Voter suppression has become rampant in our country thanks to the disastrous ruling by the Supreme Court on Shelby Country v. Holder. A prime example is what recently happened in Maricopa Country in Arizona when election officials reduced the number of polling places from 200 to a mere 60 resulting in well over a five hour wait in sweltering heat. Even then some voters were turned away after their registrations were flipped to uncommitted or independent randomly, even though they were registered Democrats for years.
During the 2014 election several states experienced the same types of obstruction, people found themselves unregistered after polls were purged and their names eliminated. This is a travesty to our democracy and it’s not getting better - it’s getting worse.
A recent op-ed in the New York Times addresses this issue:
Suppress Votes? I’d Rather Lose My Job
By JIM SENSENBRENNER
”DURING my 10 years in the Wisconsin State Legislature, I spent significant time in Milwaukee’s majority black neighborhoods. I listened as constituents described obstructions to their constitutional right to vote.
In those days I came to believe that we needed a strong Voting Rights Act. Our credibility as elected officials depends on the fairness of our elections. So after joining Congress, I supported the law’s reauthorization in 1982, and, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, I led successful efforts to reauthorize it in 2006.
In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a portion of this most recent authorization. If Congress doesn’t act soon, 2016 will be the first time since 1964 that the United States will elect a president without the full protections of the law. Modernizing the act to address the Supreme Court’s concerns should be one of Congress’s highest priorities.
Enacted in 1965, the Voting Rights Act began a healing process that ameliorated decades of discrimination. It is vital to this country’s commitment to never again permit racial prejudice to determine who has access to a ballot.”
Continue reading:
www.nytimes.com/...