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.

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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

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North Carolina voter ID law struck down as discriminatory to black voters

A U.S. appeals court on Friday struck down a North Carolina law that required voters to show photo identification when casting ballots, ruling that it intentionally discriminated against African-American residents.

The ruling is likely to be seen as a boost for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton going into November's election. The state is politically important as it does not lean heavily toward either Democrats or Republicans, and Clinton is heavily favored among black Americans over Republican nominee Donald Trump.

The court's decision also canceled provisions of the law that scaled back early voting, prevented residents from registering and voting on the same day, and eliminated the ability of voters to vote outside their assigned precinct.

Critics argue that voting laws enacted by North Carolina and several other states are designed to drive down turnout by minorities and poor people who rely more on flexible voting methods and are less likely to possess state-issued photo IDs.

In its ruling, a three-judge panel at the U.S. Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit said the state legislature targeted African-Americans "with almost surgical precision."

"We cannot ignore the recent evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history," Judge Diana Motz wrote.

Voting rights advocates heralded the decision as a major victory.

"This ruling is a stinging rebuke of the state's attempt to undermine African-American voter participation, which had surged over the last decade," Dale Ho, director of the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. The ACLU was one of the groups that challenged the law in court.

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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

The Fight — and the Right — to Vote

TV host Bill Moyer talks with attorney Sherrilyn Ifill , president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund about the ongoing vote suppression controversy. Watch that interview below:

Appeals court suspends part of new North Carolina voting law

Parts of North Carolina's new voting law, considered one of the toughest in the nation, were set aside for next month's elections because they were likely to disenfranchise black voters, a federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday.

In a 2-1 ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals suspended provisions of the Republican-backed law that would have eliminated same-day registration during early voting and voided ballots cast on Nov. 4 outside of a person's assigned precinct.

"Whether the number is 30 or 30,000, surely some North Carolina minority voters will be disproportionately adversely affected in the upcoming election," wrote Judge James Wynn, a former North Carolina Supreme Court justice. "Once the election occurs, there can be no do-over and no redress. The injury to these voters is real and completely irreparable if nothing is done to enjoin this law."

Read more: Appeals court suspends part of new North Carolina voting law

Georgia state senator upset that African Americans have to access to Sunday voting

Georgia republican state senator Fran Millar seems to have a problem with Sunday voting in his state. Actually it seems as if he has a problem with Sunday voting being held at South Dekalb mall since it's frequented by African Americans. Read his post from Facebook below.

Post by Fran Millar.