Showing posts with label Voter ID Laws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voter ID Laws. Show all posts

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Federal judge strikes down Texas' voter ID law

A federal court in Texas on Wednesday struck down the state's controversial voter identification law, granting an injunction that bars state officials from enforcing the measure.

U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos ruled that the law was enacted with the deliberate intent to discriminate against black and Hispanic voters. Ramos said that it violates the Voting Rights Act and the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution.

The original 2011 law, Senate Bill 14, one of the most restrictive in the nation, requires registered voters to present one of seven forms of government-issued photo ID in order to cast a ballot.

Lawmakers responded to previous judicial pushback against that bill by passing Senate Bill 5, a revamped version of the voter ID law this summer. The judge on Wednesday issued an injunction barring enforcement of that measure as well.

That measure created options for voters who say they cannot "reasonably" obtain one of the seven forms of identification outlined by the state.

But in her ruling Wednesday, Ramos said that the revamped measure preserved the original bill's discriminatory features.

Read more: Federal judge strikes down Texas' voter ID law

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Texas voter ID law struck down AGAIN as intentionally discriminatory

A federal judge ruled Monday for the second time that Texas' 2011 voter identification law was filed with discriminatory intent -- another blow to the state in a six-year legal battle over the legislation.

Last July, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law discriminated against Latinos and other minorities but made no ruling on whether it was intended to be discriminatory. It sent the case back down to a district court to reconsider that question. On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos ruled that it was.

The 10-page ruling could land Texas back on the list of states that need approval from the U.S. Justice Department before changing its election laws. A 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling took Texas off that list.

In her opinion, Ramos said plaintiffs had proved that "a discriminatory intent was at least one of the substantial or motivating factors" behind the passage of the law and that it had been up to the state to prove it would have passed without its discriminatory purpose.

"The State has not met its burden," Ramos wrote. "Therefore, this Court holds, again, that SB 14 was passed with a discriminatory purpose."

Read more:Federal judge rules -- again -- that Texas voter ID law was passed to intentionally discriminate

Saturday, October 01, 2016

Early voting boosts voting among minorities

Here is the real reason Republican led state legislatures have been trying to eliminate or limit early voting in their states. African Americans who typically vote democrat tend to use it more which drives up voter participation rates among that group. George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 37 states now offer voters some way to cast ballots early and avoid lining up at the polls on Election Day.

These options are popular. About one-third of voters made use of them in the 2012 election.

But so-called “convenience voting” remains controversial: In some states, various types of early balloting has been challenged on grounds that it opens the door to fraud, though there’s been little evidence that such fraud is taking place.

Supporters of early voting say partisan politics is what really drives the objections. Research shows early voting increases turnout by 2 percent to 4 percent. In some cases, it particularly boosts voting among minorities, a constituency that tends to vote Democrat.

A GOP consultant acknowledged as much after a federal judge struck down North Carolina’s effort to curtail some kinds of convenience voting on the basis that legislators had targeted measures that disproportionately aided African Americans.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2016/10/01/which-voters-show-up-when-states-allow-early-voting_partner/

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Appeals Court blocks Kansas, Alabama, Georgia voter ID laws

It's been a tough few weeks for Republican attempts at voter suppression. When forced to defend their blatant attempts to keep minority voters from the polls in court Republicans are failing miserably. Recently we have seen voter ID laws struck down in Wisconsin and North Carolina, and now you can add Kansas, Alabama, and Georgia to that list. George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com

A U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday blocked an effort by Alabama, Georgia and Kansas for voters to furnish proof of citizenship when registering at the polls, which opponents say disenfranchises voters, especially minorities.

The decision effectively strikes down a rule that requires voters in the three states to provide proof they are United States citizens. Elsewhere, voters only need swear that they are citizens in order to cast a ballot.

"With just weeks to go before a critical presidential election, we are grateful to the court of appeals for stopping this thinly veiled discrimination in its tracks," Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters, which had sued to block the new requirements, said in a statement.

