To the Journal editor:

Some Michigan Republicans are attempting to disenfranchise Michiganders, but those most impacted will be middle and working class minorities and working class whites.

I began working on voting rights issues in 1998 while a student at Saginaw Valley State University in a class called Lobbying the Legislature. A proposal I presented to then-Rep. Mike Bishop, was to expand voting hours to 4 a.m. in order to catch third-shift workers which at the time we estimated would allow nearly 600,000 Michigander to vote in person.

These new restrictions being implemented because of non-existent fraud claims are nothing more than efforts to disenfranchise working class and minority voters. This is political violence.

This is the last gasp of a shrinking white supremacist population whose antiquated views are no longer held by the majority of Americans. Republican Representatives and Senators who support these measures should be publicly shunned, denied services, fired from their at-will employment by private employers where applicable and generally rebuked whenever and wherever they are found in public.

In 1963, then Gov. Romney said “Michigan’s most urgent human rights problem is racial discrimination — in housing, public accommodations, education, administration of justice and employment.” Not much has changed but Michigan can be better than this.

We are the progressive home of the labor movement, the Copper Country (copper mine) strike and where the environmental and conservation movement meet. We cannot allow white supremacists to disenfranchise our friends and neighbors.

The right to vote is fundamental and is the foundation of our democratic republic. Any efforts to restrict that right should be met with public resistance and public officials perpetuating false claims of fraud should be ostracized and driven from public office.