Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote, a group focused on registering young voters, said she is most worried about new restrictions on third-party voter registration groups in Florida. Volunteers for groups like hers must now fill out paperwork with the state, then obtain a set of numbered voter-registration forms and return those forms to the registrar’s office within 48 hours. If the paperwork is not in order, the volunteer and the group face fines.
Smith said Rock the Vote may file a lawsuit to try to get some of those rules overturned. Her group, which calls the new laws a “war on voting,” will announce a new initiative this fall called “You can’t stop us.”
In 2008, more than 22 million people younger than 30 voted, an increase of about 2 million from the 2004 election cycle. They voted two to one for Obama.
In Wisconsin, which passed a law requiring identification to vote, her group has started a “Got ID?” campaign, which buses students to the Department of Motor Vehicles and helps them gather the documents they need to receive an official ID.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who ran for president in 1984 and 1988, urged civil rights lawyers at the Justice Department this summer to reverse some of the new restrictions. “All that we worked for in the last 50 years is on the chopping block,” Jackson said.
South Carolina and Texas — which were among the states to pass more restrictive voting laws — must have any changes to their election systems approved by the Justice Department under provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
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