The Appeals Court of the District of Columbia said the League of Women Voters had shown there would be irreparable harm if the rule was permitted, and had also shown it was likely to win the case on its merits.

It ordered any voter applications filed since Jan. 29, 2016, to be treated as if they did not contain the proof of citizenship instructions.

Alabama and Georgia, which passed provisions several years ago, have not implemented their laws while at least 20,000 voters in Kansas, where the law took effect in 2013, have been blocked from registering to vote, the League's lawyers say.

[SOURCE]

Tuesday, August 09, 2016

NAACP National President Cornell William Brooks arrested after sit in





NAACP National President and CEO Cornell William Brooks was charged with trespassing by local police after refusing to leave a Congressman’s district office in southwest Virginia on Monday.
The charges came after a six-hour, nonviolent protest calling for restoration of the Voting Rights Act in the Roanoke office of Representative Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
After refusing to leave the building, Brooks was cited by Roanoke Police Department at the end of the business day along with Stephen Green, national director for the NAACP Youth and College Division. The protest was accompanied throughout the afternoon by members of the Roanoke NAACP and youth council.
NAACP officials have been urging congressional action to restore federal protection against state laws barring ballot access in states with the worst histories of voter suppression and discrimination. Goodlatte chair the House Judiciary Committee, which has refused to hold hearings on legislation to combat egregious voter discrimination in recent years.
“We’ve seen a Machiavellian frenzy of voter suppression in states that have worked deliberately and creatively to make it harder for young people, college students, minorities to vote for the candidate and party of their choice on Nov. 8,” Brooks said. “With the fate of our national moral character at stake, we must hold our elected leaders responsible to act to uphold the constitutional rights guaranteed for all citizens to vote and participate in our democracy.”
It is the 51st anniversary since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, effectively banning state laws that denied the vote to black and minority voters for decades in Virginia and other southern states. Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down portions of the law that prohibited states from changing local election laws without federal review in the case of Shelby v. Holder.
Within days of the 2013 ruling, several states enacted exclusive voting laws designed to prevent young, old and minority residents from voting by requiring hard-to-obtain ID cards to register and cast a ballot on election days, as well as cutting back on successful registration programs and early voting hours that drove minority turnout to record-setting levels in 2008 and 2012.
Federal courts last month struck down voting laws in Kansas, Georgia, North Carolina, North Dakota, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin as attempts to deliberately prevent entire populations from having easy access to the ballot.
After hours of occupying his office, Goodlatte issued a statement declining to take further action, saying that remaining provisions in the law are adequate. Brooks said the statement is insufficient.
“Congressman Goodlatte has said that he would support strengthening the Voting Rights Act if discrimination could be shown.  Six courts and six states have revealed such discrimination.  In the Congressman’s home state of Virginia, the U.S. Court Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found intentional discrimination in voting by the state of North Carolina,” Brooks said. “It is time for Congressman Goodlatte and Congress to honor the demonstrations of the past, and these demonstrations today to stop this widespread abuse. The congressman’s refusal to act for three years is insulting to these young men and women who want to exercise their basic rights under the Constitution.”  

Saturday, July 30, 2016

Judge strikes down Wisconsin voter ID, early voting laws

This past week has been a busy one on the voting rights front. North Carolina's voter ID law was struck down as discriminatory. We now we learn that parts of Wisconsin's voter and early voting laws were struck down as the presiding judge saw no evidence of supposed voter fraud which the laws were meant to stop. The judge also stated that the laws did hurt minority communities. Looks like republican attempts at voter suppression are running into this very annoying thing, the truth about voter fraud. George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.com.

Finding that Republican lawmakers had discriminated against minorities, a federal judge Friday struck down parts of Wisconsin's voter ID law, limits on early voting and prohibitions on allowing people to vote early at multiple sites.

