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Saturday, June 29th, 2013

Southern Discomfort? The Future of Voting Rights in the US

Author:     COREY DADE
Source:     The Root
Publication Date:     27-Jun-13
 Link: Southern Discomfort? The Future of Voting Rights in the US
Stephan:   The foundation upon which our democracy is based is the vote of the citizens. The Republican Party, recognizing that it is increasingly a party defined by race, religion, and region, has two options if they wish to survive at the national level. One, adopt policies which attract the widest group of voters. Two, restrict access to voting and gerrymander voting districts so that only Republicans have easy access to voting. We all know which choice they have made, but I don't think people fully appreciate how cynical and pervasive this policy really is. Here is a report that will give you some sense of what is happening. It also shows just how partisan the conservative activist Supreme Court has become, and how truly damaging their gutting of the Voting Right Act obviously is to a healthy democracy.

Like gleeful children released from detention, officials in Texas, Alabama, North Carolina and other states vowed to enact new voting restrictions just hours after the Supreme Court did their bidding and neutered the Voting Rights Act (pdf).

Free at last, they might as well have said.

‘[Attorney General] Eric Holder can no longer deny Voter ID in Texas,’ tweeted Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott soon after Tuesday’s decision.

Indeed, states like Texas and hundreds of communities nationwide now have unfettered authority to impose the kitchen sink of conservative-bred election changes that potentially disenfranchise minority voters, which is why the measures had been blocked by the Voting Rights Act before the court stripped the law of its key enforcement tool on Tuesday.

New voter-identification requirements, cuts in early balloting, the end of same-day registration and Sunday voting before Election Day (‘souls to the polls’), gerrymandered districts, relocated polling places and more are now all in play.It’s all happening in this open season on minority voting power.

How did America’s greatest civil rights achievement, a law that had never lost a court challenge in 48 years, become vulnerable?

It began in June 2009. While many of us were still distracted by the wonderment of America’s first black president, […]

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