•  Campaign Videos (May 2012) « Obama for America
  

Dorothy Cooper: My name is Dorothy Cooper Louis Cooper, and I'm 96 years old. 

I remember my father voting.  I don't think women were voting then.  That's something that happened years later.

Since I'm a citizen I think I should vote.  Since I've been voting I haven't missed but one time voting.

Rachel Maddow (clip from show): This year the new Republican Tennessee legislature passed a law requiring people to show ID they never had to show before in order to cast a ballot.  During the debate Democrats tried to insert an amendment exempting senior citizens from the new rule, but Republicans rejected it.  And now for the first time in Tennessee in order to vote you have to show an ID that 500,000 Tennesseans do not have.

Dorothy Cooper: All these years been voting, didn't have to have ID.  This is the first time I've had any problem.

Bob Bauer, OFA General Counsel: Around the country, under Republican leadership, various laws have been passed, all of them with the fundamental objective of impeding the right to vote.

Woman (Charlene Kilpatrick): I'm going to take you tomorrow to get your ID so you'll be able to vote, okay.

Charlene Kilpatrick, Voting Rights Advocate: My name is Charlene Kilpatrick.  I came out because I started doing voter registration drives over here.  I met Ms. Cooper right in there in the lounge.

The law is that you would need an original birth certificate, the voter registration card and two pieces of ID in order to be able to vote.

Dorothy Cooper: So that's what I took.  I took what they said I needed.

Charlene Kilpatrick: The lady took everything she had and she looked at it and she said well this is fine she says but I need a marriage certificate.

Charlene Kilpatrick (in office): I think y'all find out what they don't have and then you ask for it because they only ask for four pieces of ID.

Dorothy Cooper: [inaud.] ...on this marriage certificate which I don't know why it was so important, especially all these years I've been voting.

Bob Bauer: Here you have somebody who has one very simple wish which is to participate as a citizen in the democratic process.  She simply wants to vote, and there's no reason why she shouldn't vote.  And by virtue of these legal restrictions that are really aimed at making it harder for her to vote, she's turned away, turned away after a lifetime of democratic participation and for no reason that anybody could give her because there actually is no reason for it.

Dorothy Cooper: It makes you feel kind of angry to tell you the truth.

Bob Bauer: It's corrosive.  It eats at people's sense that this is a government that prizes democratic participation and the involvement of voters.

Dorothy Cooper: I feel mad, [inaud.] mad I tell you.  I'm a citizen like everybody else.  Just because I'm 96 years old, [inaud.] do the same thing that other citizen does.

TEXT: Since 2011, over two dozen GOP controlled states have been playing politics with democracy, passing strict new voter ID laws.

TEXT: These laws could make it harder for over 20 million eligible U.S. citizens to exercise their right to vote.

TEXT: Dorothy was able to obtain her voter ID, but only after producing five types of identification.

Nat Sound: On two.  One, two.  Kilpatrick: You got it.

Bob Bauer: This campaign is dedicated to making sure every single voter's right is protected and that every voter has access to the information that he or she needs and to the support that he or she needs to exercise the right to vote.

If you need the information and you need the help, we're here to provide it.

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Notes:

Copyright © 2012 Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in Action.