Representative John Lewis of Georgia told the delegates at the Demotractic convention on Thursday that he first came to Charlotte, N.C., on a Freedom Ride in 1961, the year President Obama was born, and warned them that new voting laws passed in several Republican-led states requiring voter IDs and limiting early voting would make it harder for people to vote.
“Too many people struggled, suffered and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote,'' said Mr. Lewis, whose skull was fractured by a police nightstick in 1965 at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama when troopers moved in to block a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. The day became known as Bloody Sunda y.
Republicans say the new voting laws are needed to prevent fraud. Democrats note that such fraud almost never happens and say that the laws are an attempt to suppress the ballots of young people and members of minority groups that traditionally vote for Democrats.
A court battle is being waged in Ohio over whether the state can curtail its early voting hours. A new voter ID law in Pennsylvania - which a top Republican lawmaker said would “allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania†- was upheld in court last month. And last month a federal court struck down a new voter ID law in Texas, ruling that the law would hurt turnout among minority voters and impose “strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor.â€
Mr. Lewis said: “Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting. They are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote.â€
The party platforms differ on the issue. The Republican platform says that “we applaud legislation to require photo identification for voting and to prevent election fraud, particularly with regard to registration and absentee ballots.†It also says: “We support state laws that require proof of citizenship at the time of voter registration to protect our electoral system against a significant and growing form of voter fraud. Every time that a fraudulent vote is cast, it effectively cancels out a vote of a legitimate voter.â€
The Democratic platform says, “Democrats know that voter identification laws can disproportionately burden young voters, people of color, low-income families, people with disabilities and the elderly, and we refuse to allow the use of political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens.â€
