'Occupy the Voting Booth'—Thousands March to Protect the Vote

http://www.thenation.com/blog/165104/occupy-voting-booth-thousands-march-protect-vote

Holder’s speech could not come at a more critical time. Over the last year we’ve witnessed an unprecedented GOP war on voting, with a dozen Republican governors and state legislators passing laws to restrict voter registration drives, require birth certificates to register to vote, curtail early voting, mandate government-issued photo IDs to cast a ballot and disenfranchise ex-felons who’ve served their time. The Brennan Center for Justice has estimated that “these new laws could make it significantly harder for more than 5 million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012,” and notes that “these new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities.”

On Saturday, in conjunction with UN Human Rights Day, thousands of activists and concerned citizens in New York City held a march and rally to protest these restrictive new laws. The march began outside the New York headquarters of the Koch brothers, who have given more than $1 million to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the shadowy conservative advocacy group that has masterminded the push for new voter ID requirements this year. Protesters held signs that read “Koch Bros & The 1%: Undermining Democracy.”

“Occupy A Voting Booth,” read one sign I spotted on Saturday. Many of the speakers echoed that theme. While Occupy Wall Street is rightly fighting for systemic change in a broken political system, the demonstrators on Saturday are leading a struggle to protect the most basic of political rights—the right to vote. Because of the new GOP laws, Bob Fertik of Democrats.com recently told me, voting itself has become an act of resistance.