Thursday’s Republican debate is taking place on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and some liberals are using that coincidence to encourage a debate discussion about voter laws.
In a Daily Beast column, voting rights activist Gary May urged Fox News moderators Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace to call out particular GOP candidates on voter restriction. He wants to know where Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, stands on his state’s voter identification law, which is facing a battle in court. The law went into effect after the Supreme Court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. May also hopes to hear from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on what May calls the “electoral mismanagement” in the Sunshine State that helped Bush’s brother win the presidency in 2000.
May especially wants Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to feel the heat over his state’s voter ID law, which has become a bragging point in Walker’s campaign. The law requires voters to show a current or expired driver’s license, military ID, U.S. passport, college ID or certificate of nationalization.
The left-leaning blog ThinkProgress wants to focus on the state that’s hosting the debate. The website claims that Ohio Gov. John Kasich has “worked to restrict where and when state residents can register to vote, vote early, and vote absentee.” The article does not mention that Kasich also blocked a GOP effort to require an Ohio ID for out-of-state students planning to vote there.
Both Kasich and Walker have defended their states’ voter ID laws after Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer Marc Elias joined lawsuits against the two states.
Kasich responded on Fox News in June, “In Ohio, we got like 27 days of early voting, OK? Twenty-seven days, a couple hundred hours, and in New York, the only early voting — here is none. The only voting that occurs is on Election Day — what is she talking about?”
At Iowa’s Roast and Ride event in June, Walker pointed to Wisconsin’s high voter participation to deflect concerns about voter suppression, a point he could reiterate on the debate stage. Wisconsin had the second highest voter turnout in the 2012 election with the voter ID law in effect, a study by the nonpartisan Nonprofit Vote found.
This week, more high-profile Democrats are taking voting rights to the national stage. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced a bill Wednesday to expand online voter registration. The New York Democrat accused some states of “dragging their feet” to expand voter registration to the Internet. About 20 states already offer online registration, according to a Pew Charitable Trust report.
President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., will participate in a Voting Rights Act video teleconference Thursday at 2:10 p.m. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the timing of the teleconference on the day of the debate was coincidental.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the timing of the teleconference on the day of the debate was coincidental, though he added, “I guess one person’s irony might be another person’s serendipity, and maybe there will be an opportunity for Republican candidates to discuss the importance of protecting the right of every eligible American to cast a vote, particularly in an election as consequential as the upcoming presidential election.”
Emily Leayman is an intern at the Washington Examiner
