LHilla
Pro
GA talkin bout partially complying. If a state like Mississippi can say no, my state should, too.
GOP National Voter Suppression (Interstate Crosscheck, ID, Poll Closures, Voter Patrols)
- Thread starter Julius Skrrvin
- Start date
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
It’s time to restore full power to the Voting Rights Act
BY LEAH ADEN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 06/25/17 03:40 PM EDT 263
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a devastating ruling that immobilized a part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) that was one of the most effective tools for protecting voters and strengthening our political process.
As a result, far too many state and local jurisdictions have unabashedly considered and passed racially discriminatory voting laws; wasted millions of dollars defending them; and cost millions of disproportionately black and Latino Americans their most basic right in our democracy: The right to vote.
For nearly 50 years, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required jurisdictions with the worst histories of voter discrimination – mostly, but not exclusively in the South — to notify the federal government of every proposed voting change and get its approval before implementing those changes, a process known as “preclearance.”
The law used a formula set forth in Section 4(b) to determine which jurisdictions are required to secure pre-clearance. It was this formula that the Supreme Court struck down in Shelby County, leaving Section 5 and its pre-clearance requirement intact but dormant.
Without this transparency and scrutiny, states and local jurisdictions have directed their time, energy, and resources toward passing and defending racially discriminatory voting laws.
The day after the Shelby County opinion, for instance, North Carolina’s state legislature moved forward with House Bill 589, which required all voters to have limited forms of identification, eliminated same-day voter registration, and cut in half the early voting period — changes that an appellate court said “target African-American voters with almost surgical precision.”
Texas was even swifter.
Within two hours of the Shelby County decision, the state announced its intention to implement the most restrictive photo ID law in the nation, which Section 5 had previously blocked. After four years of litigation and five rulings by five different courts that the law has a discriminatory effect — potentially disenfranchising 600,000 registered voters – civil rights advocates are still fighting the law.
Proponents of these laws claim they are necessary to prevent widespread in-person voter fraud, a phenomenon that has been repeatedly debunked.
In Texas, an appellate court recognized that there have been only two convictions for in-person voter fraud out of 20 million votes cases in the decade before the state passed its photo ID law.
And a comprehensive study published in 2014 by The Washington Post found only 31 cases of credible voter fraud out of more than a billion ballots counted from 2000-2014. There is evidence of some voter fraud in absentee balloting. But tellingly, the post-Shelby voter ID laws are silent on remote balloting, which is used predominantly by white voters.
The inference is clear. The real purpose of these laws is to disenfranchise voters of color.
The good news is that the Voting Rights Act remains a powerful tool.
Under Section 2, plaintiffs can still challenge discriminatory voting laws after they take effect. And federal judges have not been fooled by specious arguments about voter fraud.
At the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, we have successfully challenged the Texas voter ID law in court, and North Carolina’s law has also been defeated.
Still, Section 2 challenges are far from an ideal solution. Bringing a lawsuit takes time – often two to five years – and money – millions of dollars that could be better spent elsewhere. And the costs imposed by these laws can’t be measured in dollars alone.
Because discriminatory laws often remain in effect during litigation, eligible voters can still be disenfranchised until laws are enjoined.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Congress has the authority to devise a new formula to determine which jurisdictions are subject to Section 5, which would revive the Justice Department’s pre-clearance authority. Lawmakers have introduced a number of bills that would do just that, but so far, they’ve gotten nowhere, not even receiving a single hearing.
On Thursday, Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Al.) introduced new legislation to revive Section 5. It’s likely to meet the same fate, unless the public can pressure Congress to act.
With President Trump repeating false claims about millions of illegal votes being cast in the 2016 election and establishing an election fraud commission co-chaired by a zealous champion of voter suppression, that task has seldom been more urgent, or more difficult.
But it is not impossible.
More than 50 years ago, we faced a fundamental question of what kind of nation we wanted to be.
Our response, prompted by the courage of ordinary citizens who risked life and limb in Selma, Alabama and elsewhere, was the Voting Rights Act, the greatest expansion of our democracy since the end of the Civil War.
