In one of the least sexy but most essential news stories of the season, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation today that would create penalties for voter intimidation, repeatedly rebuffing Republican efforts to water down the bill Senator Obama introduced:
Under the Senate bill, people who knowingly communicate false information about the time, place or manner of an election or about voter eligibility would be punished with fines or prison sentences of up to five years.
The legislation, approved by voice vote, is a response to civil rights groups’ complaints of efforts to mislead voters in predominantly minority neighborhoods during recent elections.
The two political parties have traded charges of voting irregularities. Democrats have alleged efforts to suppress minority votes through deception or intimidation, while Republicans have focused on fraud by people not qualified to vote.
Along partisan lines, the committee rejected, 9-10, an amendment by ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania that would have added language to the findings of fact regarding voter fraud.
"If we don’t have a balanced bill, it’s not going to be passed," Specter said.
But Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said the measure should stay narrowly tailored to address voter intimidation. Voter fraud could be the focus of separation legislation, he said.
By the same margin, the committee also rejected an amendment offered by Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, targeting the facilitation of voting by people not eligible to do so.
Basically, the bill makes it a crime for anyone to, within 60 days before a federal election:
- lie about the time, place or manner of the election;
- lie about voter eligibility, whether regarding an individual's eligibility or general qualifications to vote;
- lie about the party affiliation of someone running in a primary; or
- lie about an endorsement by any person or candidate.
The one thing that did change in the bill, via proposal by Sen. Schumer, was to remove the private right of action which Sen. Obama's bill had initially provided:
Panel members approved by voice vote a substitute version of the bill (S 453) offered by Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., that stripped language allowing private parties to bring lawsuits to block deceptive voting practices.
Without that language, the bill is now more closely aligned with a companion measure (HR 1281) the House passed in June....
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., introduced the measure in January with the broad language to allow private parties rather than just the Justice Department to bring lawsuits.
In place of that broader private right of action, private parties would only be able to obtain injunctions against the Justice Department to force compliance with the legislation’s requirements.
Not my cup of tea, but I'll take it if it gets the bill passed. Let's remember why this bill is needed:
The bill gives specific examples of such tactics, including the 2006 case in Orange County in which 14,000 Hispanic voters received a mailing warning them in Spanish that immigrants voting in an election are committing a crime. The letter said illegal voting "could result in jail time, and you will be deported for voting without a right to do so." The document was traced back to Tan Nguyen, then running against Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove, for the 47th Congressional District seat.
The letter generated charges of voter intimidation and the Orange County Republican Party distanced itself from Nguyen. While the bill says that the mailings were from the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, an anti-illegal immigration group, that organization disavowed any connection with the letter. In May of this year, the California Department of Justice's investigation found no evidence that Nguyen or his campaign had tried to intimidate voters. State officials said much of the problem with the letter was the result of a bad translation from Spanish to English.
The state did find that Nguyen was aware of the letter before it was mailed, contrary to his denials.
The Senate bill also cites a 2006 incident in Virginia where voters received false phone messages telling them that the state's election commission had determined they were ineligible to vote and could face criminal charges if they tried to. Another example came from the 2006 election in Maryland, where fliers were distributed in black neighborhoods giving false information about which prominent community leaders had endorsed which candidates.
If your Senators aren't co-sponsors, call them up and urge them to join in supporting this bill. (Among the presidentials, Clinton's on board, but not Dodd or Biden, or any Republican.)
I have previously written about this legislation in January. Hearings were held in June of this year. I have also written about the Senator's 2005 efforts in this area.