We Need Some ‘Street Heat’
on Sen. Elder Vogel, Join Us!
By Tina Shannon
Progressive Democrats of America
Dear Friends & Fellow Progressives,
The right wing in our nation has always and continually made every effort to keep people from voting.
At one time only white male property owners could vote. This was expanded to all white males. Then after a bloody civil war, black males gained the right to vote. Then women gained the right to vote after a long battle. Finally young folks from ages 18 to 21, who were fighting and dying in foreign wars, gained the right to vote.
In the South, where the former slave-owner aristocracy maintained power, a raft of new laws were passed that disenfranchised black voters. There were poll taxes, various voter tests and other obstacles thrown up to stop blacks and poor whites in the South from voting. The Republican Party is renewing this drive to disenfranchise wide sectors of the voting population in order to tighten their hold on the national government.
We are concerned that Sen.Vogel is a supporter of House Bill 934, the PA Voter Suppression Bill.
The right to vote is one of our most important rights. Now it is being challenged with new restrictions. Join us Saturday to voice your protest in person.
PROTEST TO DEFEND VOTING RIGHTS
(Sen Vogel, stop this bill from coming to a vote)
Saturday, January 28th 12:00 noon
Sen. Elder Vogel’s office 488 Adams St. in Rochester
This demonstration is being organized by leaders and activists of the Beaver-Lawrence Labor Council, the NAACP, the Minority Coalition, Progressive Democrats, and representatives of local unions and churches. Our only hope politically is to keep building this progressive coalition that is growing & gaining strength right before our eyes. Please come out & help with this. It’s what PDA is all about.
Always be suspicious when The Republican Party sets up non-existent problems & proposes legislation to address the supposed issue. They are now introducing bills in all the states where they hold power that will impose new burdens on exercising the right to vote. This bill will potentially disenfranchise 350,000 elderly voters who do not carry an identification card. It will also impact students, minorities and poor people. The purpose of this bill is to depress the vote of people who mostly vote Democratic and give an advantage to Republicans without requiring them to register new voters. At a time when we, as a society, should be concerned with increasing voting among our citizens, HB 934 will make it harder to vote.
The Pennsylvania ACLU says: “This is a serious threat to a basic principle of American democracy, and it is critical that you contact your senator today. HB 934 is an expensive voter suppression bill that would make it harder for older citizens, students, people with disabilities,racial minorities, and lower-income people to vote.
After the protest we urge you to call Sen. Elder Vogel at 724-774-0444 as many times as possible to ask if he’s decided to oppose Senate Bill 934. Let’s keep Senator Vogel’s phone lines burning.
Please forward this email as widely as you can and call your friends to join us on Saturday.
I very much look forward to seeing you on Saturday.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 
More specifically what are those restrictions? It says a little more in the follow up to the introduction. But isn’t it primarily about ID for voting? And isn’t that unconstitutional under something like equal protection of the law or the 14th amendment?
There are other kinds of voting rights such as the right to have one’s vote count which is still a special problem in Pennsylvania many would argue because votes are cast using a kind of electronic voting machine called a DRE. As a participant in Banfield et. al. vs Aichele I am proud to say that important parts of that 2006 case have finally been heard before a panel of Commonwealth Court Judges in Pittsburgh last Nov 16, 2011. We await and hope for summary judgement in favor of our challenge to DRE’s and for our advocacy of ballots that carry a permanent record such as paper. We hope we will win but let us continue to work hard on banishing voter ID and DRE’s both as well as other likely barriers to fair voting. By the way Greens, Libertarians, and Republicans want their votes to count too.