03/07/2020
Transcript from NY Senate Testimony:
I am a voting rights advocate and co-founder of the non-partisan not-for-profit All Women's Progress Policy Center. I respectfully submit this following testimony in strong support of the New York Voting Rights Act. My work as a voting rights advocate is to bring awareness to the obstacles that eligible voters and marginalized groups face when attempting to cast their ballot here in New York State and throughout the U.S. Accessing the ballot box for Black, Latinx, AAPI, Native, trans, and disabled voters has become increasingly challenging, because as Representative John Lewis stated, "The Supreme Court stuck a dagger into the heart "of the Voting Rights Act." Protections were narrowed after raising the threshold for liability under Section 2 of the VRA and dismantling Section 5 preclearance altogether in the Supreme Court's Shelby County decision. The absence of Section 5 preclearance has made it difficult to identify harmful voting changes before they take effect because states and localities are no longer required to notify federal officials of the changes to voting laws. The absence of Section 5 have led to the proliferation of voter suppression, voter disenfranchisement, and voter intimidation. I want to bluntly state the purpose of the deployment of voter suppression tactics is not only to deny eligible voters in marginalized groups access to the ballot box, but to keep them from attaining any real political power here in our democracy. And I applaud the immense progress that has been made in New York State this past year on voting rights with our new Senate Democratic majority, and I'm so thrilled to see that a series of bills to establish early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, modernize and expanded voter registration to name a few, but without the protections of the VRA on the federal level, our state desperately needs a New York Voting Rights Act that Senator Myrie introduced for consideration. Many think of New York as a liberal bastion where voter suppression could never happen, but only a few miles from where I sit right now, voter intimidation took place in Troy, New York when county Republican officials threatened to share voting registration records with U.S. Immigration to check if undocumented immigrants were illegally registering to vote. That would amount to voter fraud. Voter fraud is almost non-existent in the United States. As my friends at the Brennan Center for Justice have stated, "It is more likely that an American will be struck "by lightning than to impersonate someone at the polls," and I will add also to vote undocumented. What does exist is voter dilution, voter suppression, voter disenfranchisement, voter intimidation, partisan and racial gerrymandering, disinformation, lack of investment in voter mobilization, and a perceived lack of power or importance as a voter. With the passage of the NYVRA, New York State would join California and Washington in having our own State Voting Rights Act that would build upon the comprehensive framework of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The NYVRA would both address a wide variety of overlooked infringements on the right to vote and put in place protections that would be among the strongest in the country. New York could send a powerful signal to the rest of the United States that illustrates that we value the voices of all our eligible voters equally, and that we've fought to encourage and to protect their right to participate not only to pick their elected officials, but to have a real say in critical policies that affect their lives and the most vulnerable in New York. As Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said, "We need more voices in our democracy, not fewer." The New York Voting Rights Act would be the most robust and comprehensive state voting rights act to date, and would firmly showcase the Empire State as a leader in promoting and protecting political participation. I could hope or wish that we would soon have a U.S. Congress that will champion voting rights and restore and expand upon the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but we in New York State can not wait for that exalted day. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court have indicated to us with their 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision that they have little interest in reversing their decision to restore the most effective civil rights law in the history of our country. Since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, we have witnessed as a nation 1,688 polling closures in mostly Black and Latinx communities. 16 million voters were purged between the federal elections of 2014 and 2016. This does not include a record 6.1 million Americans who are forbidden to vote because of felony disenfranchisement, nor the 1/3 of all people with disabilities who reported having difficulty accessing the polls because of a lack of accessibility. In strict voter ID states trans women and men face barriers because of difficulties obtaining IDs that are accepted or dealing with bias because of misunderstandings of law when it comes to their gender. These are just a few examples of why we desperately need effective civil rights laws, more of them not less of them. I, on behalf of All Women's Progress Policy Center, urge the passage of the New York Voting Rights Act without delay, I thank you for your time.
