voter ID

Voters stand in line at Highland Hills Library in Dallas to cast their ballots on Election Day last November. Photo by Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune

If legislation they have introduced passes, future elections in Texas will look something like this: Voters with disabilities will be required to prove they can't make it to the polls before they can get mail-in ballots. County election officials won’t be able to keep polling places open late to give voters like shift workers more time to cast their ballots. Partisan poll watchers will be allowed to record voters who receive help filling out their ballots at a polling place. Drive-thru voting would be outlawed. And local election officials may be forbidden from encouraging Texans to fill out applications to vote by mail, even if they meet the state’s strict eligibility rules.

the Web Editors 8-19-2016

Burlingham / Shutterstock.com

As the presidential election tightens and polls show Trump and Clinton within a few points of each other in North Carolina, Republican Gov. Pat McCrory has appealed the Supreme Court to reinstate previous voter ID laws and cuts to early voting, according to NBC News. This comes in the wake of numerous voter-ID laws throughout the country being struck down in the courts this past month.

Moral March in Raleigh, N.C., in Februar 2014. EPG_EuroPhotoGraphics / Shutterstock.com

Since the summer of 2013, we have called this law — which the 4th Circuit struck down on Friday — a monster voter suppression bill. It was the first and the worst of many voter suppression measures to pass through state houses since the Supreme Court’s Shelby decision stripped the Voting Rights Act of its power to guarantee fair elections in this country. In many ways, it performed the new Southern Strategy of James Crow, Esq., which attempts to hold onto power as white voters become one among many minorities in this country. It is a strategy that necessarily depends on old fears, racism, and divide-and-conquer tactics.

the Web Editors 3-16-2016

Image via /Shutterstock.com

North Carolina's voter ID law, which requires would-be voters to display an acceptable form of government-issued voter ID in order to cast a ballot, went into effect for the first time in last night's primary. Early voting behaviors offered a first look at some of the problems that come with these voting restrictions, reports ThinkProgress. Namely, how young people are being blocked from voting. 

Lisa Sharon Harper 10-25-2012
Voting illustration,  suwan reunintr / Shutterstock.com

Voting illustration, suwan reunintr / Shutterstock.com

For the next 12 days it’s all about the ground game. With most voter registration deadlines passed, the fight against voter suppression has shifted focus from registration drives to calling banks, car-pools, and calls to vote early.

Bishop Dwayne Royster is Executive Director of P.O.W.E.R.  (Philadelphians Organized to Witness Empower and Rebuild), a 37-member interfaith organizing coalition in Philadelphia. Royster is also lead pastor of Living Waters United Church of Christ in Philadelphia. In a recent interview Bishop Royster explained just how vital the fight against voter suppression has been for the people of Philadelphia.

According to a study conducted by the Pew Charitable Trust’s Philadelphia Research Initiative, Philadelphia is the 6th poorest large city in America with a poverty rate that held at 25 percent in 2011. The unemployment rate is higher than the national average at 11.5 percent, and nearly half of all high school students engage in a fist fight at least once in the course of a year. Tensions are high in the City of Brotherly Love.

Lisa Sharon Harper 10-08-2012
Voting illustration,  gst / Shutterstock.com

Voting illustration, gst / Shutterstock.com

Editor's Note: This is the third article in Lisa Sharon Harper’s election season blog series, Watch the Vote. You can read the last article here

With 28 days to go until our nation chooses its 45th president, a string of court victories have knocked down Jim-Crow-style barriers to voting that have been erected in states across the nation. But 13 states are still under the oppressive weight of laws designed to suppress the vote.  

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, starting in early 2011, 41 states introduced legislation to restrict voting laws. Nineteen quietly passed 25 laws and two executive actions, some of which require government-issued photo IDs, proof of citizenship, fewer early-voting days, the elimination of Election Day voter registration, created barriers to voter registration drives, and created more obstacles for citizens with past criminal convictions. 

The good news is that over the past few months we have seen one court case after another block the enactment of the worst provisions of these new Jim Crow laws. According to a recent Brennan Center study, 10 courts have blocked or blunted restrictive voting laws — and the Department of Justice blocked one more — since Oct. 3.

 RNS photo courtesy Lonnie Tague for the Department of Justice

Attorney General Eric Holder, RNS photo courtesy Lonnie Tague for the Department of Justice

Attorney General Eric Holder and other legal experts strategized with black religious leaders May 30 about new restrictive state voting laws that could affect their congregants by reducing early voting and requiring identification.

“I would argue that of all the freedoms we have today, none is more important or more sacred than the right to vote,” Holder told about 200 people gathered for a meeting of the Conference of National Black Churches and the Congressional Black Caucus.

He acknowledged concerns about new voting laws and said his department has launched more than 100 investigations about racially discriminatory voting practices.

Jan Murphy 4-12-2012
Amish buggies, Weldon Schloneger/Shutterstock.com

Amish buggies, Weldon Schloneger/Shutterstock.com

HARRISBURG, Pa.—Nothing is sacred about your religion when it comes to getting a state identification card without a photo.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation offers ID cards for those with religious objections to being photographed, including the Amish and certain Mennonite groups. But in order to get a nonphoto ID for religious reasons, applicants must answer a series of 18 questions that delve deeply into their faiths and other personal information.

Now that Pennsylvania has passed one of the nation's toughest voter ID laws to prevent voter fraud, the scope of the questions is drawing criticism.

Duane Shank 3-08-2012

Here’s how voter disenfranchisement laws work. In Tuesday’s Ohio primary, an 86-year old World War II veteran was turned away because his photo ID didn’t have his address. Paul Carroll, who has lived in Aurora, OH, for nearly 40 years had let his driver’s license expire. Knowing the need for a government-issued photo ID, he got one from the Department of Veterans Affairs. When he showed up to vote, the poll worker refused – the new ID card doesn’t have an address.

Carroll told the Cleveland Plain Dealer,

“I had to stop driving, but I got the photo ID from the Veterans Affairs instead, just a month or so ago. You would think that would count for something. I went to war for this country, but now I can’t vote in this country.”