Using Early Voting To Stop Latino Voters

An editorial in The New York Times this week asks an important question: Why do Republicans want to make voting harder? Specifically, harder for minority voters. The editorial basically points to efforts to restrict voting for minorities after the election of President Barack Obama in 2008. The Times notes:

The biggest part of that effort, imposing cumbersome requirements that voters have a government ID, has been painted as a response to voter fraud, an essentially nonexistent problem. But Republican lawmakers also have taken a good look at voting patterns, realized that early voting might have played a role in Mr. Obama’s 2008 victory, and now want to reduce that possibility in 2012.

Mr. Obama won North Carolina, for example, by less than 15,000 votes. That state has had early voting since 2000, and in 2008, more ballots were cast before Election Day than on it. Mr. Obama won those early votes by a comfortable margin. So it is no coincidence that the North Carolina House passed a measure — along party lines — that would cut the early voting period by a week, reducing it to a week and a half before the election.

The entire editorial is here and is worth reading. We wrote about this issue recently, and what you have to realize when considering it is that these efforts are specifically aimed at Latino and African-American communities. There’s absolutely no bones about that, so what are you going to do in the 2012 election to make sure your vote, and those of your family and friends, count?

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD