Will new election bills disenfranchise Nevada minorities? GOP says no

By Kyle Roerink

Friday, March 27, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Rebuked by election experts and Democrats as discriminatory legislation, a recent wave of GOP-backed voter reform bills will add more fuel to an ongoing debate about voter fraud, turnout and disenfranchisement in the Nevada Legislature.

The legislation follows a Republican trend nationwide to hash stricter voting laws in the name of election integrity and accessibility, fueling a partisan issue that’s landed in federal courts across the country.

Republicans doubled down on their election reform efforts this week with five new bills, sponsored by the Senate and Assembly election committees, that some believe will discriminate against minorities.

Since the session kicked off in February, GOP lawmakers have come under fire for pushing bills requiring voters show ID at the polls — legislation often criticized as a way to limit minorities and Democrat voters from voting.

The new bills eliminate early voting on Sundays and grant state officials authority to terminate registrations of voters who “may not be citizens” while providing a myriad of safeguards to ensure noncitizens don’t vote. They require courts to notify election officials if residents claim noncitizen status to bypass jury duty, mandate the Department of Motor Vehicles to request from the federal government information about noncitizens and prohibit the DMV from providing a voter registration application to noncitizens.

Republicans say their bills are a way to get more people to the polls and keep undocumented immigrants from voting. One bill allows inactive voters, those with nonvalid addresses, to vote if they sign a written statement or provide proof residency at the polls. Another proposed law allows those who have changed addresses without re-registering to do the same.

“The intent is to engage voters,” Sen. Patricia Farley, GOP chairwoman of the Senate’s election committee, said.

Nevada is currently known as one of the most accessible places to vote in the country, and the bills perpetuate a myth that there’s rampant voter fraud in Nevada, said David Damore, a political science professor at UNLV.

That mindset is a “slap in the face” to Nevada elections and the officials who run them, he said.

“There is no evidence that voter ID fraud is widespread,” Damore said.

Since 2008, there have been five cases of voter fraud in the state, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

There is conflicting evidence from studies suggesting that GOP-backed voter reform laws repress minorities. Courts have recently thrown out cases in Wisconsin and Texas asking to block those laws from taking effect.

But Democrats and lobbyists say one of the new Republican measures, Senate Bill 433, which eliminates early voting on Sundays, will inhibit access to the polls for minorities and churchgoers.

The measures “are a move to make it harder for middle class people to vote, which in Nevada are largely minority voters,” said Yvanna Cancela, political director for Culinary Union 226, which represents 60,000 employees.

One effort, dubbed as “souls to the polls” voter drives, saw voters turn out en masse on Sundays in past election cycles. In 2008, voters in Florida and Ohio drew national attention for their weekend turnouts.

The 2008 statistics from Florida showed that 56 percent of early voters on the Sunday before an election were black and Hispanic.

Three years later, Florida passed a law that banned Sunday voting. Ohio passed a similar law in 2014. The American Civil Liberties Union attempted to thwart the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it.

If the law passes, Nevada would join 14 other states that prohibit early voting on Sundays.

"I'm incredibly disappointed that my Republican colleagues would introduce bills that are part of a targeted campaign to make it harder for lower income and minority Nevadans to vote,” Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas, said. “This is a direct attack on those communities."