Four years after Shelby County, we find ourselves again facing that same question, one we can no longer delay in answering.
Leah Aden is senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. She was a member of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s litigation team in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder. She is also the author of Democracy Diminished: State and Local Threats to Voting Post-Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder.
It’s time to restore full power to the Voting Rights Act
BY LEAH ADEN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 06/25/17 03:40 PM EDT 263
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a devastating ruling that immobilized a part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) that was one of the most effective tools for protecting voters and strengthening our political process.
As a result, far too many state and local jurisdictions have unabashedly considered and passed racially discriminatory voting laws; wasted millions of dollars defending them; and cost millions of disproportionately black and Latino Americans their most basic right in our democracy: The right to vote.
For nearly 50 years, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required jurisdictions with the worst histories of voter discrimination – mostly, but not exclusively in the South — to notify the federal government of every proposed voting change and get its approval before implementing those changes, a process known as “preclearance.”
The law used a formula set forth in Section 4(b) to determine which jurisdictions are required to secure pre-clearance. It was this formula that the Supreme Court struck down in Shelby County, leaving Section 5 and its pre-clearance requirement intact but dormant.
Without this transparency and scrutiny, states and local jurisdictions have directed their time, energy, and resources toward passing and defending racially discriminatory voting laws.
The day after the Shelby County opinion, for instance, North Carolina’s state legislature moved forward with House Bill 589, which required all voters to have limited forms of identification, eliminated same-day voter registration, and cut in half the early voting period — changes that an appellate court said “target African-American voters with almost surgical precision.”
Texas was even swifter.
Within two hours of the Shelby County decision, the state announced its intention to implement the most restrictive photo ID law in the nation, which Section 5 had previously blocked. After four years of litigation and five rulings by five different courts that the law has a discriminatory effect — potentially disenfranchising 600,000 registered voters – civil rights advocates are still fighting the law.
Proponents of these laws claim they are necessary to prevent widespread in-person voter fraud, a phenomenon that has been repeatedly debunked.
In Texas, an appellate court recognized that there have been only two convictions for in-person voter fraud out of 20 million votes cases in the decade before the state passed its photo ID law.
And a comprehensive study published in 2014 by The Washington Post found only 31 cases of credible voter fraud out of more than a billion ballots counted from 2000-2014. There is evidence of some voter fraud in absentee balloting. But tellingly, the post-Shelby voter ID laws are silent on remote balloting, which is used predominantly by white voters.
The inference is clear. The real purpose of these laws is to disenfranchise voters of color.
The good news is that the Voting Rights Act remains a powerful tool.
Under Section 2, plaintiffs can still challenge discriminatory voting laws after they take effect. And federal judges have not been fooled by specious arguments about voter fraud.
At the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, we have successfully challenged the Texas voter ID law in court, and North Carolina’s law has also been defeated.
Still, Section 2 challenges are far from an ideal solution. Bringing a lawsuit takes time – often two to five years – and money – millions of dollars that could be better spent elsewhere. And the costs imposed by these laws can’t be measured in dollars alone.
Because discriminatory laws often remain in effect during litigation, eligible voters can still be disenfranchised until laws are enjoined.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Congress has the authority to devise a new formula to determine which jurisdictions are subject to Section 5, which would revive the Justice Department’s pre-clearance authority. Lawmakers have introduced a number of bills that would do just that, but so far, they’ve gotten nowhere, not even receiving a single hearing.
On Thursday, Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Al.) introduced new legislation to revive Section 5. It’s likely to meet the same fate, unless the public can pressure Congress to act.
With President Trump repeating false claims about millions of illegal votes being cast in the 2016 election and establishing an election fraud commission co-chaired by a zealous champion of voter suppression, that task has seldom been more urgent, or more difficult.
But it is not impossible.
More than 50 years ago, we faced a fundamental question of what kind of nation we wanted to be.
