> I'm confused. How is this voter suppression? You agree the person in question had no right to vote, right? So no one's vote is being suppressed. Arguably, it

> I'm confused. How is this voter suppression? You agree the person in question had no right to vote, right? So no one's vote is being suppressed. Arguably, it could be said that if people who have every reason to think that they are allowed to vote can later be arrested and charged with voter fraud, then every voter unwilling to risk being arrested would be better off not voting to avoid finding out the hard way that despite assurances that they can vote they were guilty of fraud. It's still a bit of a reach though because the article highlights two cases which seem pretty specific. I don't doubt Washington believed he was eligible to vote, but that belief was based on an assumption about the law and an election worker telling him his voter card was legitimate. I don't think that situation is going to apply to very many people including people with a criminal record. The second case, where Stribling claims she was just randomly checking boxes on her voter registration form since she can't read or write is even less likely to be a problem for others. I think these cases are unfortunate, but very unlikely to have a chilling effect on other voters. The article however does give a quote from a Florida senator which says “Some of the individuals did check with (supervisors of elections) and believed they could register,” and that's a bit more disturbing. I think anyone who contacts election officials to make sure they can vote would have every reason to expect that they can if that's what they are told, but it's hard to say what impact that might have without more information.