Dana Black: Attempts to limit voting are un-American

It is that wonderful time of the year again when every person who is eligible can participate in our American democracy. Early voting has begun and the election is just weeks away. Voting is one of the greatest rights of being a citizen of our country and something we should never take lightly.

However, in some cases, the act of voting has been taken for granted, something evident by the lack of participation and attempts to limit access to voting. We all know historically voting was not a right granted to every citizen—only to white, male property owners. America changed and evolved to be more like its stated values that “all men are created equal.” Women earned the right to vote, with the signing of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

For blacks, especially in the south, attempting to register to vote could mean the end of your life. The level of terrorism and intimidation blacks endured through reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and the civil rights movement of the 1960s was astonishing. When law enforcement officers were dredging river banks looking for activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner, the media never mentioned how many other Freedom Riders were found dead instead. For people of color there would be no constitutional amendment, rather the 1965 Voting rights act signed by Lyndon B. Johnson.

Sadly, there are those policy makers who are working to make it more difficult for Americans to cast votes. Finally, Marion County will have as many early-voting locations in this election as the surrounding donut counties with a fraction of the population. It took a Republican-appointed judge to step in and force Republican legislators do the right thing by the citizens of Marion County.

Our legislators in the Statehouse also passed legislation to limit voter access by purging voters from the registration rolls. Connie Lawson, our secretary of state, called it voter-registration clean up. But in July, U.S. District Judge Tonya Walton Pratt granted an injunction that stopped implementation of the new state law, which would have kicked thousands of voters off the registration rolls. Sadly, many were still purged from the voter rolls

You would think with voting being such a fundamental right of citizenship, our leaders would work to make it easier, not harder to vote.

Of course, we can’t put the lack of voter participation all on legislators. Even as people historically were willing to give their lives to exercise their right to vote, only 58 percent of Hoosiers cast their vote in 2016 and only 28 percent in 2014, the lowest in the country.

I have often heard people say we want to protect the integrity of voting from fraud. But it appears these laws are looking to solve problems that don’t exist. Loyola Law School Professor Justin Levitt studied voter fraud between 2000 and 2014, where more than 800 million ballots were cast in general elections, yet he was only able to verify 35 credible fraud accusations in that 15-year period; a 0.000044 percent rate.

Voter fraud does not exist, and when you take this data into consideration, the only question becomes: Why the new laws? The only conclusion I have is that conservatives in Indiana believe as Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, believed when he stated in 1980, “I don’t want everybody to vote.” Sad words from folks who hang their hats on patriotism. It is our right to vote and our legislators should not create barriers to exercise that right because it’s downright un-American.

Go vote Indiana!•

Click here for more Forefront columns.

__________

Black is deputy chairwoman for engagement for the Indiana Democratic Party and a former candidate for the Indiana House. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.