in Fentress County last week because, election officials said, his name was no longer on voter rolls. Davis, though, had never changed his voting residence or requested that his name be removed, and he had never been notified that his name had been deleted. Moreover, he was not offered a provisional ballot -- one that allows a person to cast a vote with a decision made later on whether it will be counted -- as required by law. Davis understandably was outraged, and he's done something about it.
On Monday, he filed a federal class action lawsuit alleging that his rights were violated when he was not allowed to vote. As part of his class action suit, he asked the court to restore any eligible voters among the more than 70,000 individuals whose names have been purged from voting rolls since 2009. That is a reasonable request. The court should fast-track the case, and explore the validity of the states' purge program.
Opponents of unfair voter ID statutes did score a victory Monday when the Justice Department blocked Texas's new law. The department said that the measure may disenfranchise large numbers minority voters -- Hispanics, in this instance. Other states, including Tennessee, have similar rules. Their implementation should be stopped by federal authorities, too.
The on-going Republican-led effort to suppress the vote abrogates the American tradition of expanding and protecting citizens' most precious franchise -- the right to vote. Davis' and the Justice Department's actions on Monday are positive steps in reversing that effort.