Vote 2012: Dear DOJ, Happy Valentine’s Day

Our blog series Vote 2012 aims to educate and update voters as we head into the U.S. presidential elections of 2012.

In 2011, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent me many lovely surprises, and so today, I want to wish it a lovely, flowers-and-chocolate-filled Valentine’s Day.

Last year had a disheartening start. 34 states across the country introduced legislation to require voter photo ID at the polls (Wisconsin, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas passed the laws); five states passed laws scaling back early voting; and the list of new attempts to curtail the right to vote continues to grow. Combined, these laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012. And these laws don’t affect all Americans equally. For example, 18 percent of Americans over 65 and, in some cities, 78 percent of young black men lack photo ID. Studies show that early voting (or Sunday voting) is used by black and Hispanic voters in numbers proportionally higher than other groups.

But then last December, in the midst of all this disappointment, the DOJ sent me a bouquet of roses and Texas’ own bluebonnets and even some chocolates with Attorney General Eric Holder’s making a pivotal address in Austin, in which he vowed to protect voters. When I heard it, I was happy and relieved that the country’s premiere lawyer and his department vowed to protect the right to vote in 2012, but nervous about how quickly and to what extent he would deliver on that promise. What if his speech was just talk and he wasn’t ready for commitment? If the speech was the beginning and the end of the DOJ’s involvement, the prevalence of restrictive voting measures would only continue and my heart would be broken. Still, despite my skepticism, I couldn’t help thinking that those flowers must mean something, right?

Before I knew it, the DOJ sent along another bouquet, this time lilies and yellow jessamines from South Carolina when it rejected South Carolina’s voter photo ID law, for not meeting the requirements of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices against black voters. Given its past failure to protect the voting rights of blacks, South Carolina is required under the Voting Rights Act to submit changes in voting procedures to the DOJ for preclearance. The DOJ found that in South Carolina, minority voters are nearly 20 percent more likely than white voters to lack a state-issued photo ID. The DOJ has delivered on its promise (two bouquets obviously mean something) and there is hope for voters in 2012. But South Carolina is filing a lawsuit to overturn the decision and the result may legitimize restrictive laws throughout the nation. What if flowers just aren’t enough?

But all else aside, today is devoted to declarations of love, so here goes: DOJ, you lavished me with flowers, and now that you have my heart, please don’t break it.