Organizations like these give me hope for the 2022 Congressional Elections
WAMC Northeast Public Radio | By Michael Meeropol
OCTOBER 7, 2022 — I live in New York State. It is a safe blue state. I have to travel out of state to work to elect Democrats who are the gate keepers against the MAGA fascists taking over Congress and Governors’ offices. There are people of my generation who are not in a position to make such trips. Thus, I was very pleased to discover three organizations who are doing very good work in the current election cycle. These groups, I can support from afar. The three are VoteRiders.com, the Movement Voter Project and Seed the Vote.
There shouldn’t even have to be an organization like VoteRiders. Going to their mission URL, we learn that their only reason for existence is that the right to vote is under assault from State Legislatures and “concerned citizen” groups who attempt to intimidate people by challenging their right to vote. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “Since the beginning of 2021, 18 states have passed 34 restrictive voting laws, …”. The center describes such laws as restrictive if it creates a situation where “it would make it harder for eligible Americans to register, stay on the rolls, and/or vote as compared to existing state law.”
[The quote is from the Brennan Center’s website: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-may-2022]
VoteRiders has collected voting requirements legislation from all fifty states and provides clear detailed information for current or potential voters explaining exactly what they need to do in order to navigate these increasingly restrictive laws. They start by dividing the country into three categories. First are those states that require strict voter ID with a government issued photograph. Then there are those states which accept many different types of ID. Finally, there are those that don’t require any ID. VoteRiders shows the different states on an easy-to-read national map, color coordinated by the types of ID required.
Here is some information directly from VoteRiders:
For their mission statement see
https://www.voteriders.org/mission/
And here is further information:
They offer digital resources, state-specific voter ID Information cards, ID trainings, a social media toolkit, and free help to voters to get the ID they need to cast a ballot. Voters can call or text our Helpline (844-338-8743) at any point for assistance in English or Spanish on voter ID questions, and to start the process to get free help from VoteRiders to obtain acceptable ID.
One final point: This organization is strictly non-partisan. Its goal is to make sure that everyone who is eligible to vote is able to. From my perspective, that is great even though most of the voter suppression effort is aimed at reducing the turnout from groups who lean Democratic.
(Michael Meeropol is professor emeritus of Economics at Western New England University. He is the author with Howard and Paul Sherman of the recently published second edition of Principles of Macroeconomics: Activist vs. Austerity Policies)
