Cross-posted to Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

In observance of Black History month, it is fitting to revisit America’s less than stellar record in the ongoing effort to move toward true equality. The key to equality was recognized more than 100 years ago when newly freed African Americans were given the basic rights of citizenship and voting under the 14th and 15th Amendments, though it was not until the 1960s that equality for African Americans and other disadvantaged groups was finally acknowledged on both a legal and cultural scale with the passage of the cornerstone Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Yet citizens of color continue to be underrepresented in U.S. electorate, and as recently as 2008 have been the target of thinly veiled voter intimidation and suppression efforts.

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Tuesday was a good day for voting rights when a New Jersey federal judge ruled to extend restrictions against partisan voter suppression efforts that primarily target minority voters, effectively rejecting the Republican National Committee's claim that such protections are no longer needed.

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Cross-Posted at Project Vote's Voting Matter's Blog

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

by Erin Ferns

After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld one of the country's strictest voter ID laws in April, several states rushed to pass similar bills before the year's end. By December, more than 25 states introduced legislation to require voter ID at the polls. Though none of these bills were successful this year, lawmakers in several states are hoping to revive such restrictive requirements in 2009.

Since July of this year, at least seven states have pre-filed or carried over voter ID legislation for the 2009-2010 sessions, including Nevada, Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

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Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters.

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

While many see voting as an implicit right in a representative democracy, decisions in America about who can vote and how are actually controlled by the states and vary greatly from state-to-state, even from county-to-county.

Misinformation and misinterpretation of each state's particular laws--not only by voters, but also by state officials--has the potential to influence the outcome of the election, a problem seen recently as two of the country's most disenfranchised groups - youth and former felons -have encountered procedural roadblocks to electoral participation.

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Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

America's Democratic Promise
The history of democracy in the United States is one marked by the steady, though intensely contested, expansion of the right to vote. Where once only male landowners were permitted the right to choose their representatives, the United States now proudly extends that right to all adult citizens. The most recent expansion of the franchise were the result of years of struggle through the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. The seminal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 26th Amendment ratified in 1971 created enforcement mechanisms to protect minority voting rights and extended the right to vote to 18 year olds.

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