Julie Steinberg | Protecting the right to vote

We've all seen the celebrity-ridden awareness campaign that's been recently circulating online. "Don't vote," Ashton Kutcher and Courtney Cox tell us gravely. "It's not like it's the most important election we've ever had." In case we didn't get the message, Penn Leads the Vote made its own version of the clip featuring campus bigwigs. Together, the two make an impressive case against apathy.

But what happens when you try to follow that advice and the system just won't let it happen? Since 2000, Pennsylvania and other battleground states have experienced voter intimidation tactics that have prevented thousands of people from fulfilling their civic duty. And this election, frighteningly, doesn't seem to skirt the pattern.

The Voter Suppression Wiki, a popular site that chronicles incidents nationwide, defines voter suppression as "the use of governmental power, political campaign strategy, and private resources" to reduce turnout. Misleading flyers, national legislation and even campaign personnel are disenfranchising thousands of voters, most of them low-income or minorities.

I observed dozens of Philadelphia's 1,100 polling stations for the 2006 congressional and 2007 mayoral elections. While the city doesn't keep records of voter complaints, I witnessed campaign literature in the voting booth itself, a ward leader telling his constituents how to vote, and electioneers helping the elderly fill out their ballots.

One of this year's troubling incidents was a letter dispersed on Drexel's campus in early October. The flyer claimed that people with outstanding parking tickets wouldn't be able to vote and would be arrested by policemen posted at the station if they did so, both of which aren't true.

Another example is the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002. The law, which requires states to keep computerized lists of voters' names that can be cross-checked with other databases, may actually be doing more harm than good. "Because the act mandates a state registry, it's essentially a way to keep people from voting," Political Science professor Marie Gottschalk said. "The idea of who can be on the list and who can't undermines the act itself."

The law also requires first-time voters to display identification, but certain states utilize a stricter interpretation. Voter ID laws in Indiana, which mandate a government-issued photo ID, may have prevented up to 14 percent of votes from being cast in the May Democratic primary election. Because low-income, minority and elderly voters are most likely not to have a driver's license, this law prevents a large segment of the population from participating. A 2008 Supreme Court ruling upheld Indiana's voter laws, meaning the November election will once more skew toward middle-class votes.

In a country that prides itself on its transparent democratic processes, why does state-engineered voter suppression occur? Voters in both Ohio and Florida encountered hassles when they tried to vote in 2004 because their names were similar, but not identical to felons on the state registrar. This practice is ridiculous and abhorrent - but there's been relatively little outrage from the parties themselves.

"The Democrats didn't make this an issue in 2000 or 2004," Gottschalk said. "Can you face the realization that elections in the U.S. aren't fair, in addition to all the other problems? If there weren't a financial crisis, this would be getting a lot more attention."

Fortunately, while Philadelphia has experienced instances of voter intimidation, its relatively liberal ID laws (which allow 15 forms of identification to be used, eight of them non-photo) might prevent complications. And the proliferation of local initiatives will help staunch potential concerns.

Watch the Vote 2008 and Penn Law School have partnered to train students to serve on hotlines and to respond to citizens' complaints. Clearly, the more time and money the city expends to educate voters about what's allowed at the polls and what's not, the less likely deceptive practices will occur.

"We want every eligible voter to freely cast their vote without any barriers," said Sarah Stevenson, assistant policy director at the Committee of Seventy, a local non-partisan organization for clean government. "If a voter knows more than the person writing the document, the voter should be fine."

Julie Steinberg is a College senior from Boca Raton, Fla. Her e-mail is steinberg@dailypennsylvanian.com. That's What She Said appears alternating Tuesdays.

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