Update, 3/28, 10:45am: Citizens won and right-wing ALEC and Janssen lost! We beat the “voter id” bill. Our votes are protected. Let’s now push for same day voter registration, online voter registration, statewide vote by mail and opening more accessible polling locations.
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Two bad bills–TransCanada’s loophole bill and Voter ID–are up for votes in the Unicameral this week.
The “TransCanada loophole” bill starts debate on Thursday at 9am, we will post more info on that soon.
The “voter id” law being pushed by right-wing group ALEC and Sen. Janssen is in its final round of debate and vote today (Wed).
Your action is needed now.
Please email or call Speaker Flood as well as your state senator and tell them we are counting on them to protect our constitutional right to vote and to please vote NO on Sen. Janssen’s bill. The voter-id bill wants to decrease the vote and we want to increase the vote.
Contact Info:
Speaker Flood: mflood@leg.ne.gov, 402-471-2929
Find your senator: http://nebraskalegislature.gov/senators/senator_find.php
Vote ID Facts:
There are no documented cases of voter impersonation in Nebraska, so this bill is “addressing” a problem that does not exists. Voter ID is the rarest form of voter fraud in the nation. Sen. Janssen himself as well as the Deputy Secretary of State both testified voter impersonation is not a problem.
Requiring a photo-id, without providing for a free state-issued id, constitutes a “poll tax” and is unconstitutional.
If voter ID passes, 130,000 Nebraskans may not have their vote counted on election day since that is the amount of folks who do not have a photo-id.
Our counties will have to spend at a minimum between $200,000-$600,000 on every election cycle to provide ids, training of poll workers, advertising the law to voters and other costs of implementing a new system.
In order to increase democracy, we should be debating same day voter registration, online voter registration, statewide vote by mail and opening more accessible polling locations.
To read more about how we can increase the vote, check out Nebraskans for Civic Reform and Bold’s accountability page.
