In
its March 1996 “National
Plan of Action,” Human SERVE, warning that America was waging “a
war on children” and “a war on women,” exhorted welfare
advocates to “inform clients [i.e, potential registered voters] that government is slashing the
services and benefits they and their children receive.”
That same year, Boston
Globe
columnist Jeff Jacoby made the following observations
about SERVE and the work it was doing vis a vis voter registration:
“No
one is disenfranchised in this country. Unlike days of old, there are
no poll taxes, literary tests, gender barriers, or property
requirements to come between any citizen and the voting booth. If
U.S. elections are marked by chronically low turnout, it is not
because voters are kept away. It is because they stay away. Some are
apathetic, some are ignorant, some are simply self-centered. Why
badger such people to register? What would they bring to an election?
If SERVE wants to mobilize an army of voting welfare mothers, let it
do so on its own time and at its own expense. No welfare caseworker
-- no state employee, period -- should have to spoon-feed voting
rights to anyone, least of all people on the dole. If they can figure
out how to get food stamps, they can figure out how to get
registered. They choose not to? So be it. American democracy won't
suffer.”
