ONEONTA -- Voting and access to the ballot box are U.S. rights, a local NAACP officer said, and efforts in some states to put up barriers to the ballot box are "anti-American."
Regina Betts, vice president of the Oneonta Branch of the NAACP, said presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and Vice President Joe Biden must be clear when they speak at convention of the national organization this week that such barriers won't be tolerated -- and that they will encourage people to vote.
Romney, a Republican, will address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at its convention in Houston tonight. Biden will speak at the convention Thursday.
"NAACP: Your Power, Your Decision -- Vote" is the theme of the July 7-12 convention.
In the fall, the NAACP developed five "Game Changers" to address the major areas of inequality facing African Americans -- economic sustainability, education, health, public safety and criminal justice, and voting rights and political participation.
Betts said Romney and Biden must address civil rights enforcement, the rights of poor Americans and the need for health care coverage.
"I'm stating the obvious," Betts said. This week's speeches are an important part in the political process to focus on issues, not political parties, she said, and they can make an enormous difference in providing information so that voters have information to make a choice.
"They both need to speak out," Betts said. "Civil rights need friends."
Thirty-two states have enacted laws requiring voters to have some form of government-issued photo identification at polling sites, the NAACP reported, and an analysis of voter photo-ID laws in 14 states established that those laws will disenfranchise 5 million Americans.
More than 21 million voting-age citizens, or 11 percent of the voting-age population, don't have photo IDs, the NAACP said, and about 25 percent of blacks and 16 percent of Latinos do not possess valid photo ID.
On Tuesday, two seniors working at the State University College at Oneonta also expressed concern that some restrictions are hindering access to voting, which in turn robs citizens of their U.S. rights.
Romney will have a difficult time in his speech connecting with voters who aren't middle-class or rich, said Lucner Frederique, 22, a student from Long Island.
In America, citizens have voting rights whether they are minorities or poor, he said, and creating barriers that affect those sectors is unfair. "If you strip them of voting, you strip them of the American dream," Frederique said.
Johnny Achampong agreed, adding that ballot-box access for immigrants also is an issue. Access to polling sites shouldn't be impeded, he said, because a person can make a difference by casting a ballot.
"The vote means something," said Achampong, who added that his parents are from Ghana, and he was born in the United States.
The 22-year-old students said in addition to civil rights and voting issues, the black population struggles economically and has an unemployment rate that is higher than those of other demographics. The economy and jobs also will be important topics in this year's presidential election, they said.
The NAACP reported that the Labor Department last year said unemployment rates were 16 percent of black people; 9.6 percent of the general population; and 8.7 percent of the white population.
A federal report in 2009 put median family net worth at $23,300 for nonwhite families and at $149,900 for white families, a NAACP fact sheet said. And the U.S. Census in 2010 reported poverty rates of 25.9 percent for blacks, 14.3 percent for the general population and 9.4 percent for whites.
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