HB 194 repeal: it's on!

We just received word a little while ago that attorney general Mike DeWine has approved the petition language for the repeal of voter suppression bill HB 194. Petitions will be printed up tomorrow and people will be hitting the streets this weekend. We need all hands on deck:
http://ohiodems.org/stop_voter_suppression

We need all hands on deck. We have just under six weeks to collect the 231,000 valid signatures needed to qualify the repeal for the November 2012 ballot, thereby preventing these measures from going into effect until after that election.

Elections experts have estimated that if this bill were in place, 40 percent of 2008 voters would have to find a different way to vote because the one they used that year would be eliminated. The bill especially makes voting difficult for working poor, elderly, minority, student, homeless and low-information voters who don't have access to the jam-packed media stream some of us do. Remember among other things, this bill BANS boards of election from sending out notices about absentee voting, while drastically the shortening early-voting period and early-voting opportunities. It would be easy for even a plugged-in, high-information voter to accidentally let that period slip by. Now imagine you are working poor and simply can't take time off your job to vote on Election Day. Yup — that's the intention.

So please go and sign up to help out.

http://ohiodems.org/stop_voter_suppression

Or call your county Democratic Party. Even though this effort is being led by the Ohio Democratic Party and Organizing for America, it's really not a partisan effort. It's an attempt to undo a partisan bill that created obstacles to voting that have no function other than to make voting difficult for some people. That shouldn't be. Republican or Democrat, Green or Libertarian, Socialist or Constitution Party — it should be as easy as possible for all voters to vote. So-called "voter fraud" barely exists, and what miniscule amount does exist is best prevented by more efficient record-keeping practices within boards of election, not by making voters jump through hoops.

Let's go, people. In a country where we regularly bemoan the lack of participation in elections, nothing should be done that makes it harder for people to vote.