The good folks at Demos, led by the redoubtable Liz Kennedy, have produced yet another study, this one outlining strategies to roll back the laws passed out in the country aimed at restricting the franchise of groups of people that conservatives and Republicans would rather not have voting, thank you very much. One of the report's many revelations is that, yes, it is being arranged so that the income inequality in our economy and in our society is being replicated at the ballot box -- which, among other things, means that not much will get done within the political system to address the problems of income inequality in the first place. In 2012, according to the report, only 46.9 percent of the eligible voters in the lower income bracket voted, while 80 percent of the eligible voters in the highest income bracket did. This is not about laziness or ignorance. This is about institutional barriers placed deliberately in the way of the former group of voters by politicians working on behalf of the latter.
The proposals therein make an enormous amount of sense on both the macro and micro levels, from easing barriers to registration, to re-establishing early voting and minimizing the use of provisional ballots, to establishing national training standards for poll workers, to designing ballots that are easy to navigate.
Read the full report or its sections: Millions to the Polls: Millions to the Polls: Practical Policies to Fulfill the Freedom to Vote for all Americans
