Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

As voters turn out in record numbers for the presidential primaries and the Supreme Court mulls over Indiana's voter identification law, Massachusetts state lawmakers and city officials are engaged in baffling attempts to erect barriers to voter participation.

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

An increase in turnout among historically underrepresented voters Tuesday brings hope for outstanding voter participation that represents all Americans in November. Project Vote's Super Tuesday exit poll analysis found young and minority voters made a strong presence at polls in key states across the country, including record-setting turnout among Latinos in California. While voter participation appears to be on the rise in this critical presidential election year, polling place problems persist as some voters - and their precincts' poll workers - were unaware of state and federal voting procedures, creating the risk of intimidation and disenfranchisement. In order to maintain fair and open access to voting for all Americans, it important to prepare voters and facilitate effective poll worker training before November.

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Two historically disenfranchised groups - former felons and young people - made headlines this week for assiduously struggling to restore their voting rights, a measure that both groups argue is necessary in order for them to have a voice in the nation's future come November 4.

In 2007, Project Vote tracked 485 election bills in 24 states, some of them appearing to promise a consequential impact on voting rights. Bills ranged from good--Election Day Registration and felon voting rights restoration, to bad--voter ID, and everything in between. Few of the bills, however, made it beyond one chamber, making the 2007 legislative year an uneventful one. But it was a preview of what we can expect from the 2008 legislative sessions: an abundance of election bills expanding (or restricting) voter access in a presidential election year.

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

In the new year, a case that will determine the state of American voting rights will be considered by the Supreme Court. Called "the most important voting rights case since Bush v. Gore" by the Brennan Center for Justice, Indiana's voter ID case (Crawford v. Marion County Elections Board) may throw a monkey wrench into getting eligible voters to cast ballots in the 2008 presidential election. The constitutionality of the nation's most restrictive voter identification law is under scrutiny by the country's highest court and more than two dozen scholars, advocates, and voting rights organizations have filed amicus briefs challenging the law in the hopes of expanding access to the ballot while still maintaining election integrity.

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

This an entry in a series of blogs to keep people informed on current election reform and voting rights issues in the news.

Featured Stories of the Week:

Opinion: Voting by mail gets my full support - Clovis News Journal
Opinion: Voter registration needs work - The Lawrence Journal-World

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

This an entry in a series of blogs to keep people informed on current election reform and voting rights issues in the news.

Featured Story of the Week:

Voter Purging: A Legal Way for Republicans to Swing Elections? - AlterNet

Justice Department wants court hearing on Alabama voting system - Associated Press, WAFF.com

"To me, it's a very clear view of the Republican agenda, said former [Department of Justice Civil Rights Division] Voting Section Chief, Joe Rich. "The GOP agenda is to make it harder to vote. You purge voters. You don't register voters. This is ripe for partisan decision making. You pick the states where you go after Democrats."

Weekly Voting Rights News Roundup

This an entry in a series of blogs to keep people informed on current election reform and voting rights issues in the news.

Featured Stories of the Week:

Md.'s ex-felons register to vote: New law allows those who served their sentences to cast a ballot - The Baltimore Sun

Judge may hear ACLU voting rights suit by fall, lawyer says - Associated Press, Sun Herald

A growing civil rights trend in several parts of the country is the restoration of voting rights to former felons, a population historically left to be "'just a ghost to democracy'" upon release. This week, two states made contrasting news with one granting voting rights all to ex-felons for the first time and another having its strict state law challenged and possibly heard by a judge this fall.