Spectacular Magazine - Nov 2014 | Page 5

COMMENTARY From The Publisher’s Desk... DID VOTER-ID LAWS SUPPRESS THE VOTE? We know already that in the North Carolina Senate race, State House Speaker Thom Tillis beat Senator Kay Hagan by a margin of 1.7 percent, or about 48,000 votes. More than two weeks later, we’re still trying to figure this one out: How much of an impact did voting restrictions have on the 2014 midterm elections? And remember, voting restrictions don’t just mean the infamous voter-ID laws that we all know and Republicans love. Altogether, 21 states kept an array of voting restrictions in place for 2014, from making it tougher and more costly to meet strict identification requirements to eliminating same-day registration and early voting.  North Carolina’s voters were, for the first time, voting under one of the harshest new election laws in the country -- a law that Tillis helped to craft. Among other changes, the law slashed seven early voting days, eliminated same-day registration, and prohibited voting outside a voter’s home precinct -- all forms of voting especially popular among African Americans. While it may be too early to assess the impact of the law this year, the Election Protection hotline and other voter protection volunteers reported what appeared to be widespread problems both with voter registration and with voters being told they were in the wrong precinct yesterday. Some numbers from recent elections suggest that the magnitude of the problem may not be far from the margin of victory: In the last midterms in 2010, 200,000 voters cast ballots during the early voting days that have now been cut, according to a recent court decision. In 2012, 700,000 North Carolinians voted during those days, including more than a quarter of all African Americans who voted that year. In 2012, 100,000 voters, almost a one-third of which were African-American, voted using same-day registration, which was not available this year. And 7,500 voters cast their ballots outside of their home precincts that year. Voting, of course, should be easy. Yet when you make it hard  it’s bound to get ugly. What may seem to be victories now may turn into real losses in 2016 and beyond. Sincerely, Phyllis Coley Phyllis Coley (CEO/Publisher: [email protected]) www.spectacularmag.com | November 2014 | SPECTACULAR MAGAZINE 5