Our response, prompted by the courage of ordinary citizens who risked life and limb in Selma, Alabama and elsewhere, was the Voting Rights Act, the greatest expansion of our democracy since the end of the Civil War.
Four years after Shelby County, we find ourselves again facing that same question, one we can no longer delay in answering.
Leah Aden is senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. She was a member of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s litigation team in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder. She is also the author of Democracy Diminished: State and Local Threats to Voting Post-Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder.
It’s time to restore full power to the Voting Rights Act
Meta Reign
I walk the streets like, ''say something, n!gga!''
Keeping it funky. . . What's wrong with an ID to vote?
Not defending any fukkery.
Not defending any fukkery.
Keeping it funky. . . What's wrong with an ID to vote?
Not defending any fukkery.
black people are too stupid and ignorant to get an ID
according to the good white folk
Meta Reign
I walk the streets like, ''say something, n!gga!''
:smarttrump:
Keeping it funky. . . What's wrong with an ID to vote?
Not defending any fukkery.
Poor people, elderly/handicapped and students are/can be at a disadvantage to get either the documents needed to get the kind of I'd required.
Some states in conjunction with harshening laws for voter ID have also deliberately made it harder by closings dmv offices in low income areas.
Some old people were disenfranchised this year who had been voting 50 or 60 years. Because they didn't have access to a certified bc.
Reasons-home birth
Birth in another state
Etc.
Let me give you a small example.
Here in Texas they were fukking with the id thing. Fine. fukk you, I'm gonna vote.
I needed to get my Texas dl to do so.
Had to send to my home state w a prepaid return to get my bc. Post office close by but very busy still almost an HR on a week day.20 for the bc about 10 for postage.approx 1 week turnaround.
Had to drive to the ss office about 30 minutes away request new card. Spend approx 3 hrs with driving and waiting.Turnaround about 1 week.
Needed a copy of a bank statement.
Some other mail from the state or a bill (can't remember right now)
Then go to DMV to get Texas lic- mind you I am turning in my still valid VA lic.
With an appt total about 2 hrs with travel.
Turn in all this damn paperwork-must be originals , they keep all except SS card. $16
So this was a pain for me, but doable.
This was about 6 or 7 hrs of weekday running around.
If I didn't drive could have been 20 with buses.
Poor folks that don't drive or have access to a ride.
Poor folks who can't take 1 or 2 days off to deal with all this running around.
Plus about $50 in costs. Alot of poor limited income folks don't have 50 to play these games with the vote suppressors.
I can't even remember what you needed if you didn't have a bank statement.
Now remember I live in a major modern city. Imagine if I lived in a rural area and the nearest DMV was 2 hrs away.
How can poor folks do that?
It's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. In person voter fraud doesn't exist.
They studied Texas and in 10 years and 20 million votes cast there have been 3 cases prosecuted. 3.
*Apparently there have been slightly more issues with mail in ballots but those are favored by whites soooo...
I agree actually that voter id laws are stupid and are designed to lower minority turnout
I strongly disagree that black people should make it a priority because 1) they don't work, they do not suppress black turnout 2) if somebody in the black community doesn't have an id the repurcussions of that go way beyond not being able to vote, it means not being able to get a job, not being able to travel, not being able to open a bank account
so our priorities as a community is not to stop voter Id laws, its to make sure everyone in our community has an id
Framing the issue of voter id in political terms instead of economic terms is a perfect example of black people being misguided by the Democratic Party
Political power comes from economic power, not the other way around
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Keeping it funky. . . What's wrong with an ID to vote?
Not defending any fukkery.
To be honest? Nothing, really. :kanyebp:
Considering people who are the most unable to get one (elderly, disabled, poor) it's functionally a poll tax, though.
Opposition to voter ID laws began because the people supporting voter ID laws had some very
viewpoints on keeping "certain people" from the polls.
tism his usual incoherent self
There is nothing incoherent in anything that I'm saying, black people should not let democrats or republicans guide them and they should not let either party frame issues
Both parties are framing the issue in a way that is not conducive to black power
#splitthevote