Vote Suppression as a Civil Rights Crime

If the polling bears out and Barack Obama is elected president tomorrow, he's going to have to deal with a large number of "legacy issues," including the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the financial meltdown, Guantanamo, the military tribunals, the extraordinary rendition program, health care reform, and climate change.

One legacy issue that hasn't caught the media's attention is "vote suppression"--the efforts of Republican officials to intimidate grass-roots vote registration efforts, develop schemes to lower voting rates among poor people, and scare people in minority communities away from voting.

It should be illegal.

Voting is a fundamental right in American society--as much a cornerstone of democracy as the right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly.

At its root, vote suppression is the attempt to intimidate, coerce, or otherwise prevent American citizens from exercising that fundamental right.

As a result, all forms of vote suppression should be outlawed.

It should be a felony to engage in any behavior designed to intimidate, coerce, or otherwise prevent eligible voters from exercising their right to vote. That includes seeking to scare people away from voting, engaging in registration purges with the intent of eliminating eligible (as well as ineligible voters), or excluding people who have moved recently, lost their homes, or are homeless from voting. It should also include the various efforts by election officials to limit participation.

Vote suppression has become "politics as usual" for the Republican Party. Thus, it could be argued that making vote suppression illegal would be a form of "criminalizing politics."

So be it.

Republican vote suppression is an attempt to prevent people from exercising their fundamental rights as Americans.

It should be a crime.