Stand For Freedom to protect voter rights

WHEREAS state governments across America have recently enacted a number of new laws and policies making it harder for residents to vote by requiring them to show government-issued photo identification, often a type that as many as one in 10 voters do not have; and

WHEREAS other states have cut back on early voting and at least two have reversed earlier reforms in order to disenfranchise millions who have past criminal convictions but are now taxpaying members of their communities; and

WHEREAS some states are making it difficult for citizens to register to vote, and two-thirds of state legislatures around the nation have introduced laws that undermine the right to vote, with these new restrictions falling most heavily on young, minority and low-income voters and voters with disabilities, as well as students and immigrants; and

WHEREAS some 19 new laws are already in place, at least 42 more are pending, and these new laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012 while states that have already cut back on voting rights will provide 171 electoral votes — about 63 percent of the 270 votes needed to win the presidency — in 2012; and

WHEREAS many of these voter disenfranchise efforts are being supported by state governors, state legislators and other elected officials and candidates supported by the Tea Party who have passed legislation limiting the influence of labor unions and collective bargaining rights of public employees; and

WHEREAS the Stand For Freedom coalition, spearheaded by Local 1199 SEIU and NAACP New York State Conference, is working to gather public support to oppose these efforts to disenfranchise voters; therefore be it

RESOLVED that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) support Stand For Freedom’s efforts to protect voting rights; and be it further

RESOLVED that the UFT support and participate in the Stand For Freedom march at 11 a.m. on Saturday, December 10, 2011, United Nations’ Human Rights Day, from the offices of the Koch brothers, major funders of anti-voting measures, located at 61st Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan, to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at the United Nations located at East 47th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan for a rally at 12 noon.