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Voting

How to make our votes matter: Column

We need a mass movement to restore voter clout and reverse Big Money dominance.

Cornell William Brooks and Robert Weissman

Our votes matter.

A demonstration at the Supreme Court in 2010.

That promise rests at the heart of American democracy, at the center of the American ideal.

But for many Americans, that promise has been compromised or even betrayed.

They see the right to vote undermined. Nearly two dozen states have recently adopted restrictions such as voter identification requirements, limitations on voter registration and cutbacks on early voting.

Citizens see the integrity of the vote compromised. The super-rich and giant corporations are defining the terms of national, state and even municipal elections. They play an outsized role in who runs for office, what gets said in campaigns, who wins, and what policymakers are willing to do.

These developments follow two Supreme Court rulings that have skewed the process and shrank the influence of the voting public: the 2013 Shelby County decision, which invalidated the part of the Voting Rights Act that required certain states to prove new laws wouldn’t discriminate based on race, and the 2010 Citizens United decision, which lifted restrictions on campaign spending by unions and corporations and was followed by lower court rulings giving individuals the same freedom to spend.

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Americans’ frustration — and despair — is reflected in countless polls that show staggering majorities of our citizens believe that the system is rigged to favor the rich and powerful. These views transcend party, region, race and gender. The American people know that the system is not working for them, and that a broken system is blocking us from addressing our great challenges: from addressing wealth and income inequality to forestalling catastrophic climate change, from investing in schools so we can serve every child to ensuring every person has access to affordable medicines.

President Obama scheduled a trip to Springfield, Ill., on Wednesday for what the White House has billed as a speech about "what we can do together to build a better politics, one that reflects our better selves." States and communities around the country have already begun that process. In recent years, they have turned back efforts to impose unjustified voter ID requirements. They have won measures for public financing of local and state elections. They have won new rights for ex-felons to vote. They have passed resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

There’s only one way to bring changes like these on a large scale, and that is to supercharge the organizing and mobilizing that has occurred since Citizens United and Shelby County.

Our organizations — along with more than 100 others — are coming together to launch a year-long campaign that joins the demands for voting rights with money-in-politics reform, bringing together historically separate communities and reform proposals. Our plan ranges from mass education to mass mobilization, from creative direct action to state reform campaigns.

The centerpiece of the campaign will be a mass mobilization in Washington in April. “Democracy Awakening” will feature a large march and rally and a Congress of Conscience, in which citizens engage in civil disobedience and other advocacy strategies to demand that their representatives act now to repair our democracy.

We seek nothing less than to inspire a movement, not merely in Washington but across the country. The goals of this movement are quite simple: Protect the right to vote, ensure the integrity of the vote, and get out the vote. By protecting the right to vote, we mean fixing a badly broken Voting Rights Act by passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act. To ensure the integrity of the vote, we will call on Congress to pass legislation to empower small donors, and for a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United and get corrupt money out of politics. Lastly, we seek to get massive numbers of voters out to the polls to deliver this message to those seeking office.

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There is a misconception among too many in Washington that the citizenry does not much care about democracy issues, too often belittled as “process.” The Democracy Awakening protests will disabuse them of that notion.

We know the passion around these issues from talking to people around the country. People care deeply. They are outraged by their recognition that the system is rigged. They want reform that makes our democracy work and that enables us, as a nation, to tackle our great challenges.

Fundamental reform to expand and deepen our democracy, we know from America’s history, follows from one thing and one thing only: mass movements. With our democracy in crisis, with many Americans blocked from voting and many others doubting whether their vote even matters in an era of Big Money dominance of elections, now is the time for Americans to mobilize to ensure the right to vote and the integrity of the vote.

Cornell William Brooks is president and CEO of the NAACP. Robert Weissman is president of Public Citizen.

 In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the Opinion front page.

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