With the presidential election less than four months away, GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel said he plans to appeal the sweeping decision by U.S. District Court Judge James Peterson.

Peterson also turned back other election laws Republicans have put in place in recent years.

"The Wisconsin experience demonstrates that a preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities," U.S. District Judge James Peterson wrote.

"To put it bluntly, Wisconsin's strict version of voter ID law is a cure worse than the disease."

Judge Peterson struck down the following provisions of the law:

■ Limits on early voting Republicans have put in place in recent years. GOP lawmakers restricted early voting to weekdays during the two full weeks before elections, thus eliminating weekend voting that was popular in Milwaukee and other urban areas.

■ A requirement that cities can have only one place for early voting. Critics have said large cities such as Milwaukee should be able to have multiple voting sites because not everyone can get downtown easily.

■ A requirement that people must live in their voting ward 28 days before an election. Previously, people had to live in a ward for 10 days before an election.

■ The system the state uses to determine if people with the most difficulty getting IDs should be provided identification for voting. He ruled anyone in that system must immediately be granted an ID for voting within 30 days.

■ Part of the voter ID law allows people to use certain student IDs to vote, but those IDs cannot be expired. Peterson found that aspect of the law is unconstitutional, ruling that expired student IDs can be used at the polls — just as expired driver's licenses can be used for voting.

■ A requirement that dorm lists provided to poll workers include citizen information. Universities provide the lists of those living in dorms to poll workers so they have an easy way to check whether students are voting in the right wards; lawmakers put in a requirement that those lists show whether the students are U.S. citizens.

■ A prohibition on providing voters with absentee ballots by email or fax

[SOURCE]

Thursday, December 03, 2015

NAACP sues Alabama over state's voter identification law

A civil rights group in Alabama targeted the state's voter identification law in a federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday, saying the requirement that a photo ID be shown at the polls in order to vote discriminated against minorities.

The lawsuit, filed by the Alabama State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Greater Birmingham Ministries, asked for a permanent injunction to stop the law, which took effect last year.

The lawsuit contended the law had disenfranchised some 280,000 voters and threatened hundreds of thousands more.

A disproportionate number of those voters are black and Hispanic, the lawsuit said.

Read more: NAACP sues Alabama over state's voter identification law

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Ben Carson dismisses idea anti-voter fraud measures racist

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Wednesday dismissed the idea restrictive anti-voter fraud requirements could be racist, echoing the position of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach – a champion of such measures who has called accusations of racism a personal insult.

“I’ve made it my personal project, every time I visit a country outside the U.S. to ask what do they do to ensure the integrity of voting? There’s not one single country anywhere – first world, second world, it doesn’t matter – that doesn’t have official requirements for voting,” Carson said.

“My question to those people who say we’re racist because we apply those standards: Are all the other countries of the world racist? I don’t think so. Voting is an important thing. Obviously, you want to make sure that it’s done by the appropriate people.”

Read more: Ben Carson, GOP presidential candidate, dismisses idea anti-voter fraud measures racist

Thursday, August 06, 2015

Federal Appeals Court Tosses Out Texas Voter ID Law

A federal appeals court Wednesday struck down a voter ID law in Texas, saying it violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act. A 5th Circuit three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the law does not equate to a "poll tax" but does discriminate against minority voters.

The 2011 law, considered one of the toughest in the country, was in effect during the midterm elections last year. It was one of a handful of voter ID laws enacted in Republican-governed states. The Texas law required voters to provide certain forms of identification before they could cast a ballot.

Read more: Federal Appeals Court Tosses Out Texas Voter ID Law

Thursday, May 01, 2014

Ohio cuts to early voting period challenged in ACLU lawsuit

New laws and regulations in Ohio that limit early voting would suppress turnout by minorities and the poor and should be overturned, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a federal lawsuit filed on Thursday.

Read more: Ohio cuts to early voting period challenged in ACLU lawsuit