Democrats' Senate strategist: don't let Republicans restrict voting rights

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/15/democrats-senate-strategist-voting-rights

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The Democratic strategist overseeing the party’s campaign to retain control of the Senate has made protecting voting rights in North Carolina and Arkansas a national priority.

In an interview with the Guardian, Guy Cecil, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said there was concern that restrictions imposed by Republican-dominated legislatures in the key races could affect the outcome of the battle to control the upper house.

With the Senate on a knife-edge, Cecil has concluded that protecting voter rights with education drives, legal challenges and poll monitors on November 4 should – along with the more conventional task of mobilising voters – be a priority for Democratic field offices.

“Getting out the vote and protecting voter rights are critical to who controls the majority,” he said, adding that the DSCC was especially concerned about North Carolina and Arkansas.

“There is a clear pattern in this country,” he added. “Where there are Democratic governors and Democratic legislatures, states are working very hard to think about how they can expand access to voting: vote by mail, online voting, early voting, Sunday voting.

“In places where there are Republican governors and legislatures there are moves to restrict access to the voting booth; require only a certain form of identification, limit the number of early vote locations, eliminate Sunday voting.”

Republicans need to gain a net of six Democratic Senate seats this fall to regain control of the Senate.

Along with Louisiana and Alaska, North Carolina and Arkansas are considered by independent political analysts to be perhaps the four key battleground states.

Legal challenges are under way in North Carolina and Arkansas to halt proposed changes to voting rules that, critics argue, will disenfranchise many voters inclined to vote Democratic.

A supreme court decision last year that struck down a crucial component of the Voting Rights Act emboldened several Republican-dominated states to introduce or accelerate plans to restrict voting, ostensibly in order to stamp out voter fraud.

Legal experts believe the most repressive assault on voting rights was in North Carolina, which implemented a raft of repressive measures, scaling back early voting and eliminating same-day registration.

Campaigners are seeking an injunction on the measures, to prevent them coming into effect for the midterm elections, in a case to be heard later this month by the federal fourth circuit court of appeals.

The following week, the Arkansas supreme court is scheduled to hear an appeal in a long-running legal dispute over the constitutionality of photo ID requirements implemented in the state.

Polls show that North Carolina’s senator Kay Hagan has a slim lead over Republican challenger Thom Tillis. In Arkansas, Republican challenger Tom Cotton has a slight edge over Democratic incumbent Tom Pryor. But neither of the leads are within the margin of polling error, and both states are considered toss-ups that could be conceivably be determined by just a few thousand votes.

Voter rights could prove a live issue in a host of other races during the midterms.

On Monday, the Brennan Center for Justice released a report analysing precinct-level data on waiting lines at polling stations in Florida, Maryland and South Carolina in 2012. It concluded that precincts with more minorities had fewer voting machines and longer wait times.

There is also a pending legal case with potential repercussions for voting in Kansas, which has recently emerged as a competitive Senate race.

Cecil said that Democrats were also conscious of the risk of restrictions of voting in Georgia, where Democrat Michelle Nunn is running against Republican Michael Perdue.

Nunn’s strategy is partly based on an attempt to take advantage of a demographic shift that has resulted in the Peach State’s minority population constitute a large and increasing slice of the electorate.

Last week, a senior Republican state senator in Georgia, Fran Millar, sparked controversy by complaining about a decision by a predominantly black county, DeKalb, to open polls on a Sunday at a shopping mall to allow more people to vote.

Millar noted the mall was “dominated by African American shoppers” and was “near several large African American mega churches”.

“Is it possible church buses will be used to transport people directly to the mall since the poll will open when the mall opens?” he asked in comments reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “If this happens, so much for the accepted principle of separation of church and state.”

It is unusual for rightwing advocates of voting restrictions to couch their complaints in racial terms. Typically, they claim to be concerned with preventing voting fraud, even though voter fraud cases are exceptionally rare in the US.

“Every once in a while a Republican official is revelatory about their motivation,” Cecil said.

The DSCC chief – widely admired on both sides of the aisle as one of the most accomplished campaign strategists in US politics – was dismissive of the numerous election forecasting models currently predicting that Republicans will retake the Senate.

Polling in Senate races is more complex and less reliable than presidential polling, he said, and while Democrats may running close races in some red states, there has been a recent uptick for them in bluer states like Colorado, Iowa and Michigan.

While complimentary of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, one of the most-read election forecasting sights, Cecil noted it made some incorrect predictions for key Senate races at this stage of the last election cycle.

“Even in August 2012, they said Republicans have a 65% chance of taking the majority,” he said. “Of course a couple of months later, we ended up not only preserving our majority but picking up seats.”

Cecil added: “What all of the models point to is the fact that the battle for the majority is going to be remarkably close, which is incredible given the fact that we have seven states we’re running in where Barack Obama lost, and where the president’s approval ratings are in the mid-30s to low-